The Thunderbolts* Post-Credit Scenes have been the talking point of the weekend! Now that our Thunderbolts are officially introduced, lets talk about it!
With the return of US Agent, Ghost, Red Guardian, Bucky, and Yelena (and Bob!) comes a lot of fun and speculation to unpack; especially given that banger of a post-credit scene!
So without further ado, let’s dive into the finale and post-credit scenes of Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts*!
Before we break down the ending, however, a quick note of caution. We are going to go into incredible detail about what we saw at the film’s conclusion. This means that if you have not seen Thunderbolts* yet, you may want to pause reading right here, and return when you have seen it. Or, if you legitimately don’t care about spoilers, feel free to stick around. It’s not our place to tell you what to do! However with that said, heavy spoilers in
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The Asterisk Revealed
The finale of Thunderbolts* sees the team successfully coming together, confronting their deepest insecurities, traumas, and internal pain, by means of pulling their new pal Bob out of depression and despair, before he’s overcome by The Void (his darker alter ego). With their lives feeling a bit lighter, and unexpectedly hopeful for once, they decide to go after Val, only to have her trick them into an impromptu press conference. There, she feeds the press a story about assembling this group herself, as a means of “protecting the country,” officially and publicly christening them The New Avengers (hence the long-running asterisk next to the title Thunderbolts*). From there, Yelena whispers to Val that they own her.
All of this essentially summarizes how slimy Val is overall. However, the Thunderbolts becoming the “New Avengers” is similar to what we’ve seen with comics like Dark Avengers. With the Dark Avengers, the government creates its own superhero team of former criminals by way of Norman Osborne. He assembles Sentry, Ares, and villains posing as traditional heroes, such as the Scorpion posing as Venom, Bullseye posing as Hawkeye, Daken posing as Wolverine, Moonstone posing as Ms. Marvel, and Norman himself taking on the Iron Patriot mantle.
In a similar fashion, Val, as the head of the CIA, (inadvertently) “assembles” her own team of villains turned anti-heroes, that she hopes to control. At certain points, our regular MCU line up has taken on US Agent, as well as Ghost, and Taskmaster. So now having them pose as heroes for Val’s benefit will make for a very interesting dynamic. Especially given that this particular group of characters is…let’s say…a lot more morally flexible than the previous set of Avengers. Now, keep in mind, there is also a New Avengers series and characters in the comics, but they are much more heroic than Val’s.
For the Glory of Wheaties
As soon as the team is announced and the credits role, we are given a title logo for the film, which is promptly torn away, to reveal the New Avengers logo. The scene then transitions, not to anything exciting, but your run of the mill cereal aisle at a grocery store. We see Alexei (Red Guardian) patrolling the aisle in his civilian clothes – probably to be as incognito as possible (HA!). He accosts a poor grocery patron, trying to get her to buy a Wheaties box with their photos on it as The New Avengers. Naturally, Alexei is desperate for attention and recognition, but despite that, the woman, severely uncomfortable, grabs the cereal box and ditches at the end of the aisle before running away.
There’s not much to explain for this one. Red Guardian, and David Harbour’s spirited performance, were absolutely among the movie’s biggest highlights. With a movie as good as Thunderbolts, that’s a pretty strong statement. However, seeing Alexei feeling proud for once in a long time about anything other than reliving the long-gone glory days was very rewarding. It also reminded me a touch of the “Frank the Tank” post-credit scene from Old School. Funny things happen in cereal aisles, folks.
Lawsuits and Space Suits
While the mid-credits scene is all good humorous fun, the post-credit scene offers us something much more substantial: a glimpse into what the future is going to look like for The New Avengers and Avengers: Doomsday. The action takes place 14 months later, and The New Avengers have settled into their new “Watch Tower” (formerly Avengers Tower).
Yelena and Bucky are conversing about the fact that Sam Wilson has taken issue with the name The New Avengers, and is suing the team and Val for copyright infringement. Given Sam is Captain America, and was tasked with assembling an actual Avengers team, it’s understandable why he would be a little angry that there’s a team of “untrustables” posing as an Avengers team. She asks Bucky how it went, to which he replies, “poorly.”
Meanwhile, the rest of The New Avengers are actually just hanging around. Walker has a new suit and a beret that makes him look like US Agent GI Joe. Bob reveals he has suppressed his powers as Sentry to ensure the Void doesn’t come back, and is now a simple dishwasher sucking down milkshakes. And Alexei has decided he is going to combat Sam’s lawsuit by calling themselves “The New Avengerz” with a “Z,” and is rocking an ugly track suit with sponsorship logos embedded all over it.
Yelena and Bucky decide to focus on the topic at hand, which happens to be an outer space crisis worrying the entire country, as the rest of the team bickers over ugly track suits. They are all stopped when they see an incoming space craft on their satellite screen. As they stare on, the film begins playing small samples of Michael Giacchino’s Fantastic Four theme. Then we, the audience, see the space craft roll over, to reveal a classic Fantastic Four logo emblazoned on it. Marvel’s First Family will soon meet Marvel’s Worst Family!
The post-credit scene is where we can begin to speculate what is going to happen in Doomsday and potentially The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Clearly, we know that First Steps will not be taking place in the main 616 MCU timeline. Based on the look and feel of the trailers it looks like they are from a retro-futuristic utopia. So what specifically has driven them to the 616 Universe in such a way that constitutes an “extradimensional emergency?”
Enter “The Incursion.” Comic fans know that the Secret Wars storyline in the comics is all about incursions across the multiverse. When an incursion occurs two or more universes usually end up getting destroyed. So the speculation here is that The Fantastic Four’s world may have officially been destroyed either due to Galactus or an incursion event. We also need to note that Reed Richards and Doctor Doom are essentially opposite sides of the same coin. So if Reed is coming to 616, you can assume that Victor Von Doom is not far behind. The question remains though: how did they manage to get into the 616 universe in the first place?
Additionally, what will The New Avengers think of all this, and how will they handle it? They have jets ready to take them places, and lukewarm or mixed approval from the general public. However, one would assume that they will likely come to blows with Sam Wilson’s Avengers if they take action, so how would they also juggle the arrival of The Fantastic Four? Perhaps the two sides will put aside their petty nomenclature problems and assemble to save the world from Doom alongside The Four. In any case, it left us absolutely wanting more, and jumping in our seats just to see the first glimpse of Marvel’s First Family finally coming to the MCU!