The big Thunderbolts* plot twist is hiding in plain sight

Thunderbolts* is the next Marvel movie to hit theaters and my most highly-anticipated of the three MCU movies coming to theaters this year. It wasn’t always the case, I won’t lie. I would have seen Thunderbolts* even without that asterisk in the title, but I’ve been more interested in this Avengers-like crossover ever since Marvel tweaked the name.

Several Thunderbolts* plot leaks and theories teased what that plot twist might be, making me all the more excited about the movie. Then came Marvel teaser clips and trailer that made me even more curious to see what happens in the upcoming adventure while further suggesting the leaks and theories were right.

This brings us to late March when Marvel’s massive Avengers: Doomsday cast stunt became a sensation online. Marvel streamed a cast reveal event on YouTube that lasted more than five hours. Every few minutes, we’d get to see a new chair with an actor’s name on it. In total, 27 Doomsday cast members were revealed, including Robert Downey Jr., who plays the film’s titular character, Doctor Doom.

The Doomsday cast livestream was Marvel’s biggest at 275 million views. Per Deadline, the clip generated 3.1 million social mentions, amassing five times the social volume of Deadpool & Wolverine, the most viewed trailer of all time.

I’m telling you these figures because Doomsday has been the talk of the town. You might have missed a new Thunderbolts* promo clip that’s only 30 seconds short yet enough to practically explain that asterisk, especially when taken together with the big Doomsday cast reveal.

If you want the big Thunderbolts* plot twist to remain secret, you’ll want to avoid what follows next.

The Thunderbolts* asterisk

Long before Marvel added that asterisk to the film’s title, most people thought Thunderbolts* would be Marvel’s version of DC’s Suicide Squad. You’d get a team of misfits, former villains, and anti-heroes who will join forces for some sort of mission they can’t refuse. Not all of them would survive the ordeal.

But the more we learned about the film, the clearer it was that Marvel wasn’t going for that angle. Instead, we’re meant for something bigger. The Thunderbolts team will become true heroes by the end of the flick. By that, I mean the world will see them as New Avengers. That’s what the theories and leaks say about that asterisk in the title.

As the film’s characters joke in some cleverly cut lines from the trailer, they can’t call themselves that. We should assume that’s “Thunderbolts.” But what if they’re talking about “Avengers?”

Whatever that dialogue is, the Doomsday cast reveal, combined with the new teaser, makes it clear that the Thunderbolts team will have “Avengers” in the name by the time they have to face Doctor Doom. I can’t wait to see Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) reaction to that in light of his decision to reform the Avengers at the end of Brave New World.

What the Doomsday cast reveals

Here are six of the 27 Doomsday cast members that Marvel announced earlier this week, in the order those chairs appeared on screen:

• Sebastian Stan – Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
• Wyatt Russell – John Walker / U.S. Agent
• Florence Pugh – Yelena Belova
• Lewis Pullman – Bob Reynolds / Sentry
• David Harbour – Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
• Hannah John-Kamen – Ava Starr / Ghost

Yes, these are the Thunderbolts / New Avengers. Also, yes, there’s one name missing from the list: Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). We’ve hardly seen Taskmaster in recent trailers, so the character will probably die early in the movie.

Finally, also, yes, Pullman’s Sentry is going to survive the action in Thunderbolts* and likely become a hero in the new Avengers team trying to defeat Doctor Doom and perhaps a certain team of mutants.

If you’ve been following Thunderbolts* plot leaks, you probably know that Bob isn’t exactly a villain. His Superman-like powers will turn him into Sentry, who is easily more powerful than all the Thunderbolts combined. But Bob suffers from mental problems and develops a powerful antagonist to Sentry, the Void.

Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is responsible for these developments, so she’s the actual Thunderbolts* villain.

The new Thunderbolts* clip

This brings me to the new Thunderbolts* promo teaser that Marvel posted on social media after the Doomsday cast reveal. It starts with footage of Sentry, with Val doing voice-over duty:

He’s stronger than all of the Avengers rolled into one. And soon to be known as Earth’s mightiest hero.

This sounds like something Val would say either during the hearing we see in the movie or when talking to the Thunderbolts team in the former Avengers Tower. The pride in her voice seems to confirm that Sentry is her creation. You know, before she learned about the Void and wanted to kill everyone, Bob and the Thunderbolts included.

We then have a dialogue between Thunderbolts members, in which one of them, presumably Bucky, says they “could be the people that are coming” now that the Avengers are gone.

“Being the hero, there is no higher calling,” Red Guardian quips, which is only to be expected. He’s easily the most excited Thunderbolts member to be there.

All of this further drives the point home that the Thunderbolts will become Avengers by the end of the movie. Not only that, but Sentry will likely be part of the team. They’ll then help Captain America face the new threats in Doomsday and Secret Wars.

One more leak

While Thunderbolts* isn’t a good place to die for most Thunderbolts team members, Doomsday could be it. That’s where we’ll need big character deaths, and the Thunderbolts are going to be great for that. Or will they?

Insider Jeff Sneider apparently said the Thunderbolts* movie is good. More interestingly, his new report noted that Marvel has plans to put the Thunderbolts at the forefront of multiple upcoming MCU movies. Whether the report is accurate or not, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars easily come to mind as projects where the Thunderbolts will come in handy.

We’ll have to wait until early May 2026 to see Doomsday, but Thunderbolts* hits theaters in just over a month. In early May, we’ll know if this rumored Thunderbolts* plot twist is real; we might call them by their real name: The New Avengers.