Comic-Con 2022: Marvel’s Thunderbolts Roster to Introduce New MCU Characters

Marvel’s Thunderbolts are officially on the way – one of many revelations about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe during Marvel Studios’ panel at Comic-Con 2022. ComicBook’s Phase Zero host Brandon Davis was in Hall H to get the breaking news – and spoke with Feige later on during press interviews. While many fans have seen the MCU Thunderbolts taking shape in Phase 4, we learned that the actual Thunderbolts movie will be the culmination of Phase 5 when it arrives in theaters in Summer 2024. 

We also learned that Thunderbolts will be introducing some new characters to the roster that we haven’t met yet – which raises all kinds of exciting new questions. 

As stated before, we’ve seen the Thunderbolts team taking shape in Phase 4 of the MCU, as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been lurking around the edges of the MCU, collecting scrupulous individuals like John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). The same way that Phase 4 has been steadily seeding the MCU with potential future Young Avengers (Wiccan, Speed, Kate Bishop, Patriot, Ms. Marvel – even Kid Loki), it was somewhat assumed that the Thunderbolts would similarly pull together people we’ve known. Fan cast rosters have smartly included characters like Zemo, Ant-Man 2’s Ghost, or Abomination, who are still hovering in the corners of the MCU with unfinished stories. Abomination is definitely of renewed interest, as he showed up in Shang-Chi and will be a central focus of the new She-Hulk series. 

However, there is, as always, a trickiness to the gospel of Kevin Feige. The Thunderbolts roster will include characters we haven’t met “yet,” but could meet between now and the end of Phase 5. Prime examples are characters like She-Hulk’s Tatania, who could easily end up on the Thunderbolts after her debut in that series – technically keeping Feige’s statement on the safe side of “true.” Ant-Man 3, Secret Invasion, Echo, Ironheart, Blade, Daredevil: Born Again, Captain America 4 – Phases 4 and 5 could easily be a twisted Thunderbolts reflection of the Avengers coming together in Phase 1! 

The more interesting question is whether Thunderbolts will introduce some new character within the movie itself – and then, how long these characters will last. DC’s Suicide Squad has fun with the idea of expendable villains going on heroic missions, and the MCU version of Thunderbolts certainly could do the same. In fact, one of the favorite comic stories enjoyed by our CB Nation Podcast team was the Thunderbolts series during Marvel’s big “King in Black” event; that book saw Kingpin basically use the Thunderbolts as his own person Suicide Squad and plenty of D-list villains certainly died in the process. With Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin now in the MCU, that take on Thunderbolts is just as viable – which would require a few proverbial red shirts on the team.

Marvel’s Thunderbolts will be in theaters on July 26, 2024.