SDCC 2024: Marvel’s Thunderbolts* Stars Tease the Anti-Avengers: “We’re Not the Good Guys”

The first footage of Marvel’s Thunderbolts* struck Comic-Con with a warning: “Careful who you assemble.” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige introduced the sizzle during a star-studded San Diego Comic-Con 2024 panel, which assembled cast members Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hannah John-Kamen, Geraldine Viswanathan, Lewis Pullman, and David Harbour (clad in his new Red Guardian costume) to tease the Jake Schreier-directed final entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Five.

“There are goodguys, and you’re bad guys,” Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine said in the footage of the motley crew that includes characters from Black Widow, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the Captain America movies. “But there are worse guys.”

“We are not the good guys,” Harbour said in a post-panel interview when asked how the Thunderbolts compare to the MCU’s premiere superhero team, the Avengers. “We are not capable. [We’re not] Captain America responsible. We don’t show up on time. Punctuality is not our strong suit.”

Stan interjected to add “impulsivity,” with Russell using the word “reactivity.” While the footage showed Harbour’s Red Guardian telling his teammates they have “the making of a team that can rise to glory” as “the heroes on the Wheaties box,” the rule-bending ‘Bolts are not your standard issue superheroes.

“We’re a completely new species of hero, I would say,” Harbour added. “We don’t exist yet in the MCU. I think we’re a new evolution of something. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it’s unique.”

After Harbour ominously told ComicBook that Thunderbolts* includes a “bomb drop thing we add to the universe,” he attempted to elaborate without spoilers. “Robert Downey [Jr.] shows up in the middle of the movie. Oh, wait,” Harbour joked, referencing just-announced news that the former Iron Man actor is playing the MCU Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. 

“No, I’m kidding. How can I elaborate on it? I can’t elaborate,” Harbour said. “Literally, our characters are going to interact with something that we really don’t understand and fundamentally changes the course of the way things expand. And that’s all I’m saying. I’m getting calls tomorrow.”

Thunderbolts* assembles Yelena Belova/Black Widow (Pugh), Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Stan), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (John-Kamen), Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (Harbour), and Bob Reynolds/Sentry (Pullman) when the Marvel Studios movie hits theaters May 2nd, 2025.