Marvel’s Thunderbolts* Final Trailer Includes Surprising Avengers References

There came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born — to fight the foes no single hero could withstand. But these are not those heroes, and the Thunderbolts* are not the Avengers. In fact, the team assembled by CIA Director Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) aren’t heroes, but anti-heroes: Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).

“I was in high school when the Avengers came,” Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) says in the just-released final Thunderbolts* trailer, below. “It’s kind of strange that it’s all over now.”

RELATED: Who Are the Thunderbolts* in the MCU? Explaining the Marvel Team

The original Avengers — Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Dr. Bruce Banner/the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) — assembled for the first time in 2012’s The Avengers, brought together by Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) Avengers Initiative to defend Earth against an alien invasion. It was Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who united Earth’s mightiest heroes, who would go on to battle Avengers-level threats such as Ultron (James Spader) and Thanos (Josh Brolin), saving the world and even the universe from destruction each time.

But the Avengers disassembled in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Tony and Natasha died sacrificing their lives, Steve retired, Clint re-retired, and Bruce and Thor left Earth, leaving the planet without a core team of protectors. Enter the Thunderbolts, who must unite to save the world from the shadowy Void in the absence of the Avengers. No pressure.

“Being the hero, there is no higher calling. Your sister understood something about that,” Harbour’s Alexei tells Pugh’s Yelena about her predecessor and adoptive sister Natasha over footage from 2021’s Black Widow. “No,” she replies, “that’s just a fairy tale.” Like her sister before her, Yelena also has red in her ledger as a Red Room-trained assassin, a past that has left her filled with regrets.

“I’ve been where you are. The past doesn’t go away,” Bucky, a World War II hero turned the Hydra-brainwashed assassin the Winter Soldier, tells the team, recalling memories of best friend Steve. “So you can either live with it forever… or you can do something about it.”

RELATED: Marvel Reveals the Meaning of the Thunderbolts* Asterisk

As Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” builds, we see shots of a redemption-seeking John Walker reading “The Fall of a Hero” (documenting his fall from grace in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Bucky using his vibranium arm to protect civilians, and ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Ghost using her quantum phasing abilities to push a bystander to safety as New York comes under attack from the Void.

“We can’t do this. No one here is a hero,” Yelena says over footage of the Thunderbolts being heroes and the Void’s darkness enveloping the city. “We can’t stop him alone. No one can. But we can find a way. Together.”

Jake Schreier (Paper Towns, Beef) directs Thunderbolts* with Kevin Feige (Deadpool & Wolverine) producing. Marvel’s Thunderbolts* strikes theaters on May 2.