The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun Joins Marvel’s Thunderbolts in Key Role

Steven Yeun, best known for his roles in The Walking Dead and Invincible, will join the Marvel CInematic Universe in the upcoming Thunderbolts film adaptation, according to a new report. According to Deadline, who just broke the news, Yeun has been cast “in a part that is not only significant to this film but could be a major role going forward in future films.” This may or may not align with prior rumors that the movie was casting for an “evil Superman,” which most fans assumed to be either Hyperion or Sentry. Even before the “evil Superman” reports, Sentry had been in the rumor mill as a potential big bad for the film.

If Yeun were to be the one cast for a job like that, there would be some irony to it. In Invincible, he plays a young hero forced to cope with the revelation that his father essentially is an evil Superman.

In the comics, Thunderbolts was a series that started off selling fans on the idea of a new 1990s superhero squad – only to pull the surprise twist that it was actually a team of villains posing as heroes — a moment that went down in history as one of Marvel’s best-kept secrets. Over the years, that concept has evolved multiple times, with the only commonality being that the team is always host to villains and antiheroes. Sometimes they are villains in disguise; sometimes they are villains seeking redemption as heores; sometimes they are a Marvel take on the Suicide Squad with characters conscripted by either the government, or bigger, badder villains as expendable fodder for the mission.

Yeun joins a cast that includes Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster. Ayo Edebiri also joined the ensemble in an undisclosed role. Harrison Ford is reportedly on board as Thunderbolt Ross, a part he would inherit from the late William Hurt.

While Thunderbolts star David Harbour doesn’t know the exact details of the Marvel film, the Stranger Things star told ComicBook.com earlier this month he knows the overall story, revealing the closing moments of the film should change the MCU forever.

“I have not read a script, but I have been told the arc of the story and how the story goes,” Harbour said. “It’s very cool. It’s very unique. It also has all this cool action and comedy, from what has been described to me, and then there is a bomb drop thing we add to the universe, which will be very exciting for the movie to do at the end of this particular phase that we’re ending.”

Thunderbolts is set for release on July 26, 2024.