Marvel showed off the first Thunderbolts* teaser trailer behind closed doors about a month ago at D23. At the time, I said I expected to see the first public teaser in theaters by the end of the year. After all, the highly anticipated crossover has a May 2nd, 2025 release date. We should get at least six months of promos ahead of its premiere.
It turns out Marvel is ready to talk more about the Thunderbolts*, as the studio quietly dropped the first trailer on Monday. It’s home to over three minutes of Thunderbolts action, with the first trailer matching what we saw in the leaked D23 footage.
The difference is that we can see and hear things clearly, as we no longer have to deal with low-quality clips posted on social media. The Thunderbolts* trailer has lots of action and even a few hilarious moments. Before we can talk about it, I’ll warn you that spoilers might follow below.
The trailer does a great job showing us the Thunderbolts, how the team forms, and the film’s villain. On the latter, it’s probably who you think it is, and you’d be right twice.
Bob (Lewis Pullman) seems all innocent and unassuming in the first scene we see him. But there’s another scene that shows his skin is bulletproof. An entire team of special forces is blasting the guns at him, and all they can do is damage his hospital gown.
It’s not the Thunderbolts hunting Bob down, at least not initially. But that’s how the four of them meet. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) are all sent to kill Bob. Or are they? Someone is also trying to eliminate them after having used them for various jobs before.
The obvious suspect can only be Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who appears to be the other villain of Thunderbolts*. She’s probably the main bad guy, though the teaser trailer doesn’t make it that clear. On that note, the trailer doesn’t show Bob transforming into Setry or the Void either. These are the two sides of him, two superhero-like beings. One’s good, one’s not so good.
Joining the four Thunderbolts above are Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). The former is not living his best life. Well, most Thunderbolts aren’t, and Red Guardian is no different.
As for Bucky, the Winter Soldier appears to be retired at first. He might be a congressman from the looks of some of the film’s scenes. Then, Bucky loads his arm into the dishwasher to give it a good cleaning before apparently going to hunt down some of the Thunderbolts.
But Bucky will join the Thunderbolts. It probably happens soon after that. An earlier shot in the teaser trailer gives us the (almost?) entire team going to visit Val. They’re clearly not happy with what they’ve had to endure before getting to what might be the former Avengers tower under new management.
As for that asterisk at the end of the Thunderbolts* title, the teaser trailer doesn’t tell us anything about it. But the teaser features the cheeky warning we saw in the D23 footage: “Careful who you assemble.” Check out the clip in full below.
