Who’s Who in Marvel’s Thunderbolts
Today Marvel dropped our first extended look at Thunderbolts*, its new anti-hero team-up film that pulls together a motley crew of renegades from a plethora of past Marvel projects. It’s been a while since we’ve seen many of these characters—and one of them is entirely new to the MCU. So if you need a refresher on who’s who and where they’ve been, we’re here to help.
Yelena Belova
She’s a former Black Widow and adoptive sister of Natasha Romanoff. After we were introduced to her in the Black Widow movie, we last saw Yelena acting on information given to her by Valentina (more on her, eventually) after Natasha’s death in Avengers: Endgame. Told by de Fontaine that her sister was in fact killed by Clint Barton, Yelena hunted down Clint in the Hawkeye streaming series, crossing paths with his partner in arrow-vigilantism Kate Bishop before coming to blows with Clint. The duo managed to successfully convince Yelena about the true circumstances around Natasha’s death—and how her sacrifice helped bring Yelena back from the dead, since she was a victim of Thanos’ snap—and the former assassin parted ways with the two archers and left for parts unknown, leaving her to conveniently be picked up by Thunderbolts.
Ava Starr, aka Ghost
Last seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ava was the victim of an accident involving an attempt to tunnel into the Quantum Realm by her father, Elihas. Doused in quantum energy in the blast that killed her parents, Ava suffered from “molecular disequilibrium,” an excruciating affliction that caused her body to destabilize and become intangible. Adopted by one of her father’s colleagues, Bill Foster, Ava was eventually recruited into SHIELD and given a “ghost suit” that helped control her powers and pain, training her as a secret agent until the organization’s dissolution. When we last saw her, she had turned to crime in an attempt to find a cure to her worsening condition, crossing paths with Hank Pym—who had ousted her father from SHIELD years prior—and his own quantum tunneling technology. After clashing with Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ava’s condition was temporarily stabilized by the return of the original Wasp, Janet Van Dyne, from the Quantum Realm, and she went into hiding with Foster to continue searching for a way to cure her completely. She doesn’t seem to have found that by Thunderbolts, but does have a swanky new ghost suit.
John Walker, aka US Agent
Introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, John was the U.S. government’s official replacement for Steve Rogers as Captain America after the events of Avengers: Endgame. A former U.S. Army Ranger, Walker’s first official duties as Captain America involved him working with Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes to investigate the anti-nationalism group known as the Flag Smashers, but the stress of the operation—including clashing with Barnes and Wilson over his inheritance of Rogers’ mantle and struggles to detain the Flag Smashers’ leader, Karli Morgenthau—led to Walker ingesting a stolen vial of the recreated Super Soldier Serum, giving him enhanced physical abilities. When Walker’s field partner, Lemar Hoskins, was killed in a fight with Morgenthau, the serum drove Walker to publicly execute a Flag Smasher in rage, and he was stripped of his commission and the Captain America mantle. That didn’t stop de Fontaine, however, from personally recruiting him to continue working for the U.S. as the U.S. Agent, a black ops specialist.
Antonia Dreykov, aka Taskmaster
The antagonist of Black Widow, Antonia Dreykov was the daughter of General Dreykov, the overseer of the Soviet government’s Red Room Academy, the training facility that recruited young women to become the elite stealth operatives and assassins of the Black Widow Program. When General Dreykov was targeted by former Widow Natasha Romanoff during a bombing in Budapest, Antonia was caught in the blast and grievously wounded. Dreykov saved his daughter’s life by installing a regulatory chip into her neck, dulling her pain and emotional responses and giving Dreykov control over his own daughter—control he used to put her through the Red Room training herself, exploiting her photographic reflexes to train her as his ultimate agent. Now operating as the Taskmaster, Antonia crossed paths with Romanoff once more when she was assigned by her father with capturing the rogue Yelena, who had stolen a compound capable of disrupting his control over the indoctrinated Widows. During their hunt, Romanoff exposed Antonia to the compound, freeing her from her father’s brainwashing, and leaving her with the surviving freed Widows to recuperate.
Alexei Shostakov, aka Red Guardian
If Thunderbolts is starting to feel like a bit of a Black Widow sequel, well, it kinda is. Alexei is another product of the Soviets’ war research, the first official Russian supersoldier, and a father figure to Natasha and Yelena after an undercover operation where he acted as their adoptive father alongside Red Room agent and scientist Melina Vostokoff. After being imprisoned by Dreykov after the operation’s success, Shostakov was liberated years later by Natasha and Yelena to help them bring down the Red Room once and for all alongside their adoptive mother and father. After helping them rescue the liberated Widows, we see that by the time Thunderbolts begins Alexei is once again living alone, whiling his time away with drinks and DoorDash deliveries, waiting for a chance to suit up as the Red Guardian once again.
Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier
Probably the most high-profile member of the team, Bucky also has the longest history in the MCU. Steve Rogers’ best friend and former partner during the Second World War until he was seemingly killed during a mission and captured by Hydra to be brainwashed as their own black ops agent, the Winter Soldier, Bucky’s had a lot of mantles since being liberated from his programming and eventually cured entirely with the help of the Wakandans. After being killed by Thanos’ snap and resurrected years later, Bucky was last properly seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, helping Sam stop the threat of the Flag Smashers (and, eventually, John Walker). Just how he’s ended up in de Fontaine’s orbit remains to be seen in Thunderbolts, but maybe he’ll mention getting his arm stolen by Nebula that one time.
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
The architect of this new Thunderbolts team, de Fontaine is the head of the CIA, and has shown up occasionally after her debut in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to begin recruiting personnel to her side to operate in the shadows, like Walker and Yelena. We’ll no doubt get to see how well that goes for her in the new movie. Although the MCU version of the character hasn’t touched on it much yet, in the comics de Fontaine has a long, complicated history as a triple agent who worked within SHIELD and eventually Hydra as a Russian operative for the nation’s own spy agency, Leviathan, and even operated for a time as the second Madame Hydra. Given the MCU’s history with Hydra, time will tell if there’s a few more tricks up Valentina’s sleeves.
“Bob,” a.ka the Sentry?
The final major figure we glimpse in the Thunderbolts trailer is one we know the least about—because he’s making his debut in this movie. But the mysterious “Bob,” as he names himself in the trailer, played by Lewis Pullman (replacing Steven Yeun, who had originally been cast in the film), is heavily rumored to be playing a significant character from the comics, judging by his shortened name and the bullet-stopping abilities we briefly see in the trailer: Robert Reynolds, also known as the Sentry.
Introduced as a quasi-riff on DC’s Superman (one of many over the years), the Sentry was created after Reynolds, a down-and-out meth addict, broke into a researcher’s lab and inadvertently gave himself the Golden Sentry Serum, mutating him with vast superhuman strength, speed, and durability. Retroactively introduced in 2000 as one of the oldest active superheroes in the Marvel universe before the public emergence of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and more, Robert’s had a long comics history, including battling the threat of his dark other half, the Void, as well as the traditional act of being killed at least a few times. His most recent death came during the events of the King in Black event in 2020, when Sentry was brutally torn to pieces by the god of the symbiotes, Knull (who’s about to make his own cinematic debut in Venom: The Last Dance). Robert’s soul was taken to Valhalla in honor of his heroic duties in life, while… his corpse was used by an evil magical terrorist group looking to kill Doctor Strange with a corpse-bomb? Comics!
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