No, but Really, Where is My Mind?

The teaser trailer for Thunderbolts* was just recently released and, well, I was honestly considering not even discussing it. I haven’t touched on a few of the past trailers for Marvel films and shows that have come along, from Captain America: Brave New World to Agatha All Along and even all the trailers in the lead up to Deadpool & Wolverine because, eh, we’ve been in this weird state with Marvel where it’s hard to know if the cinematic universe is finally dying off or not. Certainly Disney and Marvel are going to continue creating Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. films until everything for a few years well and truly bombs, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything creatively fulfilling to say about yet another teaser trailer for yet another film in the constantly spawning universe. Do we really need to care?

With that preface out of the way, in this particular case there were a few things I wanted to look at because, maybe yes, there are things worth noting about this film. Not all of them are related to the teaser trailer, mind you, but while we’re here and we have the excuse, we might as well take the opportunity and do some over-analysis and prognostication just for the sake of laying out these thoughts. Because while I don’t think the Thunderbolts* (always make sure to add that asterisk) teaser is especially memorable, what it says about the direction for the MCU is interesting in and of itself.

Firstly, Thunderbolts* (and I hear a little “ping” every time I put that asterisk at the end) is the film that, effectively, wraps up Phase V of the MCU. Yes, we’re already two phases into what was supposed to be the Multiverse Saga and, well, it’s hard to say that we really have a feel for that saga or where anything is going. This has been a common refrain, here and on other sites, because it never really felt like Marvel had a solid plan for this three-phase saga. What plans they did have were thrown out with the firing of Johnathan Majors and the removal of Kang from the saga, and now, with this film, we still have yet to know where anything is going beyond, oh right, Dr. Doom will eventually arrive.

Okay, so what does that mean for this film that is, in effect, Phase V’s replacement for an AvengersMarvel's answer to DC's Justice League, this team features many of Marvel's biggest superheroes working together to protect the world and avenge its evils. team up? Absolutely nothing. This is a film that feels like it was greenlit and put on the schedule because Marvel had all these TV and film ambitions that were supposed to intertwine and while those are largely failed (go look at the Box Office disaster that was The Marvels and its theatrical run) Marvel could turn the train around and stop this film from coming out. If we have an Old Marvel and New Marvel (or a before time and an after time for whatever recalibration Marvel is working on), I would bet this film marks the last of the “Old Marvel” productions.

Just look at the cast of characters we have for this film: There’s Yelena Belova / Black Widow II (Florence Pugh) who we know from the reviled Black Widow movie and the not well received Hawkeye. We have Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian (David Harbour) also from Black Widow. Also Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), again from Black Widow (making this more of a sequel to that film than anything else). In addition we have John Walker / U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) from the very much hated The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Oh, and add in Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), who we haven’t even seen since Ant-Man and Wasp over six years ago. The only major character we have here is Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and it seems like he’s working against the rest of the team for this film. It’s, well, kind of a confusing team.

If you had told me six years ago we’d have a Thunderbolts movie and it would star all these characters from these shows, I would have been interested. The teaser trailer, as it’s presented, is fun on its own and it looks like (from what little we have of the characters so far) the cast has solid chemistry together. But now, six years on, when most of those projects either failed or just faded from everyone’s minds, it feels like this is a project Marvel had that was too far along and they have to release it because they can’t just shelve it. Who really cares about a film that is basically half Black Widow reunion, half a collection of characters from TV shows no one watched?

If we go back to The Marvels for a second, a big issue with that film was that it was a team up from across multiple properties, most of which were viewed as “homework viewing” and no “appointment viewing”. People didn’t turn up because trying to keep up with all the various side characters from side projects in the MCU felt like too much effort, turning The Marvels into a major, skippable event. And now, with Thunderbolts* (ping!) it feels like we have that again. Just another team up of characters no one cares about.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the teaser. It’s one of the better trailers Marvel has put out in some time. This is an eclectic group of characters and this could lead to an interesting story if Marvel is willing to indulge in a little bit of anti-heroics for their big team up film. That, of course, remains to be seen since this teaser doesn’t really tell us anything about the plot beyond “a bunch of bad guys team up to take on a bunch of worse guys.” Who those “worse guys” are, and just why these anti-heroes should even care isn’t established here. Hopefully the movie does a good job of getting those story beats across. The teaser doesn’t, though, and it left me wondering if I’m really supposed to be invested in this film already? I’m not. Not yet.

But let’s pull back for a second and go back to the title of the film. Thunderbolts* is specifically being advertised with that asterisk and I don’t think that’s just a silly little flair. I think the asterisk is meant to say something more. In the comics the Thunderbolts team was made up of bad guys who pretend to be reformed and then, eventually, actually find themselves enjoying being heroes more than being villains. The team changes over time but it is, in some respects, Marvel’s answer to the Suicide SquadA team of villans forced to work together to do heroic things, the Suicide Squad is a team that works because of their darker motivations (and the fact that the team rotates in large part because they aren't expected to come back time and again).. An expendable team of second-listers who become heroes.

Maybe that’s the goal for this film, too. Take a bunch of villains and make them into heroes. Except, no one here is really a villain. Ghost was misunderstood, Tackmaster was programmed to be evil but shook her programming, Yelena was a Black Widow but she shook that off to be better, Red Guardian was a Russian hero and answer to Captain AmericaCreated by Simon and Kirby in 1941, Captain America was a super soldier created to fight Germany and the evil HYDRA. Then he was lost in the ice, only to be found and reborn decades later as the great symbol of the USA., and U.S. Agent actually was Captain America for a time and while he screwed that up, even he is trying to reform and work within the system. This isn’t the same kind of team as the comics.

And maybe that’s really the point. That asterisk is doing a lot of heavy lifting and it could be saying, “this is the team that sets the mold but, at the same time, don’t expect this to be the final makeup for the team going forward.” Or maybe they steal the team name and fight against the person, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), controlling them as their handler. That’s a lot of supposition from just a teaser trailer and an asterisk but, for now, it does make a certain amount of sense.

But using this team in the slot that would traditionally go to the Avengers still feels weird. This is the big team up to close out Phase V? A bunch of B- and C-list anti-heroes no one really knows or cares about? And we’re supposed to use this to redefine the MCU for the last phase of the Multiverse Saga? That’s really the plan? Marvel, buddy. Really. We need to talk. You gotta figure out your shit because… Man, this really doesn’t make any sense.