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Thunderbolts* Team Breakdown: Powers, Origins, and MCU Histories

A spoiler-filled breakdown of every Thunderbolts* member, including Yelena, Bucky, Ghost, Taskmaster, U.S. Agent, Red Guardian, and Sentry, with MCU origins, powers, comic differences, and the New Avengers reveal.
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Short answer: Thunderbolts* starts with six compromised operatives—Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, and U.S. Agent—assembled by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine for a lethal cleanup operation. Bob Reynolds later becomes Sentry, the team’s most powerful member and greatest threat. The survivors ultimately take the name New Avengers, which is what the film’s asterisk means.

Who is on the Thunderbolts* team?

The film begins with six compromised operatives assembled by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine: Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Alexei Shostakov, Ava Starr, Antonia Dreykov, and John Walker. Bob Reynolds is then added to the group as the super-powered subject of Valentina’s secret Sentry experiment. After the opening death trap and the confrontation with the Void, the surviving members publicly become the New Avengers—the meaning of the film’s asterisk.

That makes the roster easier to understand in two stages:

  • Initial Thunderbolts lineup: Yelena, Bucky, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, and U.S. Agent.
  • Major later addition: Bob Reynolds, whose Sentry powers make him both the team’s greatest asset and its existential danger.
  • Final New Avengers lineup: Yelena, Bucky, Red Guardian, Ghost, U.S. Agent, and Bob/Sentry. Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster does not survive the opening operation.

Marvel’s official film listing identifies the core roster, while the studio’s explanation of the asterisk confirms the New Avengers rebrand. The rest of this breakdown contains full plot spoilers.

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Team at a glance

Character MCU origin Abilities and equipment Role in the story
Yelena Belova Red Room assassin and Natasha Romanoff’s surrogate sister Elite espionage, martial arts, acrobatics, firearms, and Widow’s Bite gauntlets The emotional center; she is searching for a purpose after Natasha’s death
Bucky Barnes World War II soldier turned HYDRA’s Winter Soldier Super-soldier enhancement, decades of combat experience, and a cybernetic arm The moral stabilizer and the member most alert to institutional manipulation
Red Guardian Alexei Shostakov, the Soviet super-soldier counterpart to Captain America Enhanced strength and durability, military training, brawling, and shield combat Comic relief with genuine family regret and a need to feel relevant
Ghost Ava Starr, destabilized by a quantum laboratory accident Phasing, partial invisibility, stealth, and a suit that helps regulate her condition The infiltrator and a survivor fighting for bodily autonomy
Taskmaster Antonia Dreykov, a victim of Red Room conditioning Photographic combat mimicry, tactical analysis, and weapons expertise A reminder of what the Red Room did to its victims—and Yelena’s closest dark mirror
U.S. Agent John Walker, the disgraced government replacement for Captain America Super-soldier enhancement, shield skills, firearms training, strength, and durability Bucky’s aggressive foil; capable, insecure, and morally unreliable
Sentry Bob Reynolds, transformed by Valentina’s covert experiment Godlike strength, flight, energy projection, extreme durability, and the Void manifestation The power imbalance that turns a covert mission into an existential crisis

Why Valentina created the team

Valentina does not recruit the Thunderbolts because she believes they are the world’s best conventional heroes. She selects people who are useful, deniable, and politically expendable. Each member has a history that can be exploited: Yelena is emotionally isolated, Bucky is burdened by his past, Alexei is desperate to matter, Ghost needs stability, Antonia has been conditioned to obey, and Walker is eager to prove himself.

The mission presented to them is effectively a cleanup operation. Valentina puts the group into a lethal situation designed to eliminate liabilities while concealing her broader plan. The survivors eventually realize that their apparent assignment and the Sentry project are connected. They were not being given a heroic opportunity; they were being treated as disposable witnesses and potential obstacles.

That manipulation is the MCU version of the Thunderbolts concept. The team is not a traditional Avengers-style recruitment class. It is a group of damaged people who become a team only after recognizing that the same institution has exploited all of them.

Yelena Belova: the emotional lead

Origin and MCU history

Yelena was raised and trained in the Red Room, the Soviet program that turned young women into assassins. Natasha Romanoff became her surrogate sister during their manufactured family life, and that relationship remains the most important part of Yelena’s identity outside the Red Room.

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Yelena’s major MCU appearances are Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thunderbolts*. Marvel’s on-screen character history provides the continuity across those stories. Natasha’s death in Avengers: Endgame leaves Yelena with grief that she initially expresses as anger. In Hawkeye, Valentina manipulates her into believing that Clint Barton caused Natasha’s death. Yelena eventually learns the truth, but completing the revenge cycle does not give her a new direction.

Powers, skills, and equipment

Yelena has no superhuman origin in the MCU. Her effectiveness comes from Red Room training, physical conditioning, intelligence, and experience. She is an expert in:

  • Close-quarters combat and improvised fighting
  • Espionage, stealth, infiltration, and assassination
  • Acrobatics and rapid movement
  • Firearms and tactical weapons
  • Red Room equipment, including electrically discharging Widow’s Bite gauntlets

Marvel’s comics reference material describes Yelena’s broad Black Widow skill set, but comics abilities should not be imported wholesale into the MCU. In particular, the comics’ separate Super-Adaptoid storyline is not an MCU power that Yelena possesses.

Why she matters to the team

Yelena is extremely competent, but she is emotionally stalled. Her jokes and blunt observations often function as defensive armor. She knows how to complete a mission; she does not know what she is supposed to do after the mission is over.

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Her arc is therefore less about becoming a better fighter and more about accepting that she can choose relationships and responsibilities for herself. Her willingness to trust the other survivors is more consequential than any individual stunt. She is the film’s emotional point of entry because the team’s larger question—what do damaged people do with a second chance?—is already her personal problem.

Bucky Barnes: the Winter Soldier trying to become useful

Origin and MCU history

Bucky began as Steve Rogers’ wartime partner. After falling from a HYDRA train, he was captured, physiologically enhanced, repeatedly brainwashed, and used as HYDRA’s Winter Soldier. His history makes him uniquely qualified to recognize the pattern behind Valentina’s operation: governments and covert organizations repeatedly turn people into weapons, then deny responsibility for what those weapons do.

Marvel’s official on-screen biography identifies the Winter Soldier program’s combination of conditioning, enhancement, training, and cybernetic reconstruction.

Powers and equipment

Bucky’s physical abilities come from super-soldier enhancement rather than an independent energy power. He has enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, durability, and recovery. He is also one of the MCU’s most experienced hand-to-hand combatants, with decades of battlefield and covert-operations experience.

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His cybernetic arm is a major practical advantage. It provides exceptional strength and resilience, and its vibranium construction gives him an effective tool in close combat. The arm is useful, but it is not the core of Bucky’s importance. His greatest advantage is that he understands manipulation, dehumanization, and the difference between being ordered to do something and choosing to do it.

His dramatic function

After The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bucky is trying to pursue reparative justice rather than merely ask to be forgiven. His congressional and political ambitions in Thunderbolts* are partly comic, but they also show a deliberate change in strategy. He wants to become publicly accountable and useful instead of remaining a hidden asset operated by other people.

Bucky is not the loudest member or the most powerful one. He is the stabilizer—the person most likely to understand that the team is being treated as expendable and most capable of converting a collection of rivals into a functioning unit.

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Alexei Shostakov: Red Guardian between pride and regret

Origin and history

Alexei Shostakov is the Soviet answer to Captain America. In the MCU, he was part of the artificial family structure built around the Red Room, alongside Melina Vostokoff and the young Natasha and Yelena. His identity is tied to patriotic propaganda, inflated self-image, and a constant need to be remembered as a great hero.

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Marvel’s comics profile for Red Guardian likewise frames him as Russia’s patriotic counterpart to Captain America, although the comic and film biographies are not identical.

Abilities and equipment

Red Guardian has enhanced strength, durability, stamina, and combat ability. He is an experienced military fighter and uses a shield as a blunt physical weapon. His equipment is much less technologically exotic than Captain America’s, which fits the character: Alexei’s self-image is often more impressive than his current performance.

He is not simply an aging joke. Alexei’s boastfulness hides shame over the years he lost with his family and anxiety that his heroic identity has expired. He genuinely loves Yelena, but he also romanticizes the past and expects affection to erase his failures.

His relationship with Yelena

Alexei and Yelena provide one of the film’s emotional anchors. Yelena needs to stop being defined by the Red Room and Natasha’s death; Alexei needs to stop treating his old legend as proof that he is still the father and hero he claims to be. His contribution to the team is therefore both physical and social: he can fight, fill silence, raise morale, and keep attempting fatherhood even after years of emotional absence.

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Ava Starr: Ghost and the cost of losing control

Origin and MCU history

Ava Starr was introduced in Ant-Man and the Wasp. A quantum laboratory accident destabilized her body, leaving her in a state that allows her to pass through solid matter. She is not a supernatural ghost. Marvel’s official account of Ghost’s story describes her condition as the consequence of a scientific accident.

Powers, limitations, and suit

Ghost can phase through solid objects, partially disappear, and use rapid shifts between solidity and intangibility to attack or evade opponents. Her condition also makes her valuable for infiltration: walls, doors, restraints, and conventional defensive positions are less meaningful to her than they are to the rest of the team.

Her suit helps regulate and weaponize the instability. The improved equipment in Thunderbolts* signals that she has gained more control, but it does not turn her ability into effortless teleportation. Phasing is a condition she must manage, not a consequence-free movement trick.

Marvel’s broader Ghost character material discusses technology, concentration, sonic frequencies, and quantum effects as factors associated with the comics version. Those details should not be treated as a complete set of MCU rules. The film’s central point is simpler: Ava’s body was made dangerous by an accident and then exploited by people who saw her condition as a weapon.

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Why Ghost belongs on this team

Ghost supplies a capability none of the super-soldiers can duplicate: unconventional mobility and stealth. Dramatically, she also represents bodily autonomy. Her story is about the fear of becoming dangerous when control slips away and the need to be treated as a person rather than a containment problem.

Antonia Dreykov: the MCU’s Taskmaster

Do not confuse her with the comic-book Taskmaster

The MCU’s Taskmaster is Antonia Dreykov, General Dreykov’s daughter. She is not Anthony Tony Masters, the identity of the principal comic-book Taskmaster. The two versions share the combat-copying concept but have different identities, origins, and biographies.

In Black Widow, Dreykov uses a neural-control system to turn Antonia into a programmable assassin. Marvel’s Black Widow legacy feature identifies Antonia’s control chip and mimicry as central to her character.

Photographic combat mimicry

Taskmaster can observe a fighting style or movement and reproduce it with extraordinary accuracy. That lets her imitate techniques associated with fighters such as Captain America, Black Panther, Hawkeye, and other combatants. Her ability copies movement and technique—not the biological source of a superhuman power.

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For example, mimicking Captain America’s shield technique does not give Antonia Steve Rogers’ strength. Replicating a movement does not automatically grant superhuman durability, energy projection, or another character’s specialized equipment.

Her connection to Yelena

Taskmaster is Yelena’s darkest parallel. Yelena escaped the Red Room’s control and reclaimed her independent judgment. Antonia was physically and neurologically turned into the Red Room’s instrument. Their contrast makes Taskmaster more than a combat obstacle: she is a living reminder of what Yelena might have remained.

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Antonia is killed during the opening operation, before the surviving members understand the full extent of Valentina’s betrayal. Her death also establishes the stakes of the death trap: this is not a harmless recruitment exercise, and the final New Avengers lineup is not identical to the initial Thunderbolts roster.

John Walker: U.S. Agent and Bucky’s foil

Origin and MCU history

John Walker was selected by the U.S. government to replace Steve Rogers as Captain America in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. His tenure collapsed after he killed a surrendering combatant with Captain America’s shield. Valentina then redirected him into the U.S. Agent identity.

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Walker has a real military record and genuine battlefield skill, but he is also deeply insecure about the Captain America legacy. That insecurity makes him competitive with Bucky, whose history is inseparable from Steve Rogers but who has spent years confronting the damage done in his name.

Abilities and equipment

Walker is a super-soldier. His enhancement gives him increased strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, durability, and recovery. He is trained with shields and firearms and is an effective tactical fighter.

His weakness is not a lack of ability. It is the unreliable connection between his abilities and his judgment. Walker wants to prove that he deserves authority, and that desire can turn a reasonable tactical instinct into an impulsive or morally disastrous decision.

The comic-book U.S. Agent has a related successor-and-rival relationship with Captain America, but his history is not the same as the MCU’s television-origin story. Marvel’s comics profile includes different elements involving experimentation, patriotism, and the Power Broker.

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Is Walker redeemed?

No simple redemption label fits him. Walker is not presented as incapable of change, but neither does a new uniform erase his previous conduct. He is most interesting as a capable soldier whose moral reflexes remain unreliable. The team forces him to work beside people who have confronted their own weaponization, including Bucky, and that creates pressure without guaranteeing transformation.

Bob Reynolds: Sentry, the team’s impossible power problem

Bob’s MCU origin

Bob enters the story as an apparently ordinary survivor connected to Valentina’s covert program. The experiment transforms him into Sentry, a replacement super-team asset intended to fill the space left by the Avengers. Marvel’s behind-the-scenes coverage of the Sentry material confirms that Valentina’s experiment gives Bob godlike powers.

The film’s Bob is therefore not simply a powerful person who happens to join the Thunderbolts. He is the product Valentina was trying to create and the evidence of how far her operation went.

Sentry’s powers

On the film’s demonstrated scale, Sentry is overwhelmingly stronger than the rest of the team. His abilities include:

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  • Immense physical strength and durability
  • Flight and extreme speed
  • Energy projection
  • Resistance to conventional attacks
  • Destructive power capable of escalating a covert conflict into a global or existential threat

Marvel’s Sentry character profile offers additional comics context, including strength, intelligence, flight, energy projection, and psionic abilities. The film should not be treated as a literal reproduction of every comics statistic or power.

The Void is Bob’s fractured counterpart

The Void is not an unrelated villain who happens to share a connection with Sentry. It is the catastrophic manifestation of Bob’s fractured identity and suppressed fear. The more the team treats Sentry as a weapon or tries to overpower him conventionally, the less likely it is that the underlying problem can be solved.

That is why the climax cannot be won by simply matching Bob’s force. The team has to reach Bob, coordinate emotionally, and help him regain enough agency to confront the Void. Sentry is both a character and a system-level threat: the film asks whether power can be heroic when the person wielding it is psychologically divided and surrounded by people who want to control him.

How the powers complement one another

The Thunderbolts are not balanced like a conventional superhero squad. Bob is vastly more powerful than the others, while the rest of the roster provides the skills, experience, and emotional connection needed to keep the mission from becoming a simple contest of destructive force.

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Combination What it contributes
Yelena and Taskmaster Both understand Red Room combat, but Yelena retains independent judgment while Antonia’s identity was suppressed. Their contrast turns shared training into a conflict over agency.
Bucky and Walker Both are government-shaped super-soldiers. Bucky represents accountability after weaponization; Walker represents the temptation to defend one’s record instead of examining it.
Ghost with the super-soldiers Her phasing and infiltration skills create access and movement options that strength alone cannot provide.
Red Guardian with the group He contributes physical power, military experience, morale, and a willingness to keep the group socially connected even when he is embarrassing everyone.
Everyone around Sentry The team’s most important function is not increasing Bob’s attack power. It is helping him remain a person rather than becoming a controllable weapon or surrendering to the Void.
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What the asterisk means: Thunderbolts become the New Avengers

The asterisk is ultimately a story clue rather than a qualification about the team’s moral status. By the end of the film, the surviving group has functionally become a new Avengers-style team, and Marvel confirmed the reveal as The New Avengers. The studio’s official explanation of the asterisk confirms the rebranding.

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The name has two meanings. Publicly, it is a rebrand that gives the survivors a recognized heroic identity. Thematically, it is a challenge: these characters are not replacing the original Avengers because they resemble Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, or the other former members. They are stepping into the role because the MCU needs a team willing to act despite guilt, instability, compromised histories, and imperfect legitimacy.

The rebrand also explains why Marvel continues to use Thunderbolts* as the film’s recognizable title while presenting the post-film group through the New Avengers identity. The asterisk connects the two names instead of erasing the first one.

Thunderbolts in Marvel Comics versus the MCU film

The original comic premise

The comic-book Thunderbolts began with a deception. After the apparent disappearance of the Avengers and Fantastic Four, a group of villains led by Baron Zemo presented themselves as a new team of heroes. Marvel’s history of the Thunderbolts traces how that premise developed into a longer-running concept involving reformed villains, antiheroes, government missions, and unstable alliances.

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The MCU film borrows the central idea of morally compromised people being used as a team, but it does not reproduce the original roster or the initial disguise. This movie’s lineup consists of established MCU characters who are manipulated by a government power broker. It is less a secret villain team pretending to be heroic and more a collection of damaged operatives forced to recognize a common threat.

Important continuity differences

  • Taskmaster: MCU Taskmaster is Antonia Dreykov; the principal comics version is Anthony Tony Masters.
  • Yelena: The MCU version is a highly trained assassin, not the comics character with a separate Super-Adaptoid storyline.
  • Ghost: Comic-book technology and limitations involving concentration, sonic frequencies, and quantum effects provide context, but they are not a complete MCU rulebook.
  • Sentry: The comics’ Robert Reynolds and the Void have a major, longstanding relationship, but the film adapts Bob as the subject of Valentina’s covert experiment. The film’s origin should not be casually described as the comics’ Golden Sentry Serum origin.
  • Red Guardian and U.S. Agent: Both retain the broad comic idea of national counterparts and Captain America successors, but their MCU biographies and routes into the team are distinct.

Marvel has also published a New Avengers comic series that was originally solicited under the title New Thunderbolts before the 2025 reveal. The current Marvel series page lists New Avengers as a 2025-present series. That comic is related by branding and concept, not a direct retelling of the film’s plot.

Best MCU background before watching

Thunderbolts* can be watched on its own, but several earlier stories add important context:

  1. Black Widow: Establishes Yelena, Red Guardian, the surrogate family, the Red Room, and Antonia’s Taskmaster identity.
  2. Avengers: Endgame: Provides the event behind Yelena’s grief—Natasha Romanoff’s death.
  3. Hawkeye: Shows Valentina’s manipulation of Yelena and the eventual correction of the false story about Clint Barton.
  4. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Explains Bucky’s attempt to make amends, Walker’s collapse as Captain America, and Valentina’s recruitment of Walker as U.S. Agent.
  5. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Introduces Ava Starr’s quantum accident, phasing condition, and Ghost identity.

Those stories explain why the team is made up of people with unresolved histories rather than conventional new heroes. The film supplies Bob’s Sentry story within its own plot.

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Where to watch or own Thunderbolts*

Marvel announced digital availability, including Amazon Prime Video, beginning July 1, 2025, followed by 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 29, 2025. The official movie page is the best source for the studio’s current catalog information. Streaming availability, retailer stock, regional editions, and physical-media packaging can change.

Disclosure: Product links on this page may be monetized. Editions and availability vary by retailer and region.

If you want a permanent copy for a spoiler-heavy rewatch, compare the available Thunderbolts* 4K UHD Blu-ray editions, including standard and SteelBook packaging where available. A physical copy is particularly useful here because the film’s asterisk, Bob’s identity, the Void, and the New Avengers reveal reward a second viewing.

Further reading beyond the film

Readers interested in the team’s comic-book naming context can look for a New Avengers comic collection. Treat it as a separate continuity: the comic series shares the New Avengers branding and some thematic DNA, but it is not the film’s official sequel in collected-comics form. Marvel’s series listing is the useful reference point for the 2025-present run.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is on the Thunderbolts* team?

The initial team is Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, and John Walker/U.S. Agent. Bob Reynolds later joins as Sentry. After Taskmaster’s death and the final conflict with the Void, the surviving members are rebranded as the New Avengers.

Is the MCU’s Taskmaster the same as the comic-book Taskmaster?

MCU Taskmaster is Antonia Dreykov, General Dreykov’s daughter and a Red Room victim. The main comic-book Taskmaster is Anthony Tony Masters. They share photographic combat mimicry but have different identities and origins.

Who is the strongest member of the Thunderbolts*?

By the film’s demonstrated scale, Sentry is far more powerful than the other Thunderbolts. His strength, durability, flight, energy projection, and Void manifestation create an existential threat. However, the story cannot be solved by overpowering him; the team must reach Bob psychologically.

What does the asterisk in Thunderbolts* mean?

The asterisk refers to the team’s eventual public rebranding as the New Avengers. Marvel confirmed that meaning after the film’s release, while continuing to use Thunderbolts* as the film’s title.

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What should I watch before Thunderbolts*?

The most useful background stories are Black Widow, Avengers: Endgame, Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Ant-Man and the Wasp. They establish the characters’ relationships, traumas, powers, and connections to Valentina.

The Bottom Line

Bottom line: The MCU’s Thunderbolts are a group of manipulated operatives who become heroic by refusing to remain disposable. Yelena supplies the emotional center, Bucky the moral perspective, Ghost the unconventional mobility, Red Guardian the battered family connection, Walker the unresolved test of accountability, and Sentry the overwhelming danger that none of them can solve through force alone. The asterisk marks their final transformation into the New Avengers.

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