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Thunderbolts Gives the MCU Its New Avengers—Now What?

The Thunderbolts take the New Avengers name, but their legitimacy is unsettled. Here’s what both credits scenes reveal, and what the Fantastic Four ship tease does not confirm.
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Spoilers for Thunderbolts*, including both credits scenes. The film ends with the Thunderbolts rebranded as the New Avengers, but not with their place in the MCU settled. Their public credibility and right to use the Avengers name are still in question, while a Fantastic Four-marked ship signals a connection whose meaning the film leaves open.

How the Thunderbolts become the New Avengers

Marvel’s official synopsis describes Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker as an unconventional antihero team pulled into a dangerous mission by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. The mission forces them to confront their pasts, with redemption and unity presented as possibilities. Marvel’s film page lists the movie as a 2025 release, rated PG-13, with a runtime of 2 hours and 6 minutes.

At the climax, Bob’s transformation into the Void traps civilians in their worst memories. Yelena and the others help Bob face the threat and free the people caught in it. Valentina, who enabled the experiment, then presents the group as the New Avengers—a move that also serves her own public image. TIME’s ending and credits-scene explainer reports that the team subsequently faces legal trouble over the Avengers name and doubts about how the media sees them.

So, are the Thunderbolts the new Avengers? They have adopted the name, but the label does not establish that the public trusts them or that the dispute over who represents the Avengers is resolved. The ending frames their status as a claim they must live up to, not a settled achievement.

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Thunderbolts* - 4K + Blu-ray + Digital
  • After being ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team of antiheroes assembles and embarks on a dangerous mission. Forced to confront the darkest corners of their pasts, will the group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and prevail?

What happens in the Thunderbolts credits scenes?

Mid-credits: Red Guardian tries to sell the brand

The mid-credits scene plays the team’s uncertain celebrity status for comedy: Red Guardian attempts to promote the New Avengers to a grocery shopper. It underlines the gap between Valentina’s grand public announcement and the group’s everyday reception.

Post-credits: a lawsuit and a ship from another universe

Fourteen months later, the team is based in the former Avengers Tower. They discuss a lawsuit connected to their use of the Avengers name, then learn that an extra-dimensional ship is approaching Earth. The vessel bears the Fantastic Four emblem.

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Marvel Studios: Thunderbolts* (2025) [Blu-ray]
  • Can this disparate group of antiheroes overcome their difficult pasts and form a real team capable of stopping the Void and saving the world?

The scene establishes a direct visual tease toward the Fantastic Four, but it does not explain the full crossover, confirm a particular alliance or battle, or settle the New Avengers’ future roster. The lawsuit is shown as a dispute over the name; the film does not provide a complete legal account of the case or its outcome.

Does the Fantastic Four ship explain what comes next?

It confirms that the film is pointing toward a connection with the Fantastic Four, not what that connection will mean. In a July 2025 interview report, GamesRadar+ quoted Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman saying the Thunderbolts credits scene was created relatively late in his process and was not something he knew about while writing his script. That production timing is a reason not to assume the scene maps out a fully coordinated, continuous handoff; its precise narrative payoff remains open in Thunderbolts*.

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What “now what?” means for the team

The unresolved question is not only whether the group can keep the Avengers name. It is whether people who have lived in isolation and damage can continue choosing connection when the next crisis tests them. Director Jake Schreier described the film’s emotional premise in a D23 interview published May 2, 2025: “Then, the question is: What do you do from there? Where do you go? Do you retreat into yourself, or do you find connection in others and move forward through that?”

Schreier also said, “It’s about being in a place and how you get out of it; in this world it’s really about saving yourself and saving each other.” Those remarks describe the film’s emotional point of view, not a promise about a later plot. The team’s next meaningful test is whether they can act with mutual trust rather than simply carry a name Valentina gave them.

What the ending establishes—and what it leaves unsettled

  • Established: Valentina publicly rebrands the group as the New Avengers after they help stop the Void crisis.
  • Still contested: Their credibility, media reception and use of the Avengers name.
  • Teased: A Fantastic Four-marked ship is approaching Earth.
  • Left open: The ship’s eventual role, the New Avengers’ future membership and what happens in any later confrontation.

TIME reported a $76 million opening weekend in its May 2, 2025 explainer. That figure describes the reported opening weekend only; it is not a lifetime-gross figure or evidence of audience consensus.

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