Marvel Finally Shows the Thunderbolts*, the MCU’s Suicide Squad, in Action at SDCC
When Marvel Studios first announced Lightning bolts* Unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con in 2022 as part of the ambitious lineup for Phases 5 and 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, the film didn’t yet have that odd asterisk in its title. Not many details were released either, aside from a July 26, 2024 release date that slipped along with many other MCU projects in the wake of the 2023 WGA strike.
In the wake of the Lightning bolts* segment of San Diego Comic-Con 2024, we don’t know much more! The asterisk is still a mystery: Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said during an appearance at CinemaCon“We won’t be sharing more about that until after the movie comes out,” he reaffirmed at Comic-Con.
But since the core cast of Lightning bolts* took the stage, the audience in Hall H got a sneak preview of all their characters coming under fire from a mysterious enemy who, according to Jelena Belova (Florence Pugh), wants them all dead.
Traditionally in Marvel Comics, the Thunderbolts are a team of second-tier villains or antiheroes, though their membership and motives vary considerably depending on which iteration you mean. The MCU team is composed of not-quite-always-good characters introduced in previous films in the franchise: Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen, of Ant-Man and the Wasp), Red Guard (David Harbour, Black Widow), the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan, the Captain America films), American agent, also known as John Walker (Wyatt Russell, Falcon and the Winter Soldier), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko, Black Widow). Pugh’s Yelena, from Black Widow And Hawk’s Eyeleads the team, featuring the slimy mastermind Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Falcon and the Winter Soldier) Behind the scenes.
Who would want all those people dead? What could those people do to stay alive? And what is that asterisk about anyway? We’ll have to wait for the theatrical debut of Lightning bolts* on May 2, 2025, as the final film in Phase 5 of the MCU.
Here you’ll find all of Polygon’s SDCC 2024 coverage, including news, trailers, and more.