Here Are The MCU Villains Who May Be In ‘Thunderbolts,’ Marvel’s Suicide Squad

At SDCC, Marvel revealed dates for a number of upcoming projects, and most of them sounded pretty familiar. A new Captain America movie, the Black Panther sequel, the arrival of the Fantastic Four and of course, two new Avengers movies. But one new project stood out as unfamiliar to many.

What the hell are the Thunderbolts?

Currently dated as the last movie of Phase 5 on July 26, 2024, the idea is that the squad is going to pull from its comics roots and become sort of an anti-Avengers, one that has had its groundwork being laid since the earliest moments of Phase 4 here.

In the comics, the Thunderbolts were originally conceived as a new superhero team that rose to power to fill a gap left by dead Avengers. Turns out, they were supervillains trying to conquer the world. Whoops! That does seem to vaguely be the path we’re on here, and with the Avengers scattered to the wind, we already see a new team being assembled. They are kind of Marvel’s version of the Suicide Squad, minus the suicide part, and with more world-conquering ambitions. A team of recruited bad guys with someone else pulling their reins.

The first time we were supposed to see the seeds of this planted was in the Black Widow post-credits scene where Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is revealed to be working with Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, and gives her Hawkeye to hunt down and kill, as Yelena believes he’s responsible for her death. We saw this play out in the Hawkeye series where Clint was able to convince her that she did need to kill him after all, and she disappeared thereafter.

The second confirmed member here is John Walker, the interim, unstable Captain America who was also recruited by Valentina after being disgraced for his use of violence. Now he’s US Agent, working for her, and he assumes, a secret branch of the US government.

Past that, the rumored list of cast members being circulated comes from a Variety article that does not appear to be based on inside info, and is simply looking at the members of the squad from the comics. And matching those up with the MCU cast members that we already have seen across the movies. Those include:

• Baron Zemo (the leader of one iteration of the Thunderbolts, played by Daniel Brühl in the MCU)
• Ghost (the Ant-Man and the Wasp villain, played by Hannah John-Kamen)
• Abomination (the Hulk villain, about to appear in She-Hulk, played by Tim Roth)
• Taskmaster (the Black Widow villain, played by Olga Kurylenko)

But also in the past, there have been heroes on the squad like Clint Barton, Luke Cage, Bucky Barnes and Scott Lang. Another name not mentioned by Variety is Bullseye, who we saw in season 3 of Daredevil, and as we know, Daredevil is returning to the MCU with a new show. Venom has also been a Thunderbolt in the past, but I doubt Sony will let the MCU borrow him for that.

The Thunderbolts have so many iterations in the comics it’s hard to know exactly how this will be played, but from the MCU’s set-up so far, it looks like Valentina recruited Avengers knock-offs to form a super squad to carry out an agenda full of Very Bad Things, and this seems like it may ultimately be a secret HYDRA ploy (Valentina is “Madame Hydra” after all, in the comics). I do wonder if the idea is to “fill the gap” left by the fractured Avengers, only to have that go disastrously wrong, and cause the real Avengers to reassemble in Phase 5 when an actual team is required. We’ll have to wait and see, and wait a very long time, at that.

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