Honestly, I’m surprised some of them didn’t go with it.
Defontaine’s just too dangerous to be allowed to walk free, even if she’s in a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction scenario with 3 out of 5 Thunderbolts members.
Bucky might have chosen to go along with it to spare them, or maybe it was more about protecting Bob (if people knew he was that flying shadow guy, shit might become 3 dimensional and strike multiple rotational devices very quickly) from both attempted reprisal, and a potential slip-up.
This might also be why Sam’s not too keen on them calling themselves the Avengers.
Bucky might also be keeping a bit of an eye on them, as he’s aware these people are all messed up.
Edited by HandsomeRob on May 3rd 2025 at 6:18:00 AM
One Strip! One Strip!Also, q about Yelena’s general loneliness: did Melina get Chuck Cunningham Syndrome’d? (I also assume she and Kate aren’t texting or anything)
Yeah, presumably she's either looking after the other Widows and/or is simply withdrawn. The fact that Alexei doesn't seem to have seen her either would suggest both.
Also, looking at Jake Schreier's past two movies, I have to say this is a case where Marvel's tendency to cast a wide net for such creatives really paid off well.
I imagine that Melina is underground doing other important work that is preventing her from reaching her family.
ed.
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 3rd 2025 at 10:30:40 AM
You’re Gonna Carry That Weight.
She was hired by either Kate's mother or Val to kill Hawkeye w/ the added incentive that Val told her that Clint was the last person w/ Natasha when she died. Yelena ultimately did not do her job and had awesome chemistry w/ Kate Bishop instead w/c was 1 of the show's highlights.
She thought Clint killed Natasha and was essentially on the warpath trying to kill him for revenge, and spent most of it trading initially-dangerous-but-increasingly-friendly banter with Kate who largely took point in trying to stop her.
'd
Tbh, I think the most surprising thing about the end of this is that Natasha ended up on a superteam that didn't include Kate, given how good their rapport ended up being in that show.
Edited by KnownUnknown on May 3rd 2025 at 8:25:51 AM
Man, Bob has a pretty sweet deal at the end.
So how do we feel about the New Avengers? I'm getting vibes of them selling out, and it's not just Red Guardian, Bucky going along with this means Fontaine evades justice and the Congressman's case got thrown out. Hell, Bucky even mentions Sam and him broke off.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"It's been pretty clear for years that my favorite Team of New Avengers was never getting adapted, and I'm mostly fine with this one.
It's all going to depends on if they actually get any further adventures or if, like the last new group of Avengers (the post Ultron ones), the next story just skips to their last mission together.
I guess I'm one of the few people here who genuinely feel uncomfortable with how they dealt with Fontaine at the end when they went along with her narrative instead of calling her out and exposing all her various crimes including the Sentry project. Even Bucky of all people, who was working with the other Congressman to impeach her.
I dunno, it feels like them selling out, and trying to blackmail Fontaine like this will backfire in the next crisis.
Edited by RedHunter543 on May 3rd 2025 at 11:51:07 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"This is a plot point that’s feeling like an MCU version of the the Seven but a lot less psychotic.
I’m actually intrigued to see where it goes. It’s no comic book Thunderbolts but very New Warriors reality tv esque era.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I don't necessarily see it as selling out since they're also doing it to protect Bob.
But yes, they could have had Bucky introduce them as New Avengers and her arrested.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 4th 2025 at 4:23:55 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I really enjoyed the film. The characters were well realised and they all had great chemistry with each other. The fight choreography was superb. My only criticism was the fight in Avengers Tower didn't work for me at all and of course Taskmaster being wasted
Spending my life living with both Bipolar disorder and DID means this film hit me where I live.
Damn I love Bob. The performance was so good and really made a character I loathed from the comics work so very well.
I like how this sits in the MCU in terms of world building. It makes sense to me that you can, in this world manipulate people into promises of becoming super heroes, and also that now that the original generation of superheroes are increasingly disassembled, the government would be scrambling to make their own, not so good versions of them.
I like the narrative of John Walker being a substandard government knock-off of captain America, refusing to come to terms with that, and ending up on a substandard government knock-off the avengers.

Yeah, Bucky just kind of strikes me as... tired beyond belief. He's been doing this for almost twice as long as most people even live.
The movie isn't super about him, but also there is a sense that just like Steve he can't just sit still and let a situation stew when he could be going out and doing something about it, but is in a job that forces him to basically do nothing. ( or was, I guess)
I do wonder what happened with the impeachment. The implication is that de Fontaine's ultimate punishment is to be trapped under the thumb of all the people she tried to manipulate, but that does imply that Bucky kept the truth from the people he was working or somehow convinced the congressman to go along with it.