Exploring Val's endgame in Thunderbolts* and the rest of the MCU

One of Marvel's most enticing upcoming projects is the Thunderbolts* movie, scheduled for a 2025 release. While plot details are scarce, we do know that it is going to feature some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's greatest super-soldiers and assassins, forced to work together to either take down the Sentry or some greater threat. Oh, Bucky Barnes is there as well (Yay!). He is seemingly a Congressman now ( Huh ?). His long hair look is back, too (YAY!).

But super-soldiers and assassins aside, we also have Julia-Louis Dreyfus returning as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (or "Val" for short). First introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, she has slowly been assembling her team, similar to Nick Fury in Phase 1 of the MCU. However, whilst Fury's motives were altruistic and for the greater good, Val seems to be only looking out for herself and has some ulterior motives.

Val puts the Thunderbolts together for her own gain

Since the Disney Plus series, she has been busy, recruiting disgraced war heroes, assassins, and super-soldiers, whilst simultaneously manipulating the good guys into killing the old guard as well. In Black Widow's post-credits scene, she manipulates Yelena Belova into going after Clint Barton, alleging that he had killed her. Consumed by vengeance, Yelena nearly did kill him in Hawkeye, before Clint managed to tell her the truth about Vormir.

Similarly, she recruited John Walker to become her US Agent after he fell from disgrace after his brief stint as Captain America. As seen in the trailer for the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie, she seems to have added Ant-Man and the Wasp's Ghost and Black Widow's Taskmaster to her fine collection as well. And she is now rumored to have bought Avengers Tower?! The above facts raise some compelling questions about Everett Ross's former wife and current Director of the CIA.

A popular theory is that Val is in cahoots with everyone's favorite Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. As seen at the end of Echo, Fisk plans on running for Mayor of New York. If the comics are anything to go by, when he does become Mayor, he passes a law outlawing all vigilantes and instead his own superhero task-force to "protect" the people. In the MCU, something similar may happen. If some of the potential rumors that have surfaced in recent months are anything to go by, Marvel reportedly wants Spider-Man 4 to be a Daredevil and Spider-Man adventure, dealing with Mayor Fisk. Val could be a part of this, playing both sides with some end goal in her mind.

As we saw in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, she dreams of US owning the largest Vibranium deposit in the world. With Captain America: Brave New World set to introduce Adamantium from Tiamut's corpse, all of these threads could be tied together and culminate in a street-level team up movie, before Doctor Doom shows up ahead of the Multiverse Saga's boiling point. Not to forget the Sentry, who seems to be a government project to recreate a super-soldier once again. With the power of a million exploding suns, Sentry is destined for great things.

Putting all of the pieces together, we can safely assume what Val's plan seems to be. She assembles the Thunderbolts to be her task force and perform black ops and killings. At the same time, with the world going to war over Adamantium, she uses the chaos to set up shop in Avengers / Fisk Tower, with Wilson Fisk as Mayor and her partner in crime. Via his vast resources, she can obtain Adamantium or Vibranium or even both, perhaps to use in experiments involving a certain Canadian mutant? During all of this, Sentry is meant to be her ace in the hole, who will however ultimately break free and become a hero in his right.

While the above is purely speculative, that's half the fun. As Thunderbolts* comes closer, expect more information to be revealed. Until then, laters gators !