***SPOILERS AHEAD***
After many months of marketing and debate, the MCU's version of The Suicide Squad is here. There is little doubt that the opening weekend won't be impressive. While there is no telling if it will be record-setting or a $1 billion burner, it shows that Kevin Feige is back to storytelling with purpose.
More importantly, that little asterisk proved it the entire time.
Within 10 minutes of the new Jake Schreier film, there were three easter eggs, two acts of foreshadowing, and one fantastic mention of Captain America: Brave New World to show the Marvel Cinematic Universe is back to universe building. It was that thing they did with flair back in the days of the Avengers.
Those were the halcyon days of the Infinity Saga. Once Marvel dipped an abstract toe in the multiverse, nothing was quite the same. Movies that used to connect to each other like an intricate jigsaw puzzle felt more one-offish and without any sense of unity. However, there was a centered vision of the big baddie in Kang that turned out like a deleted scene of a B-movie.
And just when fans began to lose faith in the mighty MCU, here comes that asterisk. What was such a big deal with it anyway?
There's something "new" about these Avengers
The MCU provided the rest of the universe it was seeking this entire time: What's with the asterisk?!
Phase Hero, a popular superhero podcast, sat down with director Jake Schreier to discuss what Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) unveiled to us all—that the "Thunderbolts" wasn't an homage to Yelena Belova's pre-teen soccer team (a hilarious concept). It was only a code name for what would become her marketing scheme known as the New Avengers.
"From the moment I pitched [Kevin Feige and Louis D'Esposito] on the movie, that was the ending, and the script was very different than what we ended up making. But from the very first draft that I read, that was in and that stayed. The one thing that we had to do was, they were going to get introduced as that by Val. So I think that was part of my last pitch meeting, and I said, 'I think it'd be fun to maybe do one ad somewhere where we put an asterisk on the title, and we say until we come up with something better."Jake Schreier via Phase Hero podcast
The asterisk gave Thunderbolts a life Marvel Studios has not experienced since Thanos was finally defeated. It allowed them to give back the Avengers to the fans, but only in terms of folklore and nostalgia. And that has nothing to do with General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, a lovely surprise not many considered before they got their popcorn.
The New Avengers is a group of misfit antiheroes, similar to DC's Suicide Squad, only as we discover in the longest post-credit scene in Marvel's illustrious history, they have much more significance. (No spoilers there.)
"I've got to claim it either way, but I think it just felt like, from the moment it came out, this cast is A-list sure, but people say, 'Oh, they are the B-list characters,' Thunderbolts doesn't have the name recognition of a Superman or a Fantastic Four. How could you use that as an opportunity? What could you do with that and have fun with the sort of idea and the twist of it? And even in a way, when people say, 'This is not my Thunderbolts!' because it is not that first run where it's Masters of Evil. I don't really know how you would really do that in a movie context, maybe you could, [but] it seems hard to me."Jake Schreier via Phase Hero podcast
Well, he did it, and it's a smash success. The film takes place after the ending of Captain America: Brave New World and the Red Hulk's unfortunate imprisonment and takes off from there. It also ends up at the old Avengers' tower that Val refurbished, so that's a nice fan service connection.
What's new about these Avengers is more than the ham-handed way they were introduced to the world or the exploratory concept of The Sentry Project. These are all people with pain, somber memories, and a morose past that only The Void helps us understand. That kind of psychological vantage point is a strength of the storytelling in this film.
The film acts as a prequel, an origin story of sorts. It ends with an interesting twist and an allusion to friendship as they search for justice, their way. This is not only a time to benchmark the New Avengers, but this will mark the moment of a new beginning for the MCU.