Popverse's top stories of the day

• DC's Absolute Batman to get even bigger as some surprise "fan-favorite characters" will debut soon that will "feature hugely" in series, according to Scott Snyder
• MEMBERS ONLY: Popverse Jump: Ignore the marketing, Lazarus is not Cowboy Bebop 2.0 - and I'm thankful for that
• WATCH NOW: Watch as Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 stars Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan) & Rob Weithoff (John Marston) saddle up one more time for a reunion from Chicago's C2E2 2025

Major spoilers for Marvel's Thunderbolts* follow.

After months of waiting, fans are finally about to find out what happens to the most ragtag group of MCU heroes since the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thunderbolts, starring such familiar faces as John Walker AKA USAgent, Yelena Belova AKA White Widow, Bucky Barnes AKA Winter Soldier, Alexei Shostakov AKA Red Guardian, and Ava Starr AKA Ghost is finally in theaters, pitting a group of antiheroes against Falcon & The Winter Soldier villain Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and having them face their less-than-righteous pasts.

That's a lot to handle for even costumed Marvel superfolks, so you may be wondering how many of them make it out of the movie alive. Well that's where Popverse comes in - we've assembled this Thunderbolts* ending explained to tell you everything you need to know about the film, including a beat by beat recount of the team's confrontations with Valentina and, later in the movie, Lewis Pullman's Bob, AKA...

Well, you'll find out.

What happens in the Thunderbolts* ending?

If you’ve seen any of the trailers for Thunderbolts*, you know what happens until about the halfway point of the movie. Our proto-Thunderbolts team - Yelena, Walker, and Ghost - meet in a facility where they are introduced to Bob. After Valentina tries to have them all killed (because all of them have dirt on her), the gang escapes, but not before losing Bob, who is starting to realize his powers as The Sentry.

And now that you mention it - he’s exhibiting some… other powers as well, having mentally transported both Yelena and Walker into a kind of nightmare reality, where their worst memories are replayed for them. We know that por Bob has a deeply troubled past himself, and it looks like it’s going to be trouble for our heroes soon enough.

Anyway, the gang minus Bob gets away from Valentina’s goons, only to be picked up by Red Guardian and subsequently captured by Bucky Barnes. Bucky reveals to the team that he’s been investigation multiple crimes committed by Valentina, and he tells the assembled crew that they’re going to help him take her down by traveling to her new headquarters, which is the original Avengers tower.

When the team arrives, they find Valentina waiting for them, having convinced Bob to trust her and take on the suit and persona of Sentry. Valentina orders Sentry to eliminate the Thunderbolts, but Sentry refuses, calling them not a threat. After the team once again gets away from certain death, Valentina tries to have the disobedient Sentey killed via a “killswitch” that was implanted as a part of the experiments that gave him his powers. Unfortunately, the killswitch only partially works, taking Bob/Sentry out of commission… but awakening The Void.

Immediately, The Void starts wreaking havoc across New York, disappearing citizens and leaving behind only strange, haunting shadows. Realizing they’re the only people around to help, the Thunderbolts* spring into action (after a quick pep talk from Red Guardian), but soon realize that getting a couple people out of the path of destruction isn’t going to fix the ultimate problem. So Yelena decides to confront The Void directly.

Stepping into the path of the Void’s growing shadows, Yelena is transported back to the nightmare realm we saw earlier. This time, though, she’s prepared, and fights her way through her worst memories, eventually encountering trauma from the past of Bob himself. There is a moment when The Void tries to kill them both inside the nightmare, but both Bob and Yelena are saved when the rest of the team shows up.

Finally able to confront his past, Bob stands up to the Void, and the two enter an all-out brawl that ends with Bob on top. But as Bob delivers blow after blow to the evil entity, shadows creep into the nightmare, making the team realize that an angry Bob is exactly what the Void wants. Together, they wrap themselves around Bob, and manage to pull him off together, triumphing over the Void and bringing themselves (and NYC) back to our reality.

I gotta say, it’s a pretty great emotional moment - in the biggest action franchise currently in theaters, this battle isn’t won by shields or hammers, but by a hug. Corny? Maybe, but I liked it.

Were there any Thunderbolts* deaths?

For a movie that many touted as Marvel Studios’s Suicide Squad, Thunderbolts* isn’t super heavy on the death, save one notable exception. I’m talking about Taskmaster, AKA Antonia Dreykov, played by Olga Kurylenko. Though it was cleverly hidden by Marvel’s marketing for the film, old Tasky does quite early, a victim of the violence first encountered at Valeria’s compound, where the team meets Bob. But it’s not Sentry (or The Void), that kills her - it’s a regular bullet to the noggin, courtesy of Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost.

Sorry to break it to you, Taskmaster fans - there’s at least one of these folks that doesn’t get a New Avengers badge. 

What and who are the big surprises in Thunderbolts*?

There weren’t any major guest appearances from other Marvel characters in Thunderbolts* in the main part of the movie (see below for the surprises in the post-credits scenes!), though much mention is made of Red Hulk and Steve Rogers. Instead, probably the biggest surprise of the movie comes after the team defeats The Void and catches up with Valentina.

When the crew approaches their would-be killer, she runs behind what we think is an overturned truck for cover. In actuality, it’s a giant barrier hiding an impromptu press conference that Val has whipped up. When the team passes through to find cameras and mics shoved into their face, Val makes up the story that she brought together the team to save New York, then drops maybe the biggest bomb of the movie, introducing the gang as “The New Avengers.”

Turns out, that’s what the asterisk after the movie’s title was referring to all along.

Are there any Thunderbolts* post-credits scenes?

There are two Thunderbolts*post-credits scenes, actually, so let’s go over them in order.

In the first post-credits scene (well, technically it’s a mid-credits scene), we see lovable Russian dad Red Guardian, finally get his heart’s desire to be on a Wheaties box. He’s at a grocery store when we see him, trying to get people to notice his face on the cereal and failing. When he awkwardly tries getting a woman to buy a box, she avoids him.

In the second (and much more vital to the MCU) post-credits scene, we catch up with all of the Thunderbolts - er, sorry, the New Avengers - at their new headquarters. It turns out that Captain America, AKA Sam Wilson, is suing the team for copyright infringement, which Red Guardian thinks they can get past by changing their name to the “New Avengers.”

But they’ve got much larger problems to deal with, too. Not only does Bob confirm that The Void is still very much active within him, but in the next few moments, an airborne anomaly is detected heading toward earth. It’s a kind of rocket ship - are we about to witness an alien invasion?

No, folks. That battered spaceship, which we here referred to as “extra-dimensional” belongs to none other than the Fantastic Four.

Will there be a Thunderbolts* sequel?

While Thunderbolts* 2 is likely to never exactly be confirmed (that’s not even their name now, remember?) this film does a lot of heavy lifting in setting up two upcoming MCU projects. As you can tell by the previous paragraph, the first one is this summer’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.

What’s interesting, though, is that it doesn’t seem the FF will be a sequel to this movie. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that the FF we meet in that spaceship has already encountered the likes of the Silver Surfer and Galactus, and has appeared in the mainline MCU because of some multiversal hijinks.

In other words, I think they’re there because of something regarding Victor Von Doom.

Yes, the real “sequel” to Thunderbolts* is probably not the Fantastic Four at all, but Avengers: Doomsday. After all, Marvel Studios has already confirmed that the entire Thunderbolt team (minus Taskmaster, presumably) is going to be squaring off against the MCU’s next big bad in their 2026 tentpole film - among its other advancements, this film serves to get them ready for that showdown.

Thunderbolts* is in theaters now.'

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters