Dumb Things We Can't Ignore In Marvel's Thunderbolts*

Contains spoilers for Marvel Studios' "Thunderbolts*"

As one of the biggest cinematic events of the 21st century, "Avengers: Endgame" was always going to be a tough act to follow, and subsequent Marvel Cinematic Universe releases have largely been a mixed bag ever since. There have definitely been some highlights, but they've been too few and far between, as reviews didn't exactly fly high for "Captain America: Brave New World," and "The Marvels" bombed at the box office despite being a follow-up to the $1 billion success of 2019's "Captain Marvel." With "Thunderbolts*," however, it feels like Marvel's getting on the right path again.

Looper's review of "Thunderbolts*" praised the film's character dynamics, saying, "The fact that almost all of the leads have at least one moment that stands out is impressive in a movie with this many characters," a sentiment that many other outlets seem to agree with. Somehow, the movie takes a bunch of C-list characters like U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and imbues them with real pathos. That's nothing to say of the expert work done by Florence Pugh as the downtrodden Yelena Belova while the rest of the ensemble is filled out with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and, of course, Bob (Lewis Pullman).

We don't want it getting misconstrued that we're saying "Thunderbolts*" is by any means a bad film, but there are still plenty of things in it that don't quite add up. This sort of thing is bound to happen with a film that's part of such a massive franchise and has to juggle so many characters. But, with that said, here are the dumbest things you can expect to find in "Thunderbolts*."

"Captain America: Brave New World" brings back a beloved hero, Bucky Barnes, for a quick cameo. During his chat with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), it's mentioned that Bucky's running for Congress, which immediately made Marvel fans gasp with a collective, "Huh?"

Why would Bucky have any interest in politics? Well, for the purposes of the plot of "Thunderbolts*," he needs to be a congressman so that we can see him working to take down Valentina's evil enterprises with the OXE Group. He eventually goes rogue and joins up with the Thunderbolts to help them bring her down, but his sudden political interests don't add up unless it was always his mission to arrest Valentina.

There's also the matter of people willingly electing a confirmed (former) assassin. He was the Winter Soldier for decades and killed many high-profile people. Yes, he was under mind control and has now gotten better, but one would assume his political opponent would've run opposition ads nonstop, reminding constituents that he's the freaking Winter Soldier. If he could be mind-controlled into being a Russian agent once, what's to stop that from happening again? That said, it's possible that his history as a World War II veteran would earn him some brownie points among the Baby Boomers, and he did fight against Thanos' army. Given the ridiculousness of the real-world political landscape, maybe it's not the weirdest thing for voters to be jazzed enough to elect a reformed killer to represent them.

It might be the least surprising death in cinematic history. After being largely left out of the "Thunderbolts*" trailers and pushed to the side on billboards and posters, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) dies early on and without much fanfare. She has one line of dialogue and fights for a couple of minutes before Ghost shoots her in the head. It's an abrupt, violent end to a fan-favorite villain.

Honestly, Taskmaster's death isn't fully problematic. It does establish that any one of the Thunderbolts could die, after all, and it shows that someone can live an awful life and never get a chance at redemption. The main issue is that Ghost seems completely unfazed by killing someone for no reason. Shortly after she shoots Taskmaster, everyone realizes that Valentina has set them up to meet at the vault at the same time in order to kill them all at once. If Ghost had waited just a few seconds longer, Taskmaster could've played a more pivotal role in the film.

The death's impact is lessened, however, by Ghost and Yelena having one quick conversation about Taskmaster before moving on with the plot. Having her murder really affect Ghost could've played into the movie's larger themes about redemption and how no one is beyond saving. But Taskmaster never receives her chance to have a better life — a genuine tragedy that largely gets ignored.

Bucky's back in action in "Thunderbolts*," complete with the signature metal arm he received from the Wakandans. However, the high-tech prosthetic was stolen from him in "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" to fulfill Rocket's (Bradley Cooper) wish from "Avengers: Infinity War." Nebula (Karen Gillan) gives Rocket the arm as a present, so one would assume Bucky would have to go without it. But in "Thunderbolts*" (and in "Captain America: Brave New World"), he has it back.

There could be some perfectly logical explanations for this. Maybe Rocket and Nebula came back to Earth to return it after realizing it was kind of messed up to steal a guy's arm. Another possibility is that the Wakandans made more than one robotic arm for the super soldier. A more out-there theory is that Nebula never stole Bucky's arm in the first place. Considering vibranium came to Wakanda via a meteorite, it's otherworldly in nature, so Nebula could've obtained vibranium from somewhere else and fashioned a fake arm to give Rocket, who now basically owns a Sideshow Collectible version of Bucky's iconic prosthetic.

The most likely answer is that we're probably thinking about it a little too much. "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" may not even be canon to the larger MCU, so it'd be best to just assume Bucky's arm was never taken in the first place.

It must suck to be a regular person in the MCU. You never know when half of the population will disappear or when some random guy you've never heard of before will begin turning everyone into shadows. This is all to say that something that might impress us in the real world may not faze them much. Case in point: following the Thunderbolts confrontation with Valentina and Sentry, the team regroups on the sidewalk outside of the Watchtower. As they're talking in full costume, you can see people walking by behind them and not really paying any mind to the superhumans in their midst.

Granted, Yelena isn't a household name like Thor (Chris Hemsworth). But Bucky's pretty famous as both a superhero and a sitting congressman, and U.S. Agent killed a guy in broad daylight, which should get him some notoriety. And for all the New York pedestrians know, these could just be cosplayers, but everyone seems surprisingly calm about people in costumes congregating outside of what used to be Avengers Tower. If we were in the MCU, we'd like to think we'd immediately suspect something bad was happening if these figures were around and get out of there long before the Void begins his shadow spree.

It can be pretty difficult to figure out how the MCU movies and Disney+ shows fit together. The third act of "Thunderbolts*" takes place in New York City, which we recently saw under Wilson Fisk's (Vincent D'Onofrio) thumb as its new mayor on "Daredevil: Born Again." Fisk cracked down hard on vigilantes, basically turning New York into a war zone by the end of "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 1 — which, of course, begs the question of how allowing an all-powerful Void to take over the city, albeit momentarily, sits with him and his constituents.

It's hard to pin down exactly, but "Thunderbolts*" should take place in 2027 considering it follows "Captain America: Brave New World," which was set at the beginning of that year. Much of "Daredevil: Born Again" occurs in 2026 and 2027 while Fisk is mayor, so the events of "Thunderbolts*" and "Born Again" should unfold concurrently. While Fisk shouldn't really care about a government-sanctioned New Avengers getting established on his turf, seeing as they wouldn't technically be vigilantes if they answer to a higher organizational power, it's odd that he's not even mentioned.

Sadly, we may never see D'Onofrio's Kingpin on the big screen, as the actor told the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, "Right now, I'm only usable for television series. Different kinds of series, whatever it is, but not even a one-off Fisk movie or anything like that, it's all caught up in rights and stuff." That sounds like "Thunderbolts*" couldn't have used so much as a Fisk poster in the background to create some kind of connective tissue between the Marvel shows and movies. As a result, for all casual audiences know, superheroes are still fully welcome in New York.

The Thunderbolts team doesn't boast much in the way of pure power; after all, they mostly shoot guns, punch, and throw knives. None of this is going to do much good against Sentry (as we see in the Watchtower fight), and it's certainly useless against the Void. So when the team needs to find an alternative way to stop the mega-powerful villain from engulfing New York in darkness, Yelena is the first to throw a Hail Mary and walk right into the Void.

Prior to this, we see the Void turn people into shadows. For all we know, they died right then and there, and Yelena just walked into her own death. She couldn't know what would be waiting for her on the other side and happened to get lucky when it turned out to be memories of her past trauma, which she's able to break through in order to find Bob. The rest of the Thunderbolts follow suit by walking into the Void and helping Bob realize he's not alone, allowing him to overcome his negative thoughts and defeat his alter ego.

While it is kind of a dumb move, we suppose walking directly into what could've been certain death is as good of a plan as any. Even if Yelena didn't stroll into the shadows, she would've been consumed anyway, so we might as well get a visual representation of the former assassin embracing her own darkness rather than trying to run away from it.

Following Yelena's unprecedented move, the Thunderbolts hug Bob, showing him he's not alone in his mental health struggles. This gesture of support suppresses the Void, brings New York out of the darkness, and everyone who was previously turned into a shadow immediately returns. Bob doesn't remember anything, but the Thunderbolts do. It makes sense, then, to assume that everyone in the vicinity also experienced their own personal traumas inside the Void. And yet, just a minute after everything goes back to normal, Valentina has no issues about tricking the Thunderbolts to come on stage in front of members of the press, where she introduces them as the New Avengers.

Was the press always there? Wouldn't they have all been in the Void, too? It seems like they would want to cover what they just went through rather than care about a bunch of C- and D-list vigilantes (and Bucky Barnes) being branded as the New Avengers. Presumably, no one knows that Bob is the Void to direct any questions toward him, but it does seem odd that people are willing to go back to normal like nothing happened.

Granted, that does appear to be the standard M.O. in the MCU, where half the people on the planet disappeared for five years and then came back with what appears to be minimal disruption. Everyone in New York disappearing into a Void for maybe an hour is probably child's play compared to the rest of the horrors that occur regularly in this franchise.

In the "Thunderbolts*" post-credits scene, which takes place 14 months after the rest of the film, we learn that the New Avengers remain operational — but Sam Wilson still wants to put his own team together. He's even filed a copyright claim against the New Avengers. But it's worth noting that Yelena says, "If [Sam] puts together a team," which implies that he doesn't have anyone lined up to join his Avengers at that moment. What's taking him so long?

As stated previously, "Thunderbolts*" takes place after "Captain America: Brave New World," and, at the end of the latter, Sam Wilson was poised to recreate the Avengers with Joaquin Torres, aka Falcon (Danny Ramirez), by his side. That means by the time the post-credits scene occurs, Sam would've likely had a good year and a half to form his Avengers . So why hasn't he done it?

It could understandably be a little tough for him to build a team. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is probably exploring the Multiverse, while Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is on another planet. That still leaves Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor, Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac), and She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) he could sign up, to name a few. Hopefully, he gets his act together before a certain Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) shows up ...

The fact that Sam Wilson wants to put a non-government-sanctioned Avengers team together isn't the only tidbit we learn through the "Thunderbolts*" post-credits scene. Yelena also references a disturbance in space, and we see video footage of a ship entering the MCU's reality. A glimpse at the side of the ship reveals the number "4," and then the theme music to "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" begins to play before the movie ends for real. With "First Steps" coming out on July 25, it makes sense to have this as a post-credits scene since Marvel tends to tease the next MCU film on its release schedule. But if you think about it for a minute, this scene might have spoiled the ending to that film months before it hits theaters.

"First Steps" takes place in an alternate reality where Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) informs the people of Earth that their planet has been marked for consumption by Galactus (Ralph Ineson). It's up to the Fantastic Four to figure out a way to beat the massive world-eater — but what if that's not possible? Even before "Thunderbolts*" was released, it made sense to assume that the Fantastic Four would need to make it to the main MCU timeline to help the rest of the characters we know and love fight Doctor Doom. This scene, however, seems to suggest that the Fantastic Four will fail in their mission to save their world (either from Galactus or Doom) and need to go somewhere else.

This lends credence to a popular fan theory that the Fantastic Four will fail in "First Steps" and try to build new lives for themselves in a new universe. This might even be their primary motivation — to defeat Doom in order to redeem themselves.

After months of debate over why the "Thunderbolts*" title has an asterisk in it, we learn in the press conference scene that it's due to them not really being the Thunderbolts at all — they're actually The New Avengers. It's a fun reveal, but one can't help but wonder if, from a purely business perspective, Marvel would've been better off just calling the movie "The New Avengers."

As of this writing, "Thunderbolts*" is tracking for a fairly soft opening weekend gross in the range of between $70 and $75 million, domestically. That sounds all right, but for years MCU movies tended to open in the nine-figure range, and "Avengers" movies have always been very profitable for the studio. 2012's "The Avengers" grossed over $200 million domestically on its opening weekend and wound up making $1.5 billion total, over $600 million of which was in the U.S. alone. Every "Avengers" movie has brought in over $1 billion at the global box office, and the fact there hasn't been an "Avengers" film since 2019's "Endgame" means much of the general public is probably chomping at the bit to see a new one.

Had the film been called "The New Avengers," there's a good chance more people would be inclined to come out opening weekend for it. "Thunderbolts*" likely doesn't mean much to the average person, which could explain the softer opening. With positive word of mouth, "Thunderbolts*' could still do very well for itself, especially since it won't have much competition from other action movies until "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" comes out on May 23. From a story perspective, "Thunderbolts*" is pretty cool, but you can't help but wonder if someone from the marketing department is kicking themselves for not leaning into the "Avengers" name.