Marvel’s Thunderbolts: The Top Theories About That Title Asterisk

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* trailer has Marvel Cinematic Universe fans buzzing – and yet one of the biggest trending topics about the movie is its title. Eyebrows were raised when Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige presented the official Thunderbolts* title logo with an asterisk at the end. Feige teased that the asterisk was very much intentional and that by the end of Thunderbolts* fans would understand all too well why it was necessary. 

Naturally, MCU fans have been dropping all kinds of theories about why Thunderbolts* is titled Thunderbolts*. Now that the trailer has dropped, there are two leading theories about why Thunderbolts* is playing with its title in this way. 

Why Marvel’s Thunderbolts Has an Asterisk in Its Title

It’s A SUICIDE SQUAD – There’s a lot of speculation that Thunderbolts* is actually Marvel Studios’ version of DC’s Suicide Squad. There’s precedent for it in the comics: Wilson Fisk/Kingpin once formed his own Thunderbolts squad and sent them on a high-risk mission to help defeat Knull, the symbiote god; from the look of the trailer, and past rumors, that could certainly be the case for this Thunderbolts* movie. 

The trailer footage seemed to make it clear that characters like Yelena/Black Widow II (Florence Pugh), John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) are all lured to a facility that looks like a Saw-style death trap, and houses “Bob” (Lewis Pullman) who is also the mentally-broken superman known as The Sentry. Add other MCU espionage agents like Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and Thunderbolts* seems like it could turn out to be a major “cleaning” operation, where some of the MCU’s biggest spies and assassins all get clipped in one fell swoop, after carrying out some game-changing high-risk mission (like freeing The Sentry). 

By the time the movie is over, the Thunderbolts “team” may be down to just one or two survivors (if that). It would be a bold and shocking twist for an MCU film – the kind the franchise could use right about now. 

These Are The NEW AVENGERS – The other big theory is that Thunderbolts* is titled with an asterisk because “Thunderbolts” isn’t the actual title of the film! Based on Marvel Comics lore, many fans think that Marvel Studios will finally introduce the MCU version of “Dark Avengers.” 

After the comic book version of “Secret Invasion” took place, Norman Osborn exploited public distrust of heroes to rebrand his team of Thunderbolts as Avengers. Osborn used Starktech armor to become “Iron Patriot,” while villains took on hero mantles, like Bullseye becoming “Hawkeye” or Mac Gargan’s Venom posing as Spider-Man. These ‘Dark Avengers’ operated in the public eye, until the heroes were eventually able to rally and oust the villains from controlling the levers of society.

There’s speculation that the story of Thunderbolts* will turn out to be a twisted sort of recruitment test and team-bonding exercise. Even if some members of the team don’t survive, the ones who do will presumably be tapped to be part of a not-so-heroic Avengers team. While no one really expects Marvel Studios to ever use the title “Dark Avengers,” there is another way they can go… 

 It could turn out that the word “Thunderbolts” never appears in the actual film – that the movie will start without revealing any title card, and at the very end, we’ll see a title that reads “The Avengers,” “New Avengers,” or “Secret Avengers” in a major twist reveal. Maybe it will be a single-word flip, and Avengers* will become the final punchline of this title game. 

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* has a release date of May 2, 2025.