Marvel is back in form with “Thunderbolts”

It's when you think it’s over that Marvel always pulls out the big guns. It already happened in 2023, the last year with a memorable title for the shared superhero universe, when after the disappointing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and before the disastrous The Marvels, the studio managed to deliver a worthy conclusion for the Guardians of the Galaxy team with Vol. 3. And it couldn’t have been foreseen—not now, with 2025 opening with the limping Captain America: Brave New World and preparing to close Phase Five of the MCU with an idea that seemed recycled even before production began, yet might turn into the white horse dragging renewed interest in the universe—at least until year’s end. Thunderbolts is not only Kevin Feige’s villain squad answer to DC’s team of supervillains—ironically, the better of the two versions, The Suicide Squad from 2016, was directed by the same filmmaker as Guardians of the Galaxy, and now future co-head and creative director of DC, James Gunn. But it’s also one of those movies Marvel seemed to have forgotten how to make and that, instead, stands solidly on its own.

In Thunderbolts, there's everything: writing and character development, action as the main vehicle to grab the audience’s attention and entertain them once in the theater, and the right dose of humor that must always balance with the badass soul expected from Marvel titles. But it’s on two key points that Thunderbolts succeeds where the MCU was gradually failing. Two turns Marvel should have relied on during these years of superhero fatigue—yet they form the formula every film, superhero or not, should remember. You always need a good story and characters the audience ends up caring about. It sounds like the easiest thing in the world, but the MCU's recent flops proved it’s not. It also revealed that Marvel might have a co-dependency problem, since its best recent titles are never standalones but follow the team-up rule—which bodes well for the next releases, The Fantastic Four – Origins (coming July 2025) and Avengers: Doomsday (scheduled for May 2026).

Meanwhile, Thunderbolts achieves one of the two outcomes any film should aim for when starting from a disadvantaged position. The anti-heroes of the film didn’t inspire confidence in the operation’s success—too anonymous and barely acclaimed after their appearances across various Marvel projects, where they were always secondary and never gathered the following of a charismatic villain like Loki or a strong sidekick like Bucky (who returns here, again portrayed by Sebastian Stan). Not even Florence Pugh’s Yelena could be considered a certainty—just look at the box office results of the Black Widow film starring Scarlett Johansson, affected by both the Covid pandemic and public disinterest in a side character from the Avengers. Not the best business card for the character's relative, introduced on screen in Iron Man 2 back in 2010, and which still grossed $379.7 million worldwide in 2021—not an outright flop, but below Marvel’s average up to that point.

Instead, in Thunderbolts Yelena/Pugh leads a group of characters who, though previously sidelined, showcase their abilities—and from this sense of inferiority and defeat, deliver a story that ventures into adult and unexplored territory for the MCU. A void Yelena dives into at the film’s start—a stunt performed by Pugh herself on the second tallest building in the world, the Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur—which symbolizes the kind of leap each of them might want to take at least once in their life. Placed at the start of the film, it signals a story shaped by loneliness and isolation. A sadness that digs into depression, unexpectedly handled with maturity by Marvel. The very theme is surprising in such a context, as we watch characters fight, each carrying a trauma rooted in disappointment and suffering. The group of misfits works because each protagonist’s characterization channels a sense of exclusion—which becomes the film’s greatest enemy. It’s tackled with disarming simplicity, straightforwardness, and action sequences that don’t fall short of a Marvel rediscovering some technical vitality.

The family metaphor—feeling united and thus able to overcome “evil,” whatever it may be—is not just a metaphor, but the very theory Thunderbolts is built upon, and one the film believes in as much as the audience will believe the characters’ words. It shows Yelena’s internal struggle, sympathy for the ill-fated John Walker aka U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), whom we met in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and curiosity for lesser-known characters like Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and especially newcomer Bob, played by the remarkable Lewis Pullman. Thunderbolts' narrative paths are smart and unexpected, with a depth that doesn’t swallow the entertainment—nor vice versa. It’s a balance that sees Marvel, at least this time, both entertain and move its audience. A revenge story of losers who, in fact, are not losers at all. But how we feel and see ourselves determines our lives, and it’s important to be mindful of the darkness we sometimes feel creeping in. Mainstream cinema can help, reminding us there's always a way to keep the light on—its light and ours.