Thunderbolts* ending: why did the Fantastic Four show up?

The surprise at the end of Thunderbolts* (2025), starring Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Sebastian Stan, was that this team was being set up as the new Avengers. The Fantastic Four also appeared in its end credits. Marvel asked people to keep that reveal quiet only until after opening weekend, but I waited longer so more people could see the movie. The New Avengers have a long history in the comics, and they might tie into the Fantastic Four in the future.

That history changes how you see this team if you only know the movie.

The New Avengers formed after a breakout at the Raft

There was a time in the comics when there was no active Avengers team. Wanda, mourning the loss of her children, tore the team apart and killed Scott Lang, Hawkeye and Vision in the process. Whoever was left was dealing with that profound loss and decided to disband the Avengers entirely. Tony Stark, who had been funding the team, also said he would no longer do that.

The world still needed superheroes, though. The New Avengers formed after a huge breakout at the Raft, a prison in New York City. Luke Cage was already there to escort Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson to a meeting with Sentry, who was imprisoned at his own request. Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man joined the fight. Then they discovered the breakout had been orchestrated by the Skrulls, and Spider-Woman was one of them.

They got things under control, but not without loss. Forty-two inmates escaped. It was Steve Rogers' idea to form the New Avengers, and he explained to Tony that the team should exist to handle tasks no single hero could manage alone. Spider-Man and Luke Cage joined Captain America and Iron Man. Daredevil declined because he didn't want to compromise the team. They wanted to invite Sentry too, but he was suddenly nowhere to be found.

Maria Hill, Electro and the hunt for the escaped inmates

The team was put in contact with Maria Hill, the director of SHIELD, who was less than enthused about a nongovernmental team of Avengers. Steve Rogers pointed out that he held a full champion license that let him assemble a team whenever he deemed it necessary.

The new team traced the prison break back to Electro. They added Wolverine in case lethal action was needed. In the Savage Land, they ran into Yelena Belova. While they kept rounding up the escapees, they also tried to work out what kind of threat Sentry posed. He agreed to help the team when he could, but his mental state sometimes left him incapacitated. Upon request, they built Sentry's watchtower at the top of Stark's tower, which forced Captain America's point that they would end up being a team again.

The public debut and Luke Cage's wedding to Jessica Jones

After operating in the shadows for some missions, the New Avengers were unveiled to the public at a press conference covered by the Daily Bugle, run by J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson heaped scathing criticism on the new membership and highlighted repulsive aspects of their lives.

Around this time, the Avengers celebrated Luke Cage's wedding to private investigator Jessica Jones. Yelena Belova interrupted the ceremony after AIM transformed her into a Super Adaptoid, essentially a one-man Avengers team, a bit like Taskmaster. Acting under Hydra's machinations, she was hard to beat, and the Avengers struggled to stop her. When she was defeated, her employers sacrificed her to hide their identity. Then the Avengers were free to carry on with the wedding party.

Civil War split the New Avengers

In the aftermath of Civil War, which split the New Avengers between the two sides, the team found asylum with Doctor Strange in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Under Cage's leadership, the fugitives Spider-Woman, Spider-Man and Wolverine were joined by Iron Fist, who had supported Captain America during the crisis.

Captain America was still alive and being kept inside the Raft. When the New Avengers tried to rescue him, they found out it was a trap set by Iron Man, who had the Avengers attack them with power dampening technology. Thankfully, Strange was able to teleport them away.

Was Sentry ever really a New Avenger?

When Norman Osborn got his hands on the official Avengers team, he filled his roster with supervillains. One of them was the mentally unstable Sentry. That group was not well received by the original Avengers. Clint Barton was offended by what Osborn had done to the Avengers' reputation and publicly denounced it on live TV.

The Thing was a New Avenger from 2010 to 2013

So why were the Fantastic Four in the end credits, beyond the fact that theirs was the summer Marvel movie? Here's the thing. I'll admit I keep making that joke because I find it funny every time. Jokes aside, The Thing was a member of the New Avengers from 2010 to 2013.

When the New Avengers returned from being under Steve Rogers' supervision, Luke Cage was not comfortable operating after such a long time hiding from justice. As an alternative, Rogers gave Cage free jurisdiction to assemble his own team of New Avengers on his own terms. Tony Stark gave them the reformed Avengers Mansion as their headquarters. Rogers' only condition was that Victoria Hand, Norman Osborn's former second in command, act as liaison, because he felt she could offer important insight to the team.

With Iron Fist and Jessica Jones at his side, Cage gathered most of his former allies, with one new addition: The Thing from the Fantastic Four.

The Eye of Agamotto storyline and Squirrel Girl at Avengers Mansion

When the Eye of Agamotto possessed Cage, Doctor Strange and Daimon Hellstrom, who had also been corrupted by demonic forces, came looking for him. Once Doctor Strange regained control, Iron Fist took the Eye of Agamotto and was banished to another plane after the intervention of Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Voodoo. That opened a rupture in reality and left Earth vulnerable to a hellish invasion.

The New Avengers realized the spirit of Agamotto himself had reclaimed the item. They challenged Agamotto to a mystic duel and sent a mystically empowered Wolverine as their warrior. Doctor Voodoo intervened and sacrificed his life to make sure the power hungry Agamotto was defeated. Reality was protected, and the Avengers returned to the mansion.

Strange ended up joining the team, Wong came to help around the house, and Squirrel Girl was hired as Luke Cage and Jessica Jones's babysitter, which is fun. It feels very Avengers Tower, a bit like 2012 fan fiction. And that doesn't even begin to cover the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four teaming up to fight the Skrulls.

Where the Fantastic Four might fit on the road to Avengers: Doomsday

The end of Thunderbolts* showed that the Fantastic Four are coming to the MCU's universe, but at the time I wrote this, a few things could still happen on the way to Doomsday. We could keep the New Avengers lineup as it was already established. Or the team could become a rotating roster, with people hopping in and out around a core group. If there turns out to be no full Fantastic Four team, The Thing could be someone who swoops in to join the New Avengers.

I'm interested to see which of the Fantastic Four survive, because the movie promos showed a lot of Future Foundation material. In Future Foundation, Johnny Storm is dead, and Spider-Man fills that last spot because Johnny asked him to. We don't know who is in that spaceship; it only has the logo on it. There could be nobody on it, only Franklin, only a handful of the Fantastic Four, or it could be the Maker. It could even be Herbie by himself. Because of the branding they used for the Fantastic Four in that universe, I don't know if they will make the Future Foundation team happen in anything going forward.

It does seem to me that they are replacing the Battleworld idea with the Beyonders with notable characters who already exist in the MCU. So we might see Sentry, Loki and other powerful characters become pivotal points that Doctor Doom tries to draw power from, instead of the Beyonders or Molecule Man, since the MCU didn't have them yet. I was excited to see what the Fantastic Four movie would bring. But I do think Ben Grimm would fit well into the current New Avengers lineup, and I'm hoping they get to hang out for a while. I think it would be fun.