Thunderbolts* Turns Avengers Tower Into Valentina's Watchtower, and Sentry Looms Over It

In the run up to Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios put out a new trailer, and Empire magazine published new stills along with details nobody had heard before. The biggest was that Avengers Tower no longer belongs to the Avengers. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine bought it from Tony Stark and renamed it Watchtower. I think that detail, and why she did it, tells us a lot about the film's darker tone and possibly about how the team deals with Sentry.

Empire's coverage also gave some insight into how the characters relate to each other. Pieced together with the trailer, it hinted at how the movie might end, or at least how this group could manage to bring down a villain who is close to a god.

Sentry is a nearly godlike threat for a team without real superpowers

Sentry is essentially like a god. He has telekinetic powers, he can fly, he has superhero strength, and he can turn people into shadows. That's a lot to go up against, especially for a team that doesn't have true superpowers. Some of them have the super soldier serum or an equivalent of it, and some versions are better than others. Compare Bucky with the Red Guardian.

The trailer shows Sentry throwing the Red Guardian out of a window of what we assume is Avengers Tower. There's no way he survives that fall. I do think he gets pulled back in, but if he were let go, he'd be dead.

The Thunderbolts* trailer pointed to a darker side of the MCU

Empire ran its photo of Valentina, surrounded by her personal soldiers, in an article titled around the idea that Avengers Tower is now Val's Watchtower, "a symbol of things taking a darker turn." The trailer backed that up. The film was clearly going to have a darker side. One weird and creepy scene shows Yelena going to check on somebody, and it turns out to be her.

Another new scene shows Sentry sitting on a table. Whoever was there working on him, whether doctors, nurses or scientists, he turned into shadows. They're dead now. I don't think the people he turns into shadows will suddenly be brought back to life once the Void is defeated. The Void is the true villain of the Thunderbolts in the comics, and when it comes to New York City there, it kills millions of people.

For a more serious, darker Thunderbolts movie, I think those people have to be fully dead. The film has to show the true threat of not just Sentry but the Void. Sentry inherently wants to be good. The Void is the dark subconscious part of Sentry, but it's also a separate entity, and it's the evil part.

Why Valentina renamed Avengers Tower as Watchtower

According to Empire, the tower has a new owner these days. It's the headquarters of Val, the mysterious and murky CIA director played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She was previously seen recruiting disgraced Captain America wannabe John Walker for future service at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which is harsh but hard to argue with, and sending Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova on a murderous mission in Black Widow. Under her reign, Empire wrote, Avengers Tower "is now known somewhat ominously as Watchtower."

Director Jake Schreier told Empire: "We know what that Tower means." He pointed out that it was once the tower Tony Stark owned, then asked, "who's the person you would least like to own that tower that means so much to so many people? Can you use that as a symbol of things taking a darker turn?" So the shady head of the CIA, who we've already seen get her hands very dirty contracting people to kill other people, now owns it.

My theory: Valentina is behind the creation of Sentry

In the trailers, Valentina says the Avengers are not coming, and it sounds like she wants them out of the way. Why? Because she wants her own team. She wants to be the leader of a new type of Avengers team, one she can fully control, and she does it from her Watchtower.

To me, this almost certainly confirms she is behind the creation of Sentry. She created him, he became too powerful for her to deal with, so she gets the Thunderbolts to try to take him out. That's why, in the first trailer, it seems like she sent this group there. They weren't the Thunderbolts yet, but she sent them to take him out and then tried to take them out as well. No loose ends.

That's why they all end up going to the tower to confront her. That scene will probably amount to them asking why she sent each of them on the same mission to kill this overpowered individual, tried to get them to kill each other, and then tried to kill them herself. Then Sentry shows up, which leads to the Red Guardian going through the window. This is most likely because Valentina can somewhat control Sentry, but I'm assuming she loses control over time and the Void takes over more.

In the comics, Watchtower belongs to Sentry

Here's what's interesting about the new name. In the comics, the Watchtower is Sentry's base of operations, his headquarters. It was there before Tony Stark bought and built the new Avengers Tower. The movie is essentially swapping that around.

That shows how big Sentry is going to be in Thunderbolts*. Marvel hadn't teased him much, which I think is a good thing. Once the team gets past Valentina, they'll mostly be going up against Sentry and the Void, and it's almost a suicide mission. That's why, even before the first trailer, many people were saying Thunderbolts* would be like the Suicide Squad.

Empire frames Thunderbolts* as the MCU's Toy Story 3

Empire published another photo with an article titled around the idea that Thunderbolts* would be the MCU's Toy Story 3. In it, Schreier talks about the influences he drew on, including Reservoir Dogs, Ronin and Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. He said it wasn't focused on a genre so much as the dynamics among characters. They all share the dynamic of a team that is thrown together. Empire added that the characters of Thunderbolts*, like those in Toy Story 3, are facing obsolescence.

Schreier said the furnace sequence "works so well because you've come to care about these characters so much. Can they get out of that trash can together?" He described a group of characters that have done many bad things and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves. "There's an element that does speak to mental health and loneliness and how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can't be necessarily fixed but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others."

Is Taskmaster going to die in Thunderbolts*?

Since the movie is going to be dark, I'm still assuming Taskmaster doesn't make it through. In the new trailer, when the characters are announced, Yelena, John Walker and Ghost are named, but Taskmaster isn't mentioned at all, and she isn't even in the trailer. That could be misdirection, but she didn't appear much in the earlier trailers either.

Maybe she simply doesn't have much screen time. Maybe she leaves to do another mission. Or maybe Marvel was hiding her to bring in the real Taskmaster, Tony Masters, which was a big theory going around. In that version, it's no longer Antonia Dreykov, and Valentina has managed to recruit the true Taskmaster from the comics.

The other option is that they kill her, probably pretty early on, to establish that some of these characters will die and that there are actual stakes. The Suicide Squad did that, killing many characters off at the beginning, and I mean James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, not the first one. Since the film was being sold as dark, I'm assuming some people die.

The Void may be behind the Thunderbolts' hallucinations

It seems like the movie will have a twisted scene, maybe several, where some of the Thunderbolts are hallucinating. This is most likely the Void attacking them, and maybe not to kill them but simply to mess with them. The Void has many powers, and psionic power is one of them. It can use telepathy and has power over people's minds.

So the scenes in the trailer that don't seem real, the ones that look like something out of a horror movie, are the Void using its mind control and its power over darkness to make these characters experience some of their worst fears. That fits what Empire said: they'll have to face what they've done in the past. Maybe they don't feel good about themselves, and while there's no fixing the past, there's coming to terms with it, with friends alongside you to help.

My verdict: Thunderbolts* looked like a sleeper hit

Overall, I thought the new trailer was amazing, and the Empire articles revealed a good amount about what to expect from Valentina and the Thunderbolts. I expected the film to be amazing, and I thought it would be a sleeper movie for many people, who would go in not knowing what to expect and come out with their minds blown. I thought it was going to be a massive hit and a massive success for Marvel.