THUNDERBOLTS*

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens as Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is infiltrating a lab. She knocks out several guards before finding the research and artifacts that she was tasked with bringing in under orders from Contessa Valentina De Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) for the OXE Group. One of the scientists tries to stop Yelena, warning her about Valentina’s work on “Project Sentry”, but the two fight as the scientist fires at Yelena, ending with him accidentally shooting himself in the face. Yelena manages to get what she needs and has the lab blown up before reporting to Valentina.

In DC, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is now an elected congressman and is part of a trial in which Valentina is being impeached due to carrying out secret operations. She is followed by her loyal assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan). Valentina defends her position by reminding the court of the Red Hulk incident and how the Avengers are no longer around to save the world in times of crisis, so Val feels justified in her actions.

Yelena goes to visit Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour) at his home, where he lives alone. She expresses disillusionment with her work over the years and still feels the weight of Natasha’s death on her. After a talk with Alexei, Yelena calls Val to take on her next assignment.

Valentina has Yelena go to The Vault, specifically to take out a target – Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). When Yelena gets there and prepares to take out Ava, she is attacked by John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell). HE gets shot at by Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). The four fight and shoot at each other until Ava reappears in front of Taskmaster and shoots her in the head. The other three find themselves with a mysterious civilian survivor, Robert “Bob” Reynolds (Lewis Pullman). They quickly deduce that Valentina sent them to target each other, and the other artifacts in the building are property of OXE Group. Val is trying to get rid of the evidence, which includes the assassins. Ava tries to phase through the doors, only for a supersonic machine to disrupt her powers. Yelena finds the power source, and Walker smashes it. Ava manages to get out and open the door for the others to escape as the incinerator turns on.

Yelena finds herself in a memory. She sees herself as as a child (Violet McGraw) luring another girl, Anya (Alexa Swinton), into the woods to be executed as part of her first test in the Red Room. Yelena snaps out of it, as this was a result of her accidentally touching Bob’s hand. They, plus Walker and Ava, try to find an escape out of The Vault. Bob suggests they climb up to the top by locking arms and walking up the walls. They nearly fall when Walker grabs one of Yelena’s batons to pull himself up, but they make it up together. When they make it up, Walker touches Bob’s hand and sees a shameful memory of himself arguing with his wife for paying more attention to news articles about his failure of being the new Captain America instead of their son.

Valentina is at a gala with Mel, where Bucky is also in attendance and working with Congressman Gary (Wendell Pierce) to bring Val down. Bucky approaches Mel and gives her his contact info in case she decides to work for someone more honest. Mel sees surveillance footage in The Vault and reports to Valentina that her targets have now joined forces. Mel later calls Bucky, who encourages her to testify against Valentina, and she tells Bucky to track her own phone.

Valentina brings a team of mercenaries to The Vault to take out Yelena, Walker, and Ava, but she orders them to be non-lethal with Bob since he was the only survivor of the Project Sentry experiments. The assassins try to find their own way out and evade the mercs, eventually disguising themselves in their armor to get out. The guards stop them from fleeing, so Bob exits their getaway van and draws their attention to him so the others can flee. The gunmen open fire on Bob, but he remains unharmed, to Val’s surprise. Bob ends up flying high into the sky but passes out at a high altitude, so he comes crashing back down into The Vault before Val and her men apprehend him.

Yelena, Walker, and Ava walk through the desert to find a way out. Ava brings up Taskmaster, whom Yelena noted was tragically a victim of circumstances like their own. In the morning, the three are found by Alexei, who disguised himself as Val’s limo driver and found out Yelena was being targeted. She is embarrassed that he shows up with the vehicle that he does (an ugly limo that he barely knows how to work), but they get in and start to get away. A convoy of vans start to pursue the four, with the mercs inside firing at them. Ava tries to use her powers but gets blocked by another supersonic ray, but the four are saved when Bucky uses his grenades to take out the vans. However, he tosses a chain to the limo and causes it to flip over.

Bob wakes up and is met by Valentina, who convinces him that, as Sentry, he basically has the powers of a god. She touches his hand and sees a memory of herself as a child, where she accidentally invited into her home a man that ended up killing her father. Bob promises to Val that he can keep his powers under control.

Bucky takes Yelena, Alexei, Walker, and Ava captive. Mel calls Bucky to warn him about Val’s plans with Bob/Sentry, especially since Bob’s records showed that he was mentally unstable when he was recruited for the experiment. Bucky leads the four to go after Val and stop whatever plans she has for Sentry. Val overheard Mel warning Bucky and explains her belief that there are “bad guys” and “worse guys”, and while she knows she is a bad guy, she wants to prevent the worse guys from taking over.

The Thunderbolts (unofficial sarcastic team name given after finding out that was the name of Yelena’s pee-wee soccer team) drive into the city and crash through Valentina’s Watchtower (the former Avengers headquarters), fighting off her guards before taking the elevator up. They are confronted by Val and Bob, who has donned a new suit to become Sentry. The team tries to stop Sentry, but all of their attacks prove useless against him, and he beats everyone up, even ripping off Bucky’s vibranium arm. The Thunderbolts are forced to flee, but Sentry starts to turn on Valentina, believing that he does not need to take orders from her. Before he can choke her to death, Mel arrives and uses a killswitch to knock Sentry out. As Val and Mel leave, Bob’s body becomes enveloped in darkness.

Outside, the team views their efforts as failures since they are just not heroes. As they split up, Alexei catches up to Yelena, who breaks down over how she has nothing going on with her life except her job, and how she’s alone and copes by drinking. Alexei gives her a motivational speech to remind her that she is greater than how she sees herself. Just as Yelena cheers up, they join a crowd looking up to see Sentry in the sky, now becoming The Void. He uses his abilities to turn the citizens of New York into shadows.

The rest of the Thunderbolts reconvene to help rescue civilians, but The Void covers all of the city in total darkness. Yelena resolves to go inside The Void herself and stop Sentry. She ends up in a series of memories, including the one with Anya, and she tries running and fighting through her past trauma until she comes to a room with Bob, looking normal and sitting in there. His traumatic memory is being abused by his father and being blamed by his mother for making it worse by trying to defend her. Yelena tries to talk him out of his depression, as she had earlier told him to shove his negative feelings deep down inside instead of properly dealing with them. The rest of the team enters The Void, but Bob’s Void counterpart taunts him and overpowers the others. Bob starts punching Void, but that’s what it wants from him. Yelena runs through the debris and goes to hug Bob, reminding him that he is not alone. The Thunderbolts join in the group hug, which calms Bob down and is able to pull him out of The Void. The rest of the city and its people go back to normal.

Outside of The Void, Bob has no memory of what happened. The Thunderbolts proceed to go after Valentina, but she saves her own skin by putting together a press conference and announcing that putting the team together was her plan all along, as she announces them as the next team of Avengers (this also shows that the asterisk in the film’s title is for “The New Avengers”). While the crowd cheers on the new team of heroes, Yelena reminds Val that this means her ass belongs to them now.

Mid-Credits Scene: Alexei goes to a supermarket where he finds that the New Avengers are featured on a Wheaties box (referencing an earlier line of his). He unsuccessfully tries to get another woman there to recognize him, and to buy the cereal.

Post-Credits Scene: 14 months later, the New Avengers have garnered a mixed public reception. Some accept them as their new heroes, others don’t. Sam Wilson in particular is trying to sue them for their name. Bob is also forced to keep his powers under control for fear that The Void will come back. The team then gets word of a space crisis, and an unidentified aircraft entering Earth’s atmosphere. From the team’s surveillance cameras, they find the aircraft, and on the side of it…a giant 4.

The final text promises that the New Avengers (and Bob) will return.

Yelena Belova has found herself in a funk after committing to carrying out secret operations for Contessa Valentina de Fontaine. When Val is being impeached for her operations, she has Yelena, plus Ava Starr/Ghost, John Walker/U.S. Agent, and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster assigned to kill each other and get rid of any evidence that can implicate Val. Ava kills Taskmaster, but the others realize they have been set up, alongside a mysterious civilian named Robert "Bob" Reynolds. The assassins reluctantly end up working together.

Once Val realizes that the team can either expose or kill her, she finds that Bob is the sole survivor of Project Sentry, which was designed to create a superhuman in the wake of the Avengers' disbanding. Since Bob is mentally unstable, him becoming Sentry would become a major threat. Yelena, Walker, and Ava team up with Bucky Barnes and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian as the Thunderbolts (working name) to stop Val and Sentry. However, he proves to be too powerful for all of them to take on. When he nearly kills Valentina, her assistant Mel stops Sentry with a killswitch, but this triggers his other alter ego, The Void, to come out and start to envelop New York City and its citizens in total darkness.

Yelena enters The Void and is haunted by painful memories until she is able to reach Bob. The other Thunderbolts enter and try to help Yelena intervene. They are able to calm Bob down and stop The Void from spreading, saving the city and its people. Before the Thunderbolts can kill or arrest Val, she spins the narrative to the public that it was her plan all along to introduce the team as the New Avengers. However, this also means that the team can choose to expose Val if she crosses them again.

As the New Avengers adjust to their new roles, they learn of a space crisis and spot a spacecraft entering into Earth's orbit, one with a large 4 painted on the side...