Since the asterisk was revealed to be a prominent part of Thunderbolts’ title, fans have wondered what it meant. At first, it seemed to indicate the future team’s displeasure with the name Red Guardian christens them with. That’s very much the case in the film, but there’s also more to it than that, which you’ve probably already seen online thanks to fans and Marvel itself. (A source close to the project told io9 that the reveal is not intended to be permanent, just a marketing maneuver to pay off the asterisk.)
After saving Bob from the all-powerful Void within him, the team spot Val, the woman responsible for New York’s recent chaos. They walk over to apprehend or kill her, but it’s a feint: they’ve stepped into the sight line of press Val summoned so she could announce them as the new Avengers—further emphasized during the end titles, which transitions from Thunderbolts to New Avengers, complete with a new logo and Alan Silvestri’s theme.
Who are the New Avengers? Created in January 2005 by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch, the team was formed in the aftermath of 2004’s Avengers Disassembled storyline when Electro attacks the supervillain prison the Raft. Spider-Woman, Daredevil, and Luke Cage, already onsite, team up with Captain America, Iron Man, Sentry, and Spider-Man to stop the riot. Forty-two inmates escape, prompting the heroes—sans Daredevil and Sentry—to form a new team and track the missing villains, with Wolverine joining shortly after. The New Avengers were a premier team during the mid-2000s, lasting through the Scarlet Witch and Magneto’s House of M, the superhero Civil War, the Skrulls’ invasion of Earth, and the rise of the Dark Avengers.
There’ve been a few iterations of the New Avengers since Bendis and Finch’s initial version, and Thunderbolts’ cast were all part of either team (or both) at some point in their individual comics histories. Bob/Sentry, Bucky, and Val’s assistant Mel—aka Songbird—have been New Avengers during its handful of runs, while Yelena, Red Guardian, US Agent, Ghost, and Taskmaster were on the Thunderbolts at least twice.
Whereas the first New Avengers in the comics just generally happened to assemble, the Thunderbolts have typically been brought together for a specifc purpose. (One of its most recent incarnations, for example, came together to kill the Red Skull.) The movie does a little of both: Val summons Walker, Yelena, Ghost, and Taskmaster to her compound so they can kill each other and tie up her loose ends, then stick together to save Bob from her clutches and being groomed into the Sentry. In pretending to be superheroes, these Thunderbolts somewhat resemble the comics group’s core concepts of villains playing at being good to pull off crimes, then reformed villains redeeming themselves through heroics.
What purpose do the New Avengers have in the MCU? Val mentions a few times in the film the need for a new superhero team to protect America, though by the time of the post-credits scene, they seem to have lost public favor and are in the middle of a trademark war with current Captain America Sam Wilson. Sam doesn’t make an appearance, but he apparently has his own team of Avengers, which currently appears to just include his protege Joaquin Torres as the new Falcon. But those discussions will have to wait, because they’re seemingly the first to be aware of a rocket potentially containing the Fantastic Four coming to Earth, paving the way for both teams’ inclusion in Avengers: Doomsday.
Both Doomsday and its sequel Secret Wars look to be incorporating threads from Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic’s 2015 multiverse-focused event. The New Avengers had a part to play in that, too: the relaunched book in 2013 from Hickman, Steve Epting, and Mike Deodato was actually about the Illuminati, who were devoted to stopping multiversal Incurions. (Reed Richards, Beast, Professor X, and Namor have been members of that team, and they’re all appearing in Doomsday.) During the “Time Runs Out” storyline building up to Secret Wars, then-Avengers member Sunspot created his own team of New Avengers to deal with that threat, plus end quash the war between the core Avengers team and Illuminati.
After the reborn Marvel universe post-Secret Wars, the New Avengers were rebranded into the U.S. Avengers in a 2017-2018 run from Al Ewing and Paco Medina, and haven’t been seen since. But in Val’s insistence on an America-focused team, the movie appears to have the spirit of that offshoot team in its DNA.
Where the cinematic New Avengers go from Doomsday and on will be seen throughout the years. For now, Val has the team she promised the people, and the New Avengers have the second shot their members have been hoping for—plus leverage on Val if she ever reneges on them.
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