A new trailer for "Thunderbolts*" dropped during the Super Bowl, and the few hints it gave about the new villain was enough to stir a little controversy among some Marvel fans.
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00:00A new trailer for Thunderbolts dropped during the Super Bowl, and the few hints it gave
00:04about the new villain was enough to stir a little controversy among some Marvel fans.
00:09Fans already knew that Lewis Pullman would be playing Robert Reynolds, a.k.a. Sentry,
00:13but they didn't know until now just how accurate his portrayal would be to his comic counterpart.
00:18In the comics, the character becomes especially dangerous when his alternate persona, The
00:22Void, takes over.
00:24As Slash Films' Devin Meenan explained in his piece about the Sentry, The Void is not
00:28only pure evil, but he's borderline unstoppable.
00:31The Super Bowl trailer shows that movie Void would be the same.
00:35We see him flying around and turning a random civilian into ash, which sure seems like the
00:40action of a baddie far too powerful for our heroes to handle.
00:43As one Marvel enthusiast tweeted,
00:45"...Sentry is gonna be a lethal threat.
00:48The team genuinely looks horrified going up against him."
00:51Most fans seemed impressed by just how scary Sentry Void seems in this trailer, but also
00:56concerned about the implications of his power within the broader universe.
01:00As one viewer posted,
01:01"...Bob Reynolds better not be a one-off character and defeated by some bulls----."
01:06Another fan on the r slash Marvel Studios subreddit commented on the trailer,
01:09"...How can they beat The Void if they can't fly?
01:12Makes zero sense."
01:13"...So none of us can fly?
01:14So what, we all just punch and shoot?"
01:18Is the villain too strong is an awkward problem for a film to have.
01:21A lot of action films struggle with keeping the stakes high and making the audience believe
01:25that its main characters can truly die at any moment.
01:28With Thunderbolts, however, the problem is that fans can believe in the danger a little
01:32too easily.
01:33For instance, based on how little Taskmaster appears in the trailer, most are adamant that
01:38she's a total goner.
01:39The fans seem to believe Taskmaster will get the same treatment as Slipknot in 2016's Suicide
01:44Squad, who was killed off surprisingly early into the film.
01:48Slipknot's death served a clear narrative purpose of setting the stakes, but it was
01:51disappointing to fans who liked Slipknot from the comics.
01:55Perhaps the main concern among fans seems to be that the villain will cause so much
01:58damage it'll make this movie a bleak slog to watch.
02:02Well, that or the movie will resort to some sort of lazy, deus ex machina to let our main
02:07characters save the day without major casualties.
02:10As the Thunderbolts themselves would be happy to admit, they're not that powerful.
02:14They can't take on someone like Void without a major trick up their sleeve.
02:17"...Stop!
02:18Come on!
02:19Be strong!
02:20Stop!"
02:21"...Where are you?"
02:22"...Where are you?!"
02:24Suicide Squad has often been described as Marvel's answer to DC's Suicide Squad movies, but did
02:28it pick the right one to respond to?
02:29The first Suicide Squad film in 2016 picked a villain that was similarly way too powerful,
02:35causing viewers to wonder why the government thought this team would be the right ones
02:38to tackle the problem.
02:40Meanwhile, 2021's The Suicide Squad picked a villain that felt a little moreā¦ grounded.
02:44Yes, the team eventually has to take on a giant alien starfish, but before that, it
02:49felt like a fairly low-stakes, espionage storyline.
02:52While the choice of villain sure implies that Thunderbolts is making the same mistakes as
02:56the first Suicide Squad movie, the rest of the trailer offers fans plenty of hope that
03:00it isn't.
03:01The trailer promises a character-focused movie that allows these established antiheroes to
03:06bounce off each other in fun, surprising ways.
03:09The dark, comedic tone sure seems a lot closer to the second Suicide Squad film, which most
03:14DC fans agree was easily the stronger of the two.
03:17It's also worth considering the possibility that the Thunderbolts writers have fully anticipated
03:22this fan complaint.
03:23Sure, Sentry Slash Void seems way too powerful in the brief cloaks we've seen of him, but
03:28maybe they've added in a few weaknesses or limitations that he didn't have in the comics.
03:33The trailer was pretty light on the details about the movie's villain, after all, so it's
03:36best not to rush to judgment.
03:38We'll find out the true nature of the movie's big bad when Thunderbolts releases in theaters
03:43May 2nd, 2025.