Thunderbolts: Marvel's anti-hero ensemble movie has a lot of pressure to perform

Avengers: Endgame was released in 2019, bringing an end to the Infinity saga and wrapping up the stories of superheroes such as Iron Man and Captain America. It felt like a satisfying conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - although there was a promising slate of movies and streaming shows still to come.

But since then, the hype around Marvel seems to have died off completely, save for excitement around Spider-Man: No Way Home and some cameo-baiting in the most recent Doctor Strange movie. Now, after years of “meh” movies, streaming shows that were total duds and massive controversy around the franchise’s leading villain - leading to Robert Downey Jr getting a call to take up the mantle of Dr Doom - it seems Marvel is little but a shadow of what it once was.

And now we have the Thunderbolts, a team of anti-heroes from a bunch of films and streaming shows that nobody saw.

With the original Avengers movie, we had a clear-cut run of movies that introduced each individual superhero (save for Hawkeye and Black Widow) before they teamed up on-screen. Not only did it feel organic, it felt earned - and we as an audience felt rewarded for watching the movies that built up to it. For those who went in blind, as it were, the film also did a solid job of bringing you up-to-speed on who these superheroes were, and what they were like as people.

But then you look at this Thunderbolts line-up, and it couldn’t be further from that.

Ghost was the villain from Ant-Man and the Wasp, so fans have barely had a chance to get to know her as a character; the same goes for John Walker, who featured in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series on Disney+.

In fact, the only three characters people can really connect with are Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Alexei (David Harbour) from the Black Widow movie, and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) - who is the aforementioned Winter Soldier and who has been in multiple movies at this stage. But the movie just has so much ground to cover, as well as introducing the character of Sentry (think Superman, but for Marvel).

The superhero franchise is on a losing streak, and desperately needs a win before the Avengers make their long-awaited return. The Thunderbolts will have to deliver when the film comes out next year.