Marvel’s Thunderbolts* shows off a spooky new villain

While we don’t know everything about Marvel Studios’ upcoming Thunderbolts* (like what the asterisk stands for), thanks to the new trailer released during the Super Bowl, we have an even clearer confirmation of who the villain is. Seen in the newly released footage as a shadowy form like a silhouette of a caped man, the figure floats like Superman and annihilates people with a hand movement, like Thanos. Given some clues from previous trailers, and a bit of comics knowledge, Thunderbolts* might as well have scrolled a wiki link across the screen. If you want to remain unspoiled for the theater, stop reading now! [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-23-at-11.17.04%E2%80%AFAM.png?quality=90&strip=all] Previous trailers for Thunderbolts* have introduced us to Bob (seen above), played by Lewis Pullman (Outer Range, Top Gun: Maverick), and a few other details that indicate that he’s the MCU’s version of Robert Reynolds, known as the Sentry. As we wrote back in September: > Created by writer Paul Jenkins and artist Jae Lee in 2000’s Sentry miniseries for Marvel’s mature-fare imprint, Marvel Knights, Robert Reynolds wields cosmos-shaking power as the superhero known as the Sentry. Following an encounter with one of the world’s innumerable attempts to reproduce Steve Rogers’ super soldier serum, he gained Superman-like powers — including immense strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, enhanced senses, and solar energy absorption — and some extras, like molecular manipulation and mind manipulation. As the Sentry, Bob has a costume with a cape, and when he’s in a comic, the destructive entity known as “the Void” won’t be far behind — because the Void is twinned with the Sentry, in some way either cosmic or mundane, depending on which era of Sentry stories you’re reading. Again, as we wrote back when: > Is the Void a mirror entity to the Sentry’s powers, or Reynolds’ own alternate personality, as expressed with the Sentry’s powers? Is it a manifestation of Reynolds’ fear of his misusing his abilities, brought to reality by his own psychic strength? Or was that fear itself implanted in Reynolds by a supervillain in order to destroy him and all memories of him? > Thunderbolts* has all of these explanations to choose from, on top of simply inventing their own bespoke version of the Void/Sentry/Robert dynamic. The only real throughline with the character is that he’s a supremely powerful Superman analogue called the Sentry, whose presence attracts an equally powerful evil entity called the Void, which, itself, may or may not be a product of Reynolds’ fragile psyche. How did the Sentry and the Void come to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? For that, we’ll have to wait for May 2, when Thunderbolts* hits theaters.