Did ‘Thunderbolts’ new look finally reveal who bought Avengers Tower?

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One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest lingering questions may finally have an answer.

Marvel Studios released a special look at its forthcoming team-up movie Thunderbolts at D23 Brazil on Saturday, and the three-and-a-half minute video shows CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) pouring herself a glass of champagne in a very familiar-looking bar at the top of a New York skyscraper.

“How crazy is it to think of all the monumental fights that happened exactly here where you’re standing?” she asks the titular crew of antiheroes. “I mean, the place wasn’t cheap, but it’s got good optics.”

‘Thunderbolts’.

Marvel Studios/Youtube


Though the trailer doesn’t explicitly state it, the space that Valentina occupies appears to be a remodeled version of Avengers tower, which Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) first began converting into a home base for Marvel’s biggest super-team at the end of 2012’s The Avengers. Tony memorably poured himself a drink at an extremely similar bar during a confrontation with Loki in that first crossover film.

The skyscraper, which had previously been called Stark Tower until it was damaged in the Battle of New York, featured heavily in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, but we haven’t seen it since 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, in which Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) moves a ton of the Avengers’ paraphernalia and mementos out of the building after it’s sold to a mysterious new buyer. The tower hasn’t shown up beyond a few blink-and-you’ll-miss it moments in other MCU projects, and fans haven’t gotten any update on its status since Homecoming (though some of the Avengers did visit a version of it in an alternate dimension in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame). 

In the seven years since Homecoming, fans have rampantly speculated about who might have bought the tower, throwing names like Norman Osbourne, Reed Richards, Wilson Fisk, and Victor Von Doom into the conversation. Now, it seems all but confirmed that the space will be used as a base for Valentina’s reluctant new team of super-soldiers and spies (Florence Pugh’s Yelena even jokes about how similar her teammates’ abilities are at the end of the trailer: “So what, we all just punch and shoot?”).

Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes in ‘Thunderbolts’.

Marvel Studios


The video also features an extended sequence that shows Yelena; her adoptive father, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour); Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen); and John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) under attack on an desolate road. 

They’re not quite quick or strong enough to defend themselves from a militant convoy, so the quartet is thrilled when an unseen force takes down their pursuers from behind — and it’s eventually revealed to be the Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). “It’s the Winter Soldier! That guy’s so cool,” Alexei says.

Bucky has a brief Terminator 2–esque moment when he wields a shotgun while riding a motorcycle, successfully defeating the final vehicle in the convoy. The four heroes breathe a sigh of relief — until Bucky takes aim at them, launching an explosive disk similar to the ones he used in Captain America: The Winter Soldier at their vehicle.

The implications here aren’t great for Bucky. After finally breaking away from multiple movies of intermittent Hydra mind control, is he back under the influence of another malevolent power? At best, he’s hunting down fellow superheroes with complete control of his actions; at worst, he’s under the spell of a new master.

Thunderbolts blasts into theaters on May 2. Watch the full special look above. 

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