Thunderbolts* trailer teases Marvel’s answer to Superman

After a sudden and unusual dearth of Marvel projects, the last couple of months have been quite fruitful for the fans, with Deadpool & Wolverine and Agatha All Along releases, and now the launch of the Thunderbolts* teaser trailer.

Drawing parallels with DC’s Suicide Squad because they share a similar premise, Thunderbolts features a star-studded cast led by Florence Pugh. The film will introduce multiple new characters to add to an already impressive list of names as the MCU keeps expanding with each passing title.

One of these characters is Lewis Pullman’s Sentry, who will be seen in the universe for the first time. He made a small appearance in the trailer, and left fans wondering what this ordinary-looking individual has to offer the supergroup.

However, as we have all seen in superhero movies, appearances can be deceiving. Bob, a.k.a. Sentry, is Marvel’s answer to Superman and is one of the most powerful people featured in the comics so far. The Thunderbolts* do appear light on brute force at first glance, and Sentry could fill that gap for them, being their version of the Incredible Hulk.

In the literature, Sentry has an air of invincibility around him and is shown to be unaffected by bullets. The trailer shows us a brief glimpse of this ability, as Sentry is seen unscathed by a flurry of bullets shot at him that tamely scatter across the ground after colliding with his body.

In the comics, the character’s origin can be traced to Operation: Rebirth, the same project that led to the birth of Captain America. After the success of the operation, researchers and scientists tried to improve the formula and put their hearts and souls into Project: Sentry, but to no avail. The project got shut down, and the laboratory was left to rot by itself until a meth addict named Robert Reynolds stumbled upon it. Unknowingly, Reynolds consumed the Golden Sentry serum, effectively inheriting the power of a million exploding suns.

Created by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, the character made its first appearance in The Sentry #1. Sentry, at times, has a cute companion named Watchdog, who is a super-powered Welsh Corgi. Sentry’s primary abilities include superhuman strength, lightning-quick speed, invulnerability, acute senses, energy absorption, and he can also recreate himself. An intriguing fact about Sentry is that the molecules he is made of are ahead of the current timeline where he is present, making him exist in the past and the future, as well.

Sentry will be played by Lewis Pullman, who’s quite popular in the TV circuit for playing Rhett Abbott in Prime Video’s sci-fi western Outer Range and Calvin Evans on Apple TV+ historical drama miniseries Lessons in Chemistry. His film appearances include Battle of the Sexes, Bad Times at the El Royale, Top Gun: Maverick, and Skincare.

Thunderbolts* will be the last film in the MCU’s proposed Fifth Phase and is set for a theatrical release in the United States on May 2, 2025. Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo, and Lee Sung Jin, the film stars David Harbour, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Geraldine Vishwanathan, Olga Kurylenko, Pugh, and Pullman in notable roles.