Did Marvel Studios just confirm their new ‘Avengers’ lineup?

Marvel … you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do! Did you think you could just name-drop your newest Avengers and we wouldn’t notice? We’ve been looking, waiting, and wondering why the old gang has been absent. You better spill.

New lineup? Hold the phone, chief. What?

Alright, so Marvel Studios has been cranking out Avengers movies at a pace of about one every three years. At least, they were. During the Infinity Saga (you know, the most expensive movie series ever produced? Hollywood vs. Thanos?) a new Avengers movie would drip down the studio pipeline to remind us who the real stars of the show were. If the saga was a book, the Avengers movies were chapters (and Ant-Man was a footnote, I guess).

But where have all the Avengers movies gone?

Despite a couple of rough starts, we are well into the Multiverse Saga—you know, the one where you have to watch 30 separate TV series and movies all at the same time to have a clue what’s going on?—but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the Avengers. The only thing I saw assemble recently was a sorry bunch of multiversal Deadpool variants that got their asses kicked by Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds, healing factor be damned.

But according to the internet sleuths on Reddit, the Avengers may be assembling sooner than we think.

A recent Reddit post from two Disney insiders claimed that the Avengers will indeed be appearing in the upcoming Marvel flick Thunderbolts*. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced at the San Diego Comic-Con of 2022 that Thunderbolts* would indeed be the final installment of Phase 5 and named Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, and Hannah John-Kamen as the cast members of said film. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with all the Multiverse Saga biz (I know, there’s a lot of it) you’d know that each of those actors has appeared in separate Marvel films and shows as costumed crusaders (of sorts). Does this mean that these are the “New Avengers”? Is that what that strange asterisk in the title stands for? You’re telling me that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an Avenger now? Dear Marvel God, let it be so.

But alas, we cannot say for sure. The Reddit report says that the super people assembled in the Thunderbolts* film may instead be a Suicide Squad-esque collection of anti-heroes mistakenly called the bonafide New Avengers. It is indeed possible that some of these characters may become members of the New Avengers at some point, but right now, there’s no way to know for sure. C’mon Kevin Feige, shoot straight with us. The only thing we need assembled is answers.

Thunderbolts* is set to be released on May 2, 2025.