Given the MCU‘s other recent superhero team updates, I’m glad Thunderbolts* sets up the New Avengers to have a very different power setup. With the MCU timeline having kicked off with a strong focus on the Avengers, it’s no surprise they’ve been the franchise’s main superhero team for much of the MCU’s run. However, recent history has provided a series of shakeups to this concept, with several other prominent hero groups getting their own time in the MCU big screen spotlight while the Avengers have been absent.

While the Avengers are set to return soon alongside several other notable groups in the story of Avengers: Doomsday, there’s still room for these newer teams to continue alongside them, even if said co-existence may not always be strictly peaceful. This is especially true for the New Avengers, who are established as being in conflict with Captain America’s Avengers from as early as the Thunderbolts* post-credits scenes. However, the different power setup for the group raises the possibility of them serving the MCU well if allowed to continue past Doomsday itself.

Thunderbolts* Itself Jokes About The New Avengers Not Having Much In The Way Of Usable Superpowers

The main cast of Thunderbolts* – and thus the main team within it – are almost all comprised of supersoldiers and ᴀssᴀssins, leaving the group largely with much of the same skillset when compared side-by-side. Indeed, the movie itself even pokes fun at this idea as early as its own trailers, which used a line of Yelena stating, “So, none of us can fly? So what, we all just punch and shoot?“

Naturally, this idea isn’t without its caveats, most notably in that Ava Starr – also known as Ghost – keeps her quantum powers throughout the movie, and, of course, in that Bob is revealed to be one of Marvel’s most powerful heroes with the MCU debut of Sentry. However, Ava reveals she can only use her power to become intangible for a few minutes tops – limiting it considerably – and the limitations of her powers are further underlined by her being defeated by Sentry just as easily as the rest of the team.

On the other side of things, while Bob has immense powers locked away inside him, the Thunderbolts* ending appears to confirm that he won’t be using these powers or unleashing Sentry short of a worst-case scenario, both because of how volatile Sentry himself was, and because of how this risks manifesting the Void once more after the chaos he already wreaked on New York in the events of the 2025 MCU movie. As such, the overall group lineup is one of the more grounded ᴀssortments of heroes in the MCU’s history.

The New Avengers Having A More Grounded Team Looks Wise When Compared To The MCU’s Other More Recent Hero Team Updates

The New Avengers are by no means the only new superhero team roster to have emerged in recent MCU history, though they are notably different to these other teams. 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 brought a new lineup for the тιтular group, with only Groot and Rocket remaining out of the original lineup, and the rest of the group being replaced by Cosmo, Kraglin, Phyla, and Adam Warlock. Similarly, the Eternals’ 2021 debut brought another vastly powerful group into the franchise, and Ms. Marvel seeking to set up the Young Avengers means another one is seemingly on its way.

With all of these teams having a wide array of powers and team members whose abilities are some of the biggest in the MCU’s hero roster thus far, the New Avengers being essentially the opposite of this in many ways makes them stand out all the more. It’s also arguably the more toned-down nature of the abilities of the 2025 team that makes their story work and feel distinct, since the question of how these characters can stand a chance against Sentry and the Void makes up a good chunk of the tension and excitement of the Thunderbolts* plot.

This also makes the prospect of the New Avengers crossing over with other teams in Avengers: Doomsday – as was confirmed by the March 2025 Doomsday cast update – all the more interesting. With the fifth Avengers movie already set to have the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, placing a more grounded team like the New Avengers amongst them should help add a point of comparison for the larger-than-life powers of figures like Professor X, letting them look more impressive in context while showing the New Avengers can still hold their own despite lacking some of the same firepower abilities-wise.

The New Avengers Looking More Grounded In Their Powers Means The MCU Can Mirror The Comics In A Great Way

The New Avengers offers the MCU one of its best chances to replicate a part of the comics that fans have been clamoring for some considerable time for – namely, an ability to have different Earth hero teams and Avengers groups that can deal with threats of different scales, and tackle storylines that the main Avengers either could not or would be unlikely to dedicate a full movie to now the series has grown to such colossal heights. With Marvel’s comics having so many different Avengers factions alongside the main team, following this trajectory in the MCU could go a long way.

Now the MCU Avengers movies serve as such flagship films for the franchise, letting the New Avengers explore adventures that the main team are now somewhat precluded from can allow the franchise to veer into fresh territory – and for the differences between the MCU’s staple hero team and the plucky group of antiheroes who donned a decidedly similar тιтle all the more prominent. In this sense, the New Avengers still get to work as the MCU’s answer to the Thunderbolts in a way, as a faction that intentionally subverts expectations when it comes to Marvel’s superhero teams.

Since groups like the West Coast Avengers still seem some time off coming to the big or small screen – if they indeed do ever appear within the MCU properly itself – the New Avengers offers the chance for the franchise to explore what this kind of territory could look like for them, and experiment with how much they might want to expand in this direction. However, this will all depend on what Avengers: Doomsday holds for the group’s story, and if the New Avengers are able to come out of the Multiverse Saga looking generally unscathed.

Upcoming MCU Movies

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  Thunderbolts*

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  The Fantastic Four: First Steps

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Avengers: Doomsday

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Spider-Man: Brand New Day

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Avengers: Secret Wars

  
  
  
  

  
  

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