We first met Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier when she enlisted John Walker to be her U.S. Agent. Since then, the MCU's new Nick Fury has sent Yelena Belova to take down Hawkeye and attempted to get her hands on Wakanda's Vibranium.
In Thunderbolts, the CIA Director looks set to assemble her own squad of super soldiers, but that's not all she's been up to.
According to a new rumour doing the rounds on social media, the movie's big bad will be a villain created by Val: The Sentry! We're guessing he will be the ultimate super soldier, with something happening to make him one of the most powerful beings on Earth (and how better to take someone like The Sentry down than with a whole team of Captain America-like "heroes"?).
It seems that movie and Captain America: New World Order will have more in common than we first thought as it's said Val will also appear in that story.
There, Sam Wilson, the MCU's new Captain America, is supposedly looking to assemble a team of Avengers to take down President Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, so we have a feeling the two movies will be very closely connected.
It's always hard to figure out what Marvel Studios has planned based on rumours alone, but we're expecting the two stories to inform each other, a welcome development after a Phase 4 that's primarily consisted of standalone adventures. We wouldn't even be surprised if Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Power Broker, is ultimately revealed to be on Val's payroll!
There's currently no word on who will play The Sentry, though Ryan Gosling remains a fan-favourite possibility. We're guessing it will be a big star, though whether the character will stick around beyond this movie is hard to say.
Captain America: New World Order is set to be released on May 3, 2024, while Thunderbolts follows on July 26, 2024.