Thunderbolts* finally resolved the mystery of who owns Avengers Tower. Way back in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, we learned that Tony Stark had sold the skyscraper that Earth's Mightiest Heroes called home, but its buyer was kept a mystery until this past May.
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and O.X.E. had spent years renovating the building, using it as their headquarters for all manner of shady experiments (like The Sentry's creation). Forced into an uneasy alliance with the Thunderbolts, the Tower is now used as the base for the New Avengers.
During Thunderbolts*, Val hosts a party which includes several pieces of Avengers artefacts she appears to have inherited along with the former Stark Tower. In the newly released "Art of" book for Thunderbolts*, we learn that Steve Rogers' destroyed shield was once set to be among them.
Captain America's shield was shattered while battling Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. We never learned what became of it, because when Steve returned to the present day as an old man, he presented Sam Wilson with a new and improved version.
As for why this didn't make it into Thunderbolts*, we'd bet on it being a result of Marvel Studios not wishing to commit to revealing any more about Cap's fate than they had to before figuring out his role in Avengers: Doomsday.
"We were definitely aware of it," Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier recently told us when we asked how aware he was of Daredevil: Born Again's plans for the Big Apple. "But we felt like the one thing that...obviously, these questions always come up in these movies of, 'Why wasn't this person there?' There are a lot of things in the world, and we always felt like our movie is so contained."
"The whole thing takes place within a matter of a couple of days, and so there's an immediacy to the threat [of The Void] and to the problem. So not only did we try to build a story where this particular antagonist, [the Thunderbolts] are the perfect people for it, because it's about common cause or an understanding of what that person's going through."
"I mean, no one else could even possibly get there like that," Schreier continued. "It's such a particular moment in time, and it happens so fast that those questions of martial law or this or that, I mean, it's all within an afternoon, and so we we could kind of not take that on and feel like it was still believable within that world, so that each story could kind of go on its own path, and wouldn't feel like they were stepping on each other."
You can check out more concept art from Thunderbolts* below.
In Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes - Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.
Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
"Thunderbolts* redefines superhero storytelling to deliver a moving and powerful story that does for the 'Multiverse Saga' what The Avengers did for the 'Infinity Saga' in 2012," we said in our review. "These heroes have earned their place on a Wheaties box."
The cast of Thunderbolts* will be led by Florence Pugh as Yelena Boleva, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and Lewis Pullman as "Bob."
Written by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, and Joanna Calo, and directed by Jake Schreier, Thunderbolts* is now available on Digital, 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and Disney+.