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“Thunderbolts*” is a little less than two months away which means you’ve still got time for some binging. The cast includes characters from all over the MCU so if you don’t catch up on your homework, you might feel a little bit lost.
Read More: Thunderbolts Turn Marvel Landmark Into Symbol of Darker MCU
Here’s everything you need to watch before seeing “Thunderbolts*.”
DISNEY
The First Three ‘Captain America’ Films
If you need to get to know Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), you’ll need to watch the first three “Captain America” movies. In “Captain America: The First Avenger” you’ll meet who he was in World War II, in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” you’ll see who Hydra turned him into, and finally in “Captain America: Civil War” you’ll see his start on the path to redemption.
The more recent “Captain America: Brave New World” features Stan in a cameo, but it’s too brief to be integral to “Thunderbolts*.”
‘Ant-Man & The Wasp’
In “Ant-Man & The Wasp” you’ll meet Ava Starr, aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). You’ll see the accident that gave her superpowers, and how S.H.I.E.L.D. swooped in to turn her into an asset at an early age. You’ll also learn how the source of her own powers nearly killed her.
‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’
Along with giving us all an update on Bucky, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” introduces us to two characters integral to “Thunderbolts*.”
First there’s John Walker, aka USAgent (Wyatt Russell). Tapped to become the replacement for Steve Rogers, Walker gets his hands on super soldier serum and doesn’t exactly tolerate it as well as his predecessor.
Then there’s Val, aka Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the handler behind the scenes of “Thunderbolts*” responsible for bringing all these anti-hero types together.
‘Black Widow’
No other Marvel project is more important to see before “Thunderbolts*” than “Black Widow.”
For one, it introduces us to more “Thunderbolts*” characters than any other single Marvel project. We meet Natasha Romanoff’s (Scarlett Johansson) adoptive sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and adoptive father Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), both of whom are Thunderbolts members. We also meet a third Thunderbolt: Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).
Finally, we get a post-credits scene with one of Val’s earliest appearances in which she tries to convince Yelena to assassinate Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).
‘Hawkeye’
In the Disney+ series “Hawkeye” we see Yelena on her mission to kill Hawkeye and see exactly how she handles it. It’s also the most recent project to feature Yelena, getting us current with the new Black Widow.
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