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‘Thunderbolts*’ Teaser Reveals Mysterious New MCU Organization

Originally posted on Murphy's Multiverse
By Charles Murphy | Last updated Sep 24, 2024 11:53 AM ET

Much has been made about the changes that have taken place behind the scenes at Marvel Studios since Bob Iger returned to Disney. The number of series and films has been reduced, productions have been paused, rewritten and reshot and the fates of others seemingly lie in the balance as the Multiverse Saga is being reworked on the fly. Slightly less attention has been paid, however, to the not-so-subtle shift in the typically tight-lipped studio’s marketing approach.

Projects such as Agatha All Along and The Fantastic Four: First Steps seemed to serve as guinea pigs for fun new strategies to engage the public far sooner and more directly than what the studio had done in the past. Additionally (and perhaps driven by leaks) teaser trailers for upcoming films, such as 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World, started making their way online earlier than in the past.

Thunderbolts*, another 2025 project has also utilized some non-traditional strategies to gather some momentum. Earlier this year, star Florence Pugh released a staged, behind-the-scenes video from the film’s set which revealed a slight change to the film’s title with an asterisk being added. That asterisk has driven dialogue online as fans speculate and theorize about just what its inclusion might mean and the studio has certainly embraced if not encouraged the discourse. In addition to that bit of fun, the studio also sneakily dropped an extended teaser for the film on September 23rd, more than seven months before it hits theaters. And while the fine folks at Marvel Studios did their best to keep their secrets, they did leave one clue in the background that reveals the identity of a mysterious new organization that will be introduced to the MCU in the film.

At the 1:33 mark of the trailer, after Pugh’s Yelena Belova recovers from the attempt by Wyatt Russell’s John Walker to kill her, a symbol can be glimpsed on a crate over Belova’s left shoulder.

Though the symbol is at an odd angle, upon a little zoom, zoom, zoom and a boom-boom, it can be recognized as a fancy combination of the letters O, X and E. And while it may not be as easily recognizable to fans as other members of Marvel’s alphabet soup club such as S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D., O.X.E. is an established organization from the pages of Marvel Comics and it has ties to one of the main characters in Thunderbolts*.

Iterations of O.X.E. exist in both Marvel Comics’ 616 and Ultimate universes and while the true nature of either entity isn’t actually too clear, they were both founded by… Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. After first appearing in The Falcon and The Winter Solider, the MCU’s version of Val–played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, has been busy recruiting her own team of operatives such as Walker and Belova. And if it wasn’t already clear enough after watching the teaser, Val is using her O.X.E. facility as a holding tank for Lewis Pullman‘s “Bob” and has sent all her cronies there to die, whether by Bob’s hands–or eyes–or by each other’s, as she seeks a new position within the U.S. Goverment. It’s also very likely that the masked gunmen who are given the unenviable task of shooting up Bob are Val’s O.X.E. goons.

Of course, the teaser has plenty of other fun reveals such as Val’s now comic-accurate hair, improved new looks for Ghost and Taskmaster, the Sentry belt logo and a renovated Stark/Avengers Tower. From the looks of it, ~~Black Widow~~ 2 Thunderbolts* may have greatly benefitted from the delays it faced as it the script was rewritten and polished up by several writers over the past couple of years. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see what role, if any, Val and O.X.E. play in the MCU or if it was just an easy organization to write in as a one-off.

Thunderbolts* is set to arrive in theaters on May 2, 2025.

This article first appeared on Murphy's Multiverse and was syndicated with permission.

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