Who is Thunderbolts' mysterious character Bob, aka Sentry?

The first trailer for Thunderbolts* has landed, and while the promise of various Marvel villains teaming up is appealing there's one character who has unexpectedly taken the spotlight — Bob.

Lewis Pullman's character, whose full name is Robert Reynolds, all but stole the show from the likes of Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan's Yelena and Bucky with his impromptu appearance in the teaser. He introduced himself simply as "Bob" to the film's villains after breaking out of a box, but the character is one that has an important history in the Marvel comics.

Read more: Everything we know about Marvel’s Thunderbolts

In fact, Bob could prove to be one of the key characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond what happens in Thunderbolts*.

Who is the mysterious Bob, aka Sentry?

The character was originally set to be played by Steven Yeun, but Pullman replaced him after Yeun had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts. A shot of the character's iconic belt buckle in the trailer confirms that he is really Sentry, and Thunderbolts* is the first time that the character has appeared in live-action form.

Robert Reynolds is a character that first appeared in the Marvel comics in 2000, the character struggles with memory problems and in the comics comes to recollect various adventures he had as Sentry with teams like the Fantastic Four.

Watch: The trailer for Thunderbolts*

He is said to have the "power of one million exploding suns" which he got after being given a super soldier serum just like Captain America.

As well as once being friends with Earth's mightiest heroes, Sentry comes to learn that he is connected to an evil being just as powerful as himself — the Void. In the comics it is revealed that the only way to stop the Void was to make the other heroes forget him, and Doctor Strange erased him from everyone in the world's memories including his own.

Sound familiar? Tom Holland's Peter Parker does something similar in Spider-Man: No Way Home, although the character does it because the multiverse begins breaking, and he keeps his own memory of what happened over the course of the movie.

Read more: Every upcoming MCU movie

While it's not clear how Pullman's Bob will fit into the Thunderbolts* team, it appears that the characters memory loss will be a part of his original narrative that is transferred into live-action. There's many ways in which the film could interpret the character for a new audience, and it's one that Marvel fans will no doubt be interested in seeing the film unpack.

Why does the title for Thunderbolts* have an asterisk?

Another question that Marvel fans have is why the title of the movie was changed to Thunderbolts*, with an asterisk. Marvel has not yet confirmed why there is an asterisk at the end of the film's title, but it could well be because the movie is not actually called Thunderbolts at all.

The team that appear in the film —which is comprised of Yelena, Bucky, Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko)— are also known as the Dark Avengers in the Marvel comics, and this could well be what the film is actually called in the end.

Marvel’s answer to Suicide Squad

The Thunderbolts team is Marvel's answer to Suicide Squad, as the narrative centres on a group of villains who begrudgingly team up in order to achieve a shared goal. In the movie this is their discovery that someone, likely Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, wants to get rid of them.

Each character has a dark past that has caused them to be the villains of various Marvel titles, like Ant-Man, Black Widow and The Falcon and Winter Soldier. Thunderbolts*, much like both Suicide Squad movies, will give comic book fans the chance to see another side of the villains, and come to understand and empathise with them.

Whether the Thunderbolts* team is sent out on dangerous missions that no one else wants to do under the order of a strict leader, in this case Valentina, is yet to be seen. But it wouldn't be unlikely for that to turn out to be the case.

Thunderbolts* premieres in cinemas on 2 May, 2025.