We’re less than two months away from Thunderbolts* landing in theaters to close out Phase Five of the MCU and introduce the antihero team that has been teased for years at this point. The film is set to be a sequel to Black Widow, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and a few other properties due to the involvement of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She’s the Nick Fury for this team, showing up to add other names to the fold and invite them into the organization. Plenty of questions are still lingering shortly ahead of the film’s premiere, including the nature of Sentry in his MCU debut. But we’re hopeful the movie will help solve and close the book on another lingering issue we’ve had since the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
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Fans are now well aware that de Fontaine is the latest owner of the Avenger’s former home in Stark Tower. What still lingers are questions surrounding how and why the building ended up in the hands of the shadowy power player.
Battle of New York
The building was introduced in The Avengers. It was originally known as Stark Tower, until after the invasion of Manhattan, when it was made the headquarters for the Avengers through the end of Age of Ultron, with the building being torn to shreds by the end of both films.
Before Infinity War and Endgame, the building had been mentioned in connection to the team’s move to a Stark warehouse in Upstate New York, as seen at the end of Age of Ultron. Before the team takes on Thanos, the tower is mentioned one final time during Spider-Man: Homecoming when Vulture (Michael Keaton) attempts to steal several weapons and Stark tech. The building avoids most of the action this time around, but it does give us a firm timeline for when the building was still in Tony Stark’s control and that it was on the way to being sold.
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So, the question that lingers for Thunderbolts* is an explanation about how the building landed under the control of de Fontaine. We’re also curious if this is going to be an official change or if the building will fall victim to Sentry in the new film. It does seem like there are quite a few pieces of a building strewn about the New York streets in the trailer.
After the Endgame
What we do know is that by the events of Hawkeye, Stark has sold the building to a mystery buyer. It’s not clear if Stark himself did the sale or if it was after his heroic demise in the Battle of Earth against Thanos. We do know there were plenty of running theories, including the introduction of Oscorp to the MCU and that Wilson Fisk’s Kingpin bought it upon his return shown in Daredevil: Born Again. These turned out to be false.
The building also got a bit of a makeover in Spider-Man: Far From Home, hinting that the sale came closer to Stark’s death than Hawkeye would indicate. By the time of Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World, de Fontaine had taken over the building and renamed it “The Watchtower.”
“We know what that tower means,” Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier told Empire. “Who’s the person you would least like to own that tower, that means so much to so many people? Can you use that as a symbol of things taking a darker turn?”
The CIA owning the former home of the Avengers is certainly a scary prospect in the real world. It’s a little more concerning in the MCU when the unstable Sentry is brought to the building to reveal his power. It could be a short run for The Watchtower if what is hinted at by the trailers happens. We’ll see how that plays out once Thunderbolts* lands in theaters on May 2nd.
Do you have a theory on what happens to the former Avengers tower once the Thunderbolts move in? Let us know in the comments.
