The Thunderbolts end credit scene explained: what's the connection to Avengers: Doomsday

Marvel's Thunderbolts* opened on May 2, 2025, with two scenes in the credits, and only the second one matters for Avengers: Doomsday. It jumps 14 months ahead to the freshly rebranded New Avengers in their tower, where the AI flags an extra-dimensional ship entering the atmosphere. The ship turns, and the Fantastic Four logo comes into view (Laughing Place's breakdown).

Jake Schreier directed Thunderbolts*, but not that scene. Joe and Anthony Russo shot it, the same pair directing Doomsday, which opens December 18.

"…we left you a little something."

— Joe and Anthony Russo, on Instagram, via ComingSoon

What happens in the two credits scenes

The mid-credits scene is a gag, and the post-credits scene is a status report on where Marvel's newest team stands before Doomsday:

• The cereal aisle: Red Guardian (David Harbour) talks a shopper into picking up a Wheaties box with the New Avengers on the front. She has no idea who he is, and the box doesn't make it to checkout.
• The tower: Valentina has covered the old Avengers Tower in the team's name and logo. Inside are Yelena (Florence Pugh), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Red Guardian and Bob (Lewis Pullman).
• The name: Sam Wilson, who's putting his own Avengers back together, is fighting them over the name, and Bucky's last talk with him didn't go well. Red Guardian's fix is merch that spells it "Avengerz."
• Bob: He lives in the tower and won't use his powers, because he's afraid of bringing back the Void (Inverse).
• The ship: Yelena, with Bucky nudging her along, picks up the signal. The ship rotates, the Fantastic Four logo appears, and the screen cuts to black.

Bob is the detail to hold on to. The scene goes out of its way to establish that the most powerful person in the room has benched himself, minutes before something from another universe shows up.

The New Avengers can't use the name, can't use their strongest member and can't get a stranger to buy their cereal. That's the team Marvel is sending in to meet Doctor Doom.

Whose ship is it?

The Fantastic Four live on Earth-828, the retro-futurist universe of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which came out in July 2025. Before that release, Kevin Feige told Empire that the family's ship is called the Excelsior, and that there's a Fantastic Four ship entering the MCU in the Thunderbolts* tag. Then he added a caveat.

"But I'm not sure they're the same ship."

— Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios president, to Empire, via Inverse

First Steps supplied the other half of the setup. Its mid-credits scene jumps four years ahead: Sue Storm is reading to her son Franklin when she realizes someone else is in the house, and the camera finds a man with Doctor Doom's mask in his hand and a green cape on his back, face unseen (TheWrap).

Feige has since told Marvel.com that Earth-828 will feature heavily in Doomsday, with Earth-616 heroes visiting it, per Inverse. So the ship doesn't necessarily mean the Fantastic Four are moving into our universe. It could be how the two worlds first make contact.

What the Doomsday trailers show

The July 20, 2026, trailer goes straight back to the tower. Thor escorts the Fantastic Four inside to meet Sam, Bucky and Scott Lang, with the Thunderbolts grouped together in the same room (Gizmodo). Elsewhere, Ghost and Bucky stand with Shuri, M'Baku, the Thing and Sue Storm in Wakanda, and Yelena fights next to Sam and Reed Richards at the X-Mansion until Mystique turns into a copy of her (GamesRadar).

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That's the connection, as far as Marvel has shown it. Thunderbolts* ends with the New Avengers watching the Fantastic Four's ship arrive, and the Doomsday trailer has the Fantastic Four standing inside the New Avengers' tower. What the footage doesn't settle is who flew the ship, since in the trailer it's Thor who walks the family in.

Bob is the one who's missing. Pullman is in the Doomsday cast with the rest of the team (TheWrap), but Bob doesn't turn up in the July trailer. The post-credits scene left him refusing to use his powers. Doomsday is about to put him in a world with Doom in it.

Thunderbolts* made $382.4 million worldwide on a reported $180 million budget (Box Office Mojo), and the whole team made the jump to Doomsday, which opens December 18. The last time we saw them, Bucky was suggesting they launch the jets and Yelena was insisting she'd been about to say the same thing.

Previously we wrote: Is Ultron in Avengers: Doomsday? James Spader's non-answer sounds a lot like a yes