New Thunderbolts Poster Sneaks In Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man

A sneaky inclusion in a recent Thunderbolts* poster features Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man one more time ahead of the actor's first appearance as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday. The poster itself features silhouettes of all six freshly-dubbed New Avengers walking, with a shadow of one of the MCU's six original Avengers on the floor behind each of them.

The poster pairs up Bucky Barnes with a shadow of Downey's Iron Man — which may seem surprising to fans given both Bucky's long history with Captain America, and rocky history with Tony Stark.

Still, it did make some sense sense to pair John Walker's U.S. Agent with Steve Rogers instead. The other New-Avengers-and-Avengers pairings are Sentry and Thor, Yelena and Natasha, Red Guardian and Hulk, and Ghost and Hawkeye.

This poster, which reads "Careful who you assemble," pays homage to the Avengers: Endgame poster, featuring the shadowed silhouettes of the original six heroes. The image used is not identical — for instance, the Endgame Iron Man silhouette is a bit bulkier at the shoulders than his Thunderbolts* shadow counterpart.

The featured characters were officially declared the "New Avengers" by Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) at the end of Thunderbolts*, which was also recently re-titled as *The New Avengers. The movie stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and the aforementioned Dreyfus, alongside a cast of some of the MCU's favorite misfits and outcasts.

Why Are Bucky and Iron Man Paired Up?

Given that the final fight of Captain America: Civil War came down to Tony Stark being angry that Bucky killed his parents (as the Winter Soldier), and that Steve Rogers did not tell him, it may seem strange to have Iron Man and Bucky paired together.

However, the two actually have quite a few similarities. They both are trying to make up for the wrongs of their past — though, Tony consciously made the decisions he did, whereas Bucky had no choice.

Bucky and Stark also both are the member of the respective teams introduced to audiences first (as in, Tony debuted before any other Avenger, and Bucky debuted before any other New Avenger). Both introductions were in Phase 1, and Sebastian Stan has appeared as Bucky at least once in every phase since.

On top of that, both characters have a longstanding grudge against the Captain America of their own team (Tony with Steve, Bucky with John Walker). They also both are willing to put that grudge on hold when acting as a team needs to be the top priority.