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Yelena Belova stands in an elevator in Marvel's Thunderbolts.
Image via Marvel Studios

The Thunderbolts Trailer May Solve a Major MCU Mystery

Thunderbolts isn’t just going to assemble a new team in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It looks like it’s also going to answer a question fans have had since 2017: Who owns Avengers Tower?

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What Happened to Avengers Tower?

Avengers Tower (nĆ©e Stark Tower) is one of the MCU’s most recognizable landmarks. It served as the Avengers’ first headquarters. The team abandoned the building following the events of 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, though, and moved to a new facility in upstate New York. Tony Stark briefly maintained ownership of the tower, but it’s revealed in Spider-Man: Homecoming that he decided to sell it.

It has never been stated who bought Avengers Tower from Tony. That question has consequently emerged as one of the subtler mysteries of the MCU in recent years. Some viewers have speculated that everyone from Wilson Fisk/Kingpin to Kang the Conqueror may have been Tony’s mysterious buyer. Now, though, it looks like fans may finally know who currently owns the building in the MCU.

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Is Avengers Tower in Thunderbolts?

The Thunderbolts walk through a revamped Avengers Tower together.
Image via Marvel Studios

There are plenty of noteworthy moments in the first trailer for Marvel’s Thunderbolts, including a desert-set attack by Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) on Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and several other characters. The biggest twist in the Thunderbolts* trailer may, however, be hiding in plain sight.

Indeed, shortly after the trailer’s release, keen-eyed MCU fans noted online that the location where the Thunderbolts meet with CIA Director ā€‹ā€‹Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) looks a whole lot like Avengers Tower. The bar on the left of the above image looks, in particular, very similar to the one where Tony pours himself a drink during his iconic confrontation with Loki in the third act of The Avengers.

Assuming it is Avengers Tower featured near the end of the Thunderbolts trailer, that suggests that either Val herself or the CIA bought the building. That’s a bit surprising, but it also makes sense. Val has, after all, been actively recruiting various MCU characters ever since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Now that she’s on the verge of assembling her own superhero team, it’d be fitting for her to start using Avengers Tower as it was once intended again.

Fans will find out whether or not Val really is the current owner of the MCU landmark, as well as what her plans for the tower may be, when Thunderbolts hits theaters on May 2, 2025.


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Author
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Alex Welch
Alex Welch is a contributor at The Escapist with over 10 years of experience in the online entertainment industry. In addition to his work here, Alex's writing has been published by various other outlets, including Inverse, Digital Trends, IGN, A.frame, Primetimer, Looper, Screen Rant, TV by the Numbers, and Paste Magazine. When he's not writing about movies, TV, video games, and TTRPGs, you can find him making new Spotify playlists, working too slowly through his TBR pile, replaying Ghost of Tsushima, and daydreaming about being in the Criterion Closet. He is based out of Los Angeles.