If you've seen Thunderbolts* — or as we know it now, The New Avengers— then you'll know it doesn't drop its real title until just before the credits roll. While Marvel fans were expecting a scrappy team of antiheroes doing dirty jobs for a shady boss, what they got was a full-on rebranding of Earth’s Mightiest Misfits. But that twist wasn’t the only surprise. According to screenwriter Eric Pearson, the final cut of Thunderbolts* could’ve looked very different — and it nearly included some major Marvel characters from across the MCU.

While Thunderbolts* features Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) teaming up before ultimately becoming the New Avengers alongside Red Guardian (David Harbour), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and Sentry (Lewis Pullman), earlier drafts had some seriously wild additions. “There was a point where I wanted Red Hulk to be the villain,...