"Thunderbolts*," with its stylish fight scenes and commentary on mental health, was a breath of fresh air for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. /Film's own BJ Colangelo praised the film as "the type of movie the MCU needs right now." It's kind of a minor miracle it works as well as it does since the central team is made up of C-listers, like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), reprising their characters from 2021's "Black Widow." Seeing as how important that film is to Marvel's
"Thunderbolts*," it's kind of surprising Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), Yelena's makeshift mother, is nowhere to be seen.
She hasn't been completely absent from the MCU since 2021. She shows up in a season 2 episode of "What If...?" titled "What If... Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?" The animated installment picks up from the season 1 episode where Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) receives the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers (voiced by Josh Keaton in place of Chris Evans). The sequel episode sees Peggy realize Steve has been brainwashed by the Red Room to carry out devious missions, and Melina is the one controlling his brainwashing. It's her own undoing, as she dies by the end of the episode when Steve breaks free of her machinations, sacrificing himself in the process.
Melina is dead in whatever universe that particular "What If...?" story occurs in, but she's very much alive in the Sacred Timeline (read: Earth-616). She easily could've had at least a cameo in "Thunderbolts*," but it didn't happen.
Read more: Every Marvel Character Locked Up In The Raft
Rachel Weisz Never Got The Call To Appear In Marvel's Thunderbolts*
To be fair, many MCU characters disappear without an explanation. It just kind of comes with the territory of a massive interconnected universe that's increasingly more interested in exploring alternate realities. Some folks are bound to be left behind, and Melina probably just wouldn't have a lot to do in future Marvel movies. Weisz also wasn't anywhere to be found in the lengthy "Avengers: Doomsday" casting announcement, so no one should hold their breath for Melina to pop back in anytime soon.
ComicBook.com did talk to Rachel Weisz back in 2023 about whether she knew of any plans to bring Melina back into the superhero fold. Her answer wasn't promising:
"No one's mentioned her to me for quite some time. I think she's still living with her pigs that she experiments on. She loves her pigs, they're buddies."
In a world as chaotic as the MCU, maybe carving out a living on a farm isn't the worst fate to undergo. It beats having to deal with universes collapsing on themselves or disappearing into a shadow realm because Bob (Lewis Pullman) has a bad day.
ComicBook.com wasn't specifically asking if Melina would return in Marvel's "Thunderbolts*," and there doesn't seem to be anything about why she didn't appear there. The most likely answer is that no one wrote Melina into the script, so they didn't need her. The movie already has a massive cast, and throwing in Yelena's mother figure, when she already has a father figure to give her a shoulder to cry on, may have been seen as superfluous. Weisz isn't struggling for work anyway; she's set to star in the upcoming Netflix limited series, "Vladimir."
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
