In Thunderbolts* (later branded in‑story as “The New Avengers”), the original Avengers are essentially absent rather than killed off or explicitly disbanded in detail, and the movie uses that gap to justify why a new “Avengers‑level” team steps into the spotlight.

Quick Scoop: What Happened to the Avengers?

  • The film takes place after the classic Avengers era, with the team no longer operating as an active, official unit; they’re treated as something that already came and went.
  • A secret government‑backed “Sentry” super‑soldier project (created after the Avengers were no longer around) goes wrong, leading to an Avengers‑scale crisis in New York.
  • Instead of calling any surviving Avengers, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine uses her own black‑ops assets (Yelena, Bucky, Walker, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, etc.) as a deniable replacement squad.
  • When they save the day from the Void/Sentry disaster, Val spins the story at a press conference and officially brands them as “the New Avengers,” effectively positioning the Thunderbolts as the public successors to the original team.

Why Aren’t the Old Avengers Around?

The movie doesn’t do a roll call of where every original Avenger is; it focuses on the Thunderbolts and only implies the larger context. From what’s shown and what’s discussed around the film:

  • The Avengers as an organization are gone: they’re referred to as a past era, which is why projects like Sentry were created “in the wake of the Avengers’ disbanding.”
  • Their absence is a plot feature: it explains why governments and shadowy groups feel the need to build their own teams and weapons, rather than relying on heroes like in the old days.
  • The film doesn’t show the Avengers dying or being wiped out; it just sidesteps them so the focus stays on this darker, more compromised group of “heroes.”

In‑Universe Status After Thunderbolts*

By the end of the movie:

  • The Thunderbolts are introduced to the public as the new Avengers‑style team protecting the world, even though they know it’s mostly a PR cover for Val’s schemes.
  • The brand “Avengers” lives on, but it’s now attached to this rebranded Thunderbolts squad rather than the original lineup fans know from earlier MCU phases.
  • Fan and forum discussions treat this as Marvel’s way of passing the Avengers mantle in‑universe, with the possibility that future movies (like the big “Doomsday”‑type events) will explore how these “New Avengers” coexist or clash with any returning classic heroes.

In short: in Thunderbolts*, the old Avengers are off the board and mostly talked about as history, while the Thunderbolts are rebranded as “The New Avengers” to fill that void in the MCU.

TL;DR: The movie doesn’t kill or individually explain every Avenger; it treats them as a disbanded, past team and uses that vacuum to elevate the Thunderbolts, who end the film publicly presented as the new Avengers of the MCU.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.