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So it’s a bit of a jolt at the start of “Thunderbolts*” to see Florence Pugh’s world-weary warrior Yelena Belova blaming monotony for the funk she’s in. She’s tired of doing the dirty work of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who is assembling a new superhero group to protect a post-Avengers world — and also to do her evil bidding.

Not even a daredevil leap from the world’s second-tallest building in Kuala Lumpur, while on yet another dubious mission for de Fontaine, can rid Belova of the feeling she’s neither super nor heroic.

But boredom is just one of many cranial stressors in this mental health edition of the MCU, where feelings of depression, loneliness, childhood trauma, low self-esteem and a desire for redemption are endemic to characters good and bad. Onscreen therapy comes with the popcorn.

Belova finds herself forced to work with an unhappy band of misfits gathered from disparate Marvel film and series dating back to “Captain America: The First Avenger.” They include Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). New to the MCU is Bob (Lewis Pullman), a confused fellow who enters the action in pyjamas and bare feet, hinting that he’s more than meets the eye.

The sneering and cynical de Fontaine considers them all “defective losers.”

Since this is by rights an origin story, despite the MCU history of most of the characters, the film spends much time bringing the players together, limiting how much we can get to know them. Pugh and Pullman prove themselves the most capable of rising above the din.

To say this gang doesn’t get along is like saying there will soon be fists flying and buildings toppling in a Marvel movie. The Thunderbolts*, though, are more fractious that most super egos. They can’t even agree on a group name, much less trust one another.

The asterisk in their handle stands for a reveal that’s supposed to be funny but isn’t. (You’ll have to stick around for the end credits, as usual.) It’s more like what standup comics call a “long walk” for a joke that comes up short.

That asterisk does honestly indicate, however, that this movie is not quite what it seems. It’s being sold in the trailers as a comedy in the vein of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” where a ragtag group of squabbling troublemakers discover fellowship while saving the universe.

Laughter comes easily to the “Guardians” saga. Not so much to “Thunderbolts*,” which is directed by Jake Schreier, who helmed the TV road rage dramedy “Beef.”

Schreier and screenwriters Eric Pearson (“Black Widow,” “Thor: Ragnarok”) and Joanna Calo (“Beef,” “The Bear”) are more interested in their characters’ emotional storms as they question their identities and actions. Their exteriors are equally messy, with facial scars, mussed hair and makeup and stitched-together costumes.

The Thunderbolts* are truer to the original Marvel Comics ethos than many of their MCU forebears. Marvel was the favoured read of teens fighting existential angst in the 1960s, back when Spider-Man was feeling guilty for selfishly failing to stop the petty thief who later killed alter ego Peter Parker’s beloved Uncle Ben.

Shot in desaturated colour by cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo, “Thunderbolts*” looks grimmer than “Guardians of Galaxy,” which revelled in its primary hues.

Black is the signature shade of “Thunderbolts*.” It’s the colour favoured by the Void, a beady-eyed entity introduced mid-film who reduces pedestrians to a dark sidewalk stain during the film’s biggest street tussle — Schreier taking his cue from the way the atomic bomb disintegrated the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

All this may give “Thunderbolts*” a greater sense of realism, but is this what moviegoers are looking for when they flock to a Marvel flick? And this one marks the unofficial start to the summer blockbuster season, a time when big ideas usually go on vacation.

I would have preferred less Sturm und Drang, and more attempts at comedy — though, to be fair, the script’s best lines are handed, with a flourish, to de Fontaine. She prowls through the film like a cat who’s read Machiavelli and found it wanting.

Her finest moment comes when she’s once again dressing down her long-suffering personal assistant (Geraldine Viswanathan): “Righteousness without power is just an opinion,” a sentiment that could be embroidered on the throw pillows of any number of current politicians.