As the credits for Avengers: Infinity War started rolling, I can imagine that most people had the same reaction, “What just happened?!!” and “How are they going to fix this?”
Before I go on, I’m going to assume that you’ve already seen Avengers: Infinity War. If you haven’t what the heck are you reading this for? Go see the movie first.
Now since we got that out of the way, take a deep breath and relax. I know some people that were deeply upset at the ending. Everyone had their favorite characters and many of them were killed in Infinity War, or vanished with the snap of Thanos’ fingers. That’s a downer, but it’s also powerful.
Up until this point the MCU has been mostly bereft of big consequences. Well, how does losing half the life in the universe sound for consequences?
But this is a movie that’s based on comics, and any fan of comics know that no one is ever truly dead. Do you remember when Superman died? Do you remember when Hal Jordan died? How about Jean Grey, or Captain America, or hundreds of other heroes and villains?
Do you really think that after making $1.3 billion dollars at the box office that Black Panther will vanish in a cloud of dust and never be heard from again?
I can promise you this… no matter how powerful Thanos is, he won’t match the might of the MCU’s most powerful being… Kevin Feige.
So, hopefully I’ve brought some of you back from the ledge and we can start talking about how the Avengers dig themselves, and the universe, out of this big hole.
I want to note that this is being written the weekend of the release of Infinity War. We don’t even know what the next Avengers film title is yet, and there’s two important movies coming up and a year before we know the real answer to what’s going to happen.
I’m just throwing some stuff at you here and doing my best. We’re going to know more and more before the concluding Avengers movie a year from now.
The Comics
This has all happened before in the 1991 six-issue limited series The Infinity Gauntlet.
In the comics Thanos’ motivation is attracting the attention of Lady Death who he has a thing for. Lady Death is concerned that there are more people currently living than has died and wants to restore balance to the universe. Thanos assembles the Infinity Gauntlet, snaps his fingers, and wipes out half the lives in the universe to impress a woman.
Adam Warlock approaches Doctor Strange and asks for the Avengers to help him defeat Thanos and fix the universe. In a moment of hubris, Thanos assumes astral form and Nebula steals the Infinity Gauntlet. Then Thanos tricks Nebula into undoing what he did with the Infinity Gauntlet and Adam Warlock claims the Infinity Gauntlet for himself.
This is not going to be the way things will happen in the film, but it’s informative.
If you can snap your fingers and make something happen with the Infinity Gauntlet, you can snap your fingers and UNDO it.
The Soul Gem (they are called stones in the movie) traps the souls in a pocket universe. You know what that means? All of those people you saw vanish into dust are hanging out there now. In effect, they are the safest beings in the universe because they are off the battlefield right now. When this gets reversed they are all presumably coming back unharmed.
Nebula may still have a major role to play in the movie.
Who is this Adam Warlock guy? He sounds important.
Avengers: Infinity War
Let’s take a look at what we have left after Thanos watches the sunset at the end of the movie.
The Avengers are decimated. Strangely-enough we’ve got a team that resembles much of the original team including Tony Stark/Iron Man, Thor, Bruce Banner/Hulk, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, James Rhodes/War Machine, and a few new heroes, namely Rocket, Nebula, Okoye, and M’Baku. There may be some other characters available but we just don’t know.
I think the team we have left is very informative about where they are going with this (more later).
They will be looking to bolster their ranks and figure out what to do next.
The Next Two Movies
If every movie leading up to Infinity War was setting up that film, you can expect the two films between now and the next Avengers film to be just as supportive.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
I’m already hearing from friends that they are not that excited about Ant-Man and the Wasp. It seems like a silly side-adventure compared to what just happened to the universe.
It’s likely that it will be set before the events of Infinity War, although that’s not certain.
But I want to share a quote with you from Infinity War director Joe Russo who said about Ant-Man and the Wasp,
“I think from a plot standpoint, if there's any corollary, Ant-Man and the Wasp probably has some elements that stitch in [to Infinity War].”
If you’re thinking about Ant-Man you’re probably not thinking about incredible power, but he does have one thing going for him… access to the Quantum Realm where “all concepts of time and space become irrelevant.”
Ah-ha! That sounds important.
Kevin Feige mentioned how important the Quantum Realm was to Phase 3 in his interview for the Ant-Man movie,
“Ant-Man getting on the Avengers' radar in this film and even – this is the weirdest part, you shouldn't really talk about it because it won't be apparent for years – but the whole notion of the quantum realm and the whole notion of going to places that are so out there, they are almost mind-bendingly hard to fathom. It all plays into Phase Three.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/ant-man-saga-paul-rudd-804566
Could Ant-Man use the Quantum Realm to help defeat Thanos? Could it be a back-door to the Soul Stone universe? What if Captain Marvel is trapped in the Quantum Realm?
There are many possibilities, but the Quantum Realm could be an important part of the solution.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel, “Ms. Marvel,” “Binary,” or “Warbird,” has a storied history in Marvel Comics that go all the way back to the 60s. She is literally one of the strongest heroes in the Marvel Universe with superhuman strength, endurance, resistance, and the ability to fly. And while this varies, she’s also got some cosmic-level abilities to harness the power of a white hole, and the ability to harmlessly absorb magic power… that sounds helpful!
We know the Captain Marvel movie is set in the 90s and will feature appearances by Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, and maybe some others. I believe that the movie will mostly be used to introduce the character, but that was 20 years ago… where has Captain Marvel been the last two decades? The answer to that question might be solved in Ant-Man and the Wasp, or it might be a major part of the next Avengers movie.
I’m not sure if she’s the key to beating Thanos, but she unilaterally brings a lot of power to the Avengers team, plus a lot of cosmic experience, and they need those attributes now more than ever.
Wild Card
Remember Adam Warlock from the comics? If you’re not aware, he’s ALREADY IN THE MCU.
At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 we see Sovereign Golden High Priestess Ayesha talk about a genetically engineered being called “Adam” who is in some sort of cocoon.
However, Guardians writer/director James Gunn is throwing cold water on the idea of an Adam Warlock appearance in Avengers 4,
“I had to fight for Adam in the post-credits sequence. Because I really thought that’s where that should go. And I thought one of the main reasons to have the Sovereign in the movie was to give audiences the hint that Adam Warlock is coming. That was one of the reasons for them to exist. And I wrote that post-credits sequence in the first draft of the script. And then there were a lot of questions about whether or not we should put that in there, because people were going to expect Adam Warlock in Infinity War. So one of the things I promised – which I do all of the time on Twitter – is letting everyone know that Adam Warlock is not going to be in Avengers 3 or Avengers 4. It’s just not going to happen. Because I didn’t want people to have false expectations of what they thought was going to happen with Adam.”
http://www.slashfilm.com/james-gunn-fought-to-keep-adam-warlock-credits-scene-in-guardians-2/
The Narrative Angle
I’m going to get into almost pure speculation here so please excuse me. It may go down much different than this.
We know that Doctor Strange saw over 14 million potential outcomes and the good guys only win in one of those. Knowing that he was going to die, he made sure that Tony Stark survived for some reason. He’s going to be pivotal in solving this problem.
Since we mostly have the original Avengers I think the narrative angle they are going for is a bit of a walk-through-memory-lane. The new heroes are mostly off the playing field so the original crowd is going to have one last adventure together with the biggest possible stakes.
Whether it’s through time-travel, or another device (like Tony Stark’s B.A.R.F - “Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or B.A.R.F. – God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus... to clear traumatic memories,") we’re going to look back at the events of the past ten years to either change small things or learn from events.
Captain Marvel is, if nothing else, going to be a major-player in going toe-to-toe with Thanos.
In Iron Man 2 Tony Stark used his father’s research to create an element that is related to the Tesseract or the Space Stone. That could be another piece on the chess board. I think the Quantum Realm is going to play a role too.
The trick is going to be getting that Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos. Once that happens then they can restore all the lives he banished to the Soul Stone universe. After that, Thor and Captain Marvel are poised to kick the stuffing out of Thanos once and for all.
I want to point out that restoring the lives from the Soul Stone won’t bring back anyone who was killed prior to Thanos’ snap. Unless time travel is involved, those lives are lost forever.
With many of the new characters removed, the next Avengers film will be a much more intimate film. You’re going to see the original team fight side-by-side one last time. And unlike Infinity War, the consequences are going to be tragic and long-lasting.
In contrast with Infinity War, there’s going to be fewer characters to follow and longer emotional scenes. You won’t see a repeat of the big battles and packed roster. They stunned us and dazzled us in Infinity War. Avengers 4 won’t be louder or more epic than Infinity War, but it’s going to hurt more.
The characters that most people thought were going to die in Infinity War are going to get a heartbreaking but heroic send-off before it’s all over. If you thought Infinity War was sad, you haven’t seen anything yet.
I’m going to predict right now that we’re going to see a reverse of the scene in Infinity War where Peter Parker dies in Stark’s arms. It makes me misty just thinking about it.
What’s left after the smoke clears will be a clean slate to start the next phase of Marvel Studios films.
It will end on an upbeat and hopeful note. They want you excited about another ten years of movies.
All images are copyright Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics, and DC Comics and used for the purpose of review and education.