It's been almost a decade since Tony Stark announced himself to the world as Iron Man, and Nick Fury snuck into his house to tell him about the Avengers Initiative. When the Initiative was on the precipice between failure and fruition, good ol' Nick delivered his famous monologue about bringing together 'remarkable people' to fight the battles ordinary people never could.
This is the line that opens the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, which is by now accepted to be the end of the road for most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as we know it. What follows, is enough content to set the hype train rolling until May next year.
If you haven't watched said video yet, check it out now before reading on.
Done? Great. Here's some stuff from the trailer worth talking about, in no particular order:
Meetings, matchups and reunions
Anyone who managed to watch the grainy leaked footage from the Comic-Con trailer for the film would know Thor meets the Guardians of the Galaxy, presumably after the ship he and Loki were travelling in was blown up by Thanos. The new trailer added precious little on his involvement, so how Thor and the Guardians contribute to the fight is still up in the air. Thor is still sporting cool eyepatch here, and the fate of Mjolnir is still a mystery for now.
Bruce Banner ends up back on Earth (seemingly via his favourite method, crashing through the roof of what appears to be Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum), reunites with Science Bro Tony, and hits the streets to watch the world begin to end. Banner is also reunited with old flame Black Widow, and the two are later seen teaming up against Alien Army #347, aiding badass, beard-sporting Captain America (who may just get his Shield back, but which, like Mjolnir, doesn't make an appearance here), a defrosted Winter Soldier, Black Panther and what looks like a fully active War Machine.
In other news, the relationship between Scarlet Witch and Vision teased in Civil War has blossomed, and we see Paul Bettany sans all the CGI for a short while, before seeing the inevitable agony caused by the attempt to remove the Mind Stone from its unfortunate placement on his head.
Avengers: Thanos' Fetch Quest
Long awaited big bad Thanos finally makes his appearance, displaying the right amount of power and a suitable level of menacing. This film looks like it has him feeling the water, collecting the Infinity Stones and generally powering up while knocking a few Avengers around. He's got the Power Stone and the Space Stone already by the looks of things (as Loki clearly couldn't resist flicking the Tesseract again, talk about dysfunctional relationships), and most likely the Mind Stone and the Time Stone that Dr. Strange carries around will be added to his gauntlet.
Shields and suits
So, Cap's Shield and Mjolnir may be AWOL, but looks like Spider-Man has finally taken that Iron Spider(?) suit that mentor/father figure/aunt stalker Stark made him. It also appears he does possess Spider Sense, something which was not explicitly hinted at in previous movies. Speaking of Iron Man, he seems to have realised the gravity of the situation, because the Hulkbuster armour makes a return, and that means something is about to go down. Ant-Man and his cool suit were conspicuous in their absence, as this trailer seemed to want to keep the focus on the original Avengers and their side-kicks, and of course, Black Panther, who has the coolest line in the trailer (Get this man a shield!).
And now, we wait
DC finally got its heroes together in Justice League, but Marvel has far more character development and universe-building already done, and that looks like it is going to play into Infinity War's favour. With many of the original Avengers' contracts ending after this film and its sequel, this story is likely to be the end of the road for some of our favourite heroes. Here's hoping for a fitting finale.