This article contains all the Avengers: Infinity War spoilers.
It’s all been building to this. We’ve enjoyed ten years of movies set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now here we are. Josh Brolin’s Thanos has gotten off his chair and put Earth’s mightiest heroes (and a few of their otherworldly friends) right through the ringer.
In this article, we’re going to try and work out what the events of Avengers: Infinity War mean for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To do that, we are going to delve into all sorts of spoilers from the film’s third act. You’ll only want to scroll past our spoiler squirrel, Daphne, when you’re ready to see these spoilers…
If you’re still here, you’re luckier than half of the characters from Avengers: Infinity War. Let’s get down to it, then…
The MCU is screwed…
Coming out of the cinema and knowing I had this article to write, I couldn’t help but laugh. Where does Avengers: Infinity War leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well, it leaves it with a 50% smaller population than it had beforehand. If you thought these films were getting a bit crowded, there’s your solution!
Despite a couple of fake-out deaths that Loki would’ve been proud of, Thanos survived the film and succeeded in collecting all of the Infinity Stones. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor failed to kill the Mad Titan with his natty new axe, leaving the wrinkly-chinned menace to click his fingers and wipe out half of all life in the universe.
Numerous Marvel icons disintegrated into dust, leaving their dear chums devastated. Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes were among the unlucky ones as the randomly selected genocide rippled its way across the cosmos. Of the Guardians Of The Galaxy cast, only Bradley Cooper’s Rocket and Karen Gillan’s Nebula are left standing.
The Avengers, meanwhile, are stripped down to a far smaller number, with the founder members – Chris Evans’ Captain America, Robert Downey Jnr’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner and Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff – being lucky enough to survive. Don Cheadle’s War Machine is also hanging around still, but Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, Paul Bettany’s Vision and Elizabeth Olson’s Scarlet Witch have all been dusted. (Hawkeye and Ant-Man’s fates remain unknown.)
…but not irredeemably screwed!
You probably noticed that Avengers: Infinity War built in an undo button to all of these deadly disintegrations. The Eye Of Agamotto, aka The Time Stone, can be used to reverse time and bring people back to life.
Just as Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange (RIP) used the Time Stone to torment Dormammu into bargaining during the Doctor Strange movie, Thanos used it in the third act of Infinity War to wind back the clock, undo The Vision’s heroic death and grab dat gem right out of Paul Bettany’s forehead.
If the surviving Avengers and Guardians can steal the Time Stone back from Thanos, they could use it to turn back time and bring their dead friends back to life. Benedict Wong’s Wong presumably knows how to use it, unless he too has been reduced to a pile of ash.
In a bold but effective narrative move, Avengers: Infinity War established that Thanos isn’t just a psychopath who wants to kill one in two of the people in the galaxy. He’s also a normal dude with feelings; he cried when he killed his daughter, and only managed a small smile when he murdered billions of other individuals. Perhaps, instead of stealing the gauntlet from Thanos, our surviving heroes could appeal to his sensitive side and convince Thanos to rewind time on his own?
Avengers: Infinity War may have left a lot of our favourite characters as piles of particles on the floor, but it didn’t consign them to that fate forever. As long as someone who wants to undo all the death ends up in control of the Time Stone, they could all be brought back. Even Zoe Saldana’s Gamora, Idris Elba’s Heimdall and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki – who bit the bullet long before Thanos finished collecting the stones – could potentially be resurrected.
It’s basically on hold, I guess?
Until the as-yet-untitled Avengers 4 arrives in cinemas in April 2019, it seems like the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a state of stasis. As things stand in this beloved movie universe right now, half the galaxy is dead and the other half is mourning. That wouldn’t be a very fun world to set any quip-filled superhero films in.
With this in mind, it’s obvious why Kevin Feige and the other geniuses behind Marvel Studios haven’t scheduled in any solo films for the cast of Infinity War between now and Avengers 4. There’s no standalone story that could distract Cap, Tony and rest of the Infinity War survivors from the task at hand right now: their only concerns would be stopping Thanos once and for all, and undoing the damage he caused.
Now that we know how Infinity War ends, it’s also easy to understand why Marvel’s TV team made the decision to shift Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. into an alternate future timeline this season: half of the world’s inhabitants spontaneously crumbling into thin air is a bit too big a plot point to try and work into the show, although it might’ve been fun to see the S.H.I.E.L.D. writing staff trying to deal with it.
So yes, until Avengers 4 arrives on our screens to presumably set things straight, it seems like the main story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is on pause. We’ll just have to come back in a year to see how Cap and company react to that jaw-dropping final montage.
In the meantime, Ant-Man 2!
Despite the fact that Cap and company don’t have any movies planned between now and Avengers 4, there are two other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies scheduled to fill the gap. First up is Ant-Man & The Wasp, which hits cinemas in August 2018. Releasing a light-hearted comedy just four months after the most devastating disaster in their universe’s history may seem like an odd choice from the Marvel chiefs, but we’re sure there must be some logic to it.
Fan theorists have been suggesting for a while now that Ant-Man & The Wasp actually takes place before Infinity War, despite the films’ release order. The ending of Infinity War makes that theory easier to believe; even Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang couldn’t find the funny in a world where so many people have recently disintegrated.
Placing Ant-Man & The Wasp between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline would allow Peyton Reed’s upcoming film to act as a lovely little palate cleanser. While we wait to find out how the Avengers react to Thanos’ ginormous genocide, we can enjoy a comedic movie with plenty of shrinking and bantering. That should take our minds off of all our favourite characters being dead.
Also, if this theory about Ant-Man & The Wasp’s position in the timeline turns out to be true, perhaps we’ll get to see Scott making his decision – which was mentioned in Infinity War – to hand himself over to the United Nations and submit to house arrest.
Paging Captain Marvel
The other Marvel Studios film that comes out between now and Avengers 4 is Captain Marvel, which will fly into cinemas in March 2019 (slightly more than a month before Avengers 4). Just as Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok set the stage for Infinity War with their endings, we’d expect Captain Marvel to tee up Avengers 4 in some fairly significant ways.
The main plot of Captain Marvel will take place in the 1990s, though. Brie Larson will make her big debut as Captain Marvel (real name Carol Danvers), a fighter pilot who gains the powers of flight and energy projection – as well as enhanced strength, speed and durability – after being caught in an alien explosion. Samuel L Jackson and Clark Gregg will appear in the film, playing younger-than-usual versions of Nick Fury and Phil Coulson.
It seems safe to assume that the Captain Marvel movie will establish the professional relationship between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury, which was teased in the post-credits scene of Infinity War. Just before he disintegrated, Fury managed to send a special message on his pager. The retro device popped up with Captain Marvel’s insignia, which looked a lot like the one from the comics.
Once the main 1990s plot of Captain Marvel is done with, we wouldn’t be surprised if a scene near the end (perhaps a post-credits stinger) jumped forward to show Carol Danvers receiving that very page in the modern day. Just as Captain America: The First Avenger ended with Steve Rogers being brought back into the world with a mission from Nick Fury, a scene like this could make Carol Danvers’ path into Avengers 4 abundantly clear.
It’ll be interesting to see how filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck explain away the fact that Captain Marvel, who has been kicking around for well over a decade, didn’t show up to help the modern day Avengers in any of their previous battles.
Thanos will return
Avengers: Infinity War ended with an ominous sentence: Thanos will return. He may have achieved his life’s goal by collecting the Infinity Stones and halving the number of living people in the universe, but the Mad Titan’s story is far from finished. In a year, we’ll all be flocking to our local cinemas again to see how the Avengers get their own back on the MCU’s most powerful villain yet.
Now that Thanos can turn people to dust on a whim, it’s hard to imagine a feasible storyline where the surviving Avengers would be able to take Thanos down through a fair fight. Even with help from Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, that seems utterly impossible.
Perhaps a bit of fighting dirty could help. Let’s not forget that, during Infinity War, Doctor Strange accidentally chopped a dude’s arm off by closing a portal on him. This seems like a very handy move to deploy against someone whose power comes from a glove. That’s another reason for the Avengers to call up Wong in Strange’s absence.
If a shocking new tactic like that isn’t on the cards, though, perhaps we really will see a crisis of conscience from Thanos. He clearly feels guilt over Gamora’s death, but is that guilt enough to make Thanos hit ‘Control-Z’ his big genocide project? Perhaps we’ll find out next year. Until then, while the main story of the Avengers is on hold, we have two completely different MCU movies to enjoy, and plenty of stuff to ramble about on the internet…