Avengers: Infinity War – which superheroes are about to meet their doom?
It’s easy to forget, almost a decade into the phenomenally successful MarvelCinematic Universe (MCU), that there was a time when studio bigwigs worried about audience recognition. Next year’s Avengers: Infinity War will have a roster of superheroes so populous that it’s easy to imagine lesser-known costumed crime fighters (we’re talking about you, Hawkeye and Falcon) struggling to squeeze into even the widest of widescreen shots. It’s going to be crowded.
And yet it’s unlikely the studio will bother to enlighten those viewers who have watched only a handful of the saga’s 18 (so far) episodes. And, while it’s possible to pity the fool who goes into Avengers: Infinity War cold (“Why is a talking space badger bantering with a moody teenage tree monster?”), it’s not as if the other movies aren’t out there for the uninitiated to dive into at their leisure.
However, the overpopulated nature of this pioneering cinematic universe suggests that, to retain the natural ebb and flow of the macro-saga that has made Marvel such a surprisingly organic experience, some of these characters will have to be put out to pasture in order for new heroes to get more screen time.
The emergence of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange means we now have three potential rivals for the mantle of Avengers alpha, along with Chris Evans’ Captain America and Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man. And that’s before even newer figures such as Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther or Brie Larson’s soon-to-arrive Captain Marvel are taken into consideration. All in all, it might be a good thing that the Earth is about to come under attack from a demigod who in the comics is obsessed with death. For Josh Brolin’s Thanos might be just the alien despot to help reduce an ever-expanding list of superheroes to more manageable numbers.
There are even clues in last week’s debut trailer for Infinity War that some of the Avengers are about to get popped. Can Paul Bettany’s Vision survive having the Mind Stone, one of six Infinity Stones that Thanos needs to gain ultimate power over reality itself, pulled from his bonce? What brutal horrors are Tony Stark and Tom Hiddleson’s Loki crying over?
After the events of Thor: Ragnarok, many fans were left wondering if Bruce Banner’s personality had become fully submerged into that of the Hulk, though the trailer suggests we’ll get to see at least one more turn for Mark Ruffalo in human form. Still, the line from Ragnarok in which Banner worried about being lost for ever if he transformed into the great green meanie again must surely have been flung in for a reason. Might Infinity War see the Hulk’s human alter ego finally meeting his own demise?
It’s worth remembering that we’ve been here before. Captain America: Civil War was widely predicted to see at least one Marvel big beast cop it, but all Tony Stark and Steve Rogers managed to do was beat each other to bloody pulps. Avengers: Age of Ultron featured a trailer in which Stark predicted there was “no way we all get through this” – yet they all did.
