It sucks that Marvel Studios has me salivating so much.
The studio released the first “official” trailer for Avengers: Infinity War. I say “official” because the trailer that was shown at D23 and San Diego Comic-Con was not released for general consumption. Semantics aside, allow me to gush for a bit:
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way…
There is way too much to unpack. I’m gonna have to resort to bullet points here. Here are the more notable things I saw. Also, be warned: there will be spoilers for previous MCU films.
- Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is the first person we see. He seems to be brooding like he did after Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) implanted the vision of dead Avengers in his head in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
- Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) seems to have crashed into the Sanctum Sanctorum of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Strange and Wong (Benedict Wong) look on, and you see the hole in the ceiling that Bruce Banner/Hulk left.
- Scarlet Witch and Vision (Paul Bettany) are having a tender moment. Except it doesn’t look like Vision; he looks like…Paul Bettany. Vision can do that, you know. He can change his physical form because he’s a Barney Badass. He has the Mind stone on his forehead here. That’s important for later.
- Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is on the Milano, the Guardians of the Galaxy’s spaceship. His back is turned. That’s also important for later.
- Banner and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen) share a smile. Notable points: Natasha is now blonde (which is, like, the 185th hairstyle she’s had during the MCU), and Banner is standing next to a piece of the Hulkbuster armor. Also important for later.
During that whole sequence, the speech Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gave during The Avengers is being recited by different Avengers. This is all before the Marvel Studios logo is shown. When the logo starts winding up, the Avengers theme plays somberly. I had goosebumps. I’m such a tool.
It continues. Instead of the play-by-play, I’ll resort to impressions and notable things:
- Seeing characters from different movies together really cements how awesome the shared continuity in the MCU is for a comic book geek like me. Seeing Strange, Wong, Banner, and Stark standing together hits all the geek buttons in my brain.
- So does watching Peter Parker (Tom Holland) have his Spider-Sense go off. Small things like that (also seen in the D23/Comic-Con trailer) make me feel invested in this universe. I know the references, so I almost feel like an insider.
- Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has the Tesseract! I KNEW that slimy bastard took it from Asgard!
- I swear, Thanos (Josh Brolin) must have the most awesome garage in the universe! We saw the Sanctuary II in the mid-roll credits scene after Thor: Ragnarok. Now, he has some Halo-looking ride. Anyone have the number for Xzibit? I wanna see him pimp THAT ride!
- Thanos’ appearance is so cathartic, I can’t even express my feelings coherently. If the DCEU cannot make the reveal of Darkseid this impactful, then the entire DCEU needs to be scrapped and redone. That’s not even a personal opinion; it might actually be federal law!
- Also, the next person who tells me the MCU has a “villain problem” is getting 10 straight across the face. Thanos is THE biggest baddie to ever grace a comic book movie. EVER! I think even the late Heath Ledger’s Joker pissed his trousers seeing him!
- The Iron Spider is a thing! Again, it was shown in the D23/Comic-Con trailer, but it’s here for all to see. Oh yeah, shit is getting real.
- The greatest line in this whole trailer comes from Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman): “Evacuate the city. Engage all defenses. And get this man a shield.” “This man”, of course, is Captain America (Chris Evans), who has grown quite the beard and has been shield-less since the events of Captain America: Civil War. Hearing T’Challa say that, then showing him punctuating the last bit, was magic!
- HULKBUSTER!!!
- Do you want more confirmation that Thanos is the baddest motherfucker in the cosmos? Well, how about watching him absolutely CHOKE SLAM the Iron Spider? I swear, I’ll roundhouse kick then next person who says Marvel doesn’t know how to do villains! And I only have one good leg!
- You see it! You see someone yank the Mind Stone from Vision’s forehead! It’s a thing! Considering how powerful Vision is, this will decimate the Avengers’ ability to deal with Thanos. You know, assuming Scarlet Witch is still some Hot Topic Emo Wiccan that doesn’t realize she controls FUCKING CHAOS MAGIC and can wreck some serious shit!
- Despite the removal of the Mind Stone from Vision’s mug, Thanos has two stones on the Infinity Gauntlet. One of them is definitely the Space Stone. Which was in the Tesseract. Which he had to have gotten from Loki, whether willingly or otherwise. Have I mentioned that Loki is a slimy bastard?
- And with the Gauntlet, he punches the SHIT outta Iron Man! I mean, Smokey had to be in the background screaming, “YOU GOT KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT!” At least, he shoulda been.
- Considering all the awesomeness I have already mentioned, the most amazing sequence hasn’t even played out yet. When it happens…WOW! Remember the fight in Justice League between Steppenwolf’s army and the combined forces of Atlantis, Themiscyra, and Earth’s mortal forces? That is NOTHING compared to the Wakandan forces meeting Thanos’ army of Outsiders head-on. The penultimate scene shows Black Panther, Black Widow, Hulk, Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and Dora Milaje stalwart Okoye (Danai Gurira) running into battle with CAPTAIN AMERICA WIELDING WAKANDAN GAUNTLETS! The epicness is off the scale, ladies and gents! If it gets more epic, noses will bleed in theaters!
- And you know Falcon ain’t in the movie to rap battle! He ain’t from the 313 here! But he WILL bust a cap on some alien fools! While fighting with Cap!!!
- THAT’S HULKBUSTER IN THE BIG ARMY SET PIECE!!! There are rumors that Banner is piloting the Hulkbuster armor. That is nonsensical for one reason and one reason only: HE IS THE HULK!!! In the comics, Thanos has beaten Hulk repeatedly. Yet he still acknowledges Hulk’s abilities. As he has said in the books, he avoids directly dealing with the Hulk. Meaning, he’ll kick Hulk’s ass, but he knows he’ll get smacked up a bit. SO WHY DOES HULK NEED A GODDAMN SUIT OF ARMOR???
- Thanos is not alone. Along with his army of four-armed Outsiders, he brings with him the Black Order. One of the Order, Proxima Midnight, throws a spear at a silhouetted Cap. Cap, of course, catches it. He can do that all day!
- Fellow Black Order member Corvus Glaive looks to be the one ripping the Mind Stone from Vision’s forehead. You don’t see him fully, but that sure looks like his staff yanking the stone from Vision’s dome!
- The entire time, Thanos is narrating pure smack. “In time, you will know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail all the same. Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives.” No, seriously, tell me Marvel can’t do a good villain, and you may not have teeth when I’m done!!!
- Right after the Avengers: Infinity War logo and the bombastic theme song play us out, we’re not yet out. Like typical Marvel, there’s one more scene. It shows Thor, still missing his right eye pirate-style, once again in the Milano. This time, we see the folks conspicuously missing from the rest of the trailer: the Frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy. Only I don’t mean frickin’. Present are Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Teen Groot (Vin Diesel), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Drax (Dave Bautista). I fucking LOVE them, and seeing them finally connected with the main MCU continuity is worth the price of admission alone.
- The only music is the Avengers theme. No pop/rock theme present. Nothing to take away from the sheer magnitude of the trailer. I love Led Zeppelin, but THIS is what a trailer is supposed to do! Gimme a theme song over a pop song any day. Even if the pop song belongs to THE GREATEST ROCK BAND IN ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY!!! Which is Led Zeppelin. Obviously.
Everything about the trailer made me shudder. This is the culmination of everything that has been building up since the beginning. If you thought The Avengers was a near-tantric release for nerd-dom, you haven’t seen this trailer yet! This is the double-doodoo payoff. After more than 10 years, everything is in place. Everything we’ve seen up to this point is meshing into an absolute blockbuster event.
There are a few things about Avengers: Infinity War that I think are awesome independent of the movie itself. First, Vanity Fair stopped by the set of the movie and ended up taking some incredible photos. Four of them are gracing the covers of their magazine.
The covers show off characters that do not show up in the trailer. They include Avengers founding member Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). The inclusion of the Wasp is interesting since she’s not in Avengers: Infinity War.
The shots gracing Vanity Fair are notable for more than just the novelty. There are real consequences in store. MCU boss Kevin Feige has mentioned that the events of this movie and its untitled follow-up will spell the end of some beloved characters. Exactly who will meet the Grim Reaper’s scythe is unknown, but the mere fact that the scythe is swinging is notable.
Vanity Fair was not done with just those shots. One particular photo stood out more than the covers. It was a shot of the MCU ladies, together and just…well, look at the photo!
Seeing all of them there makes me think of A-Force. That’s the all-female team-up that graces the comics. The comic A-Force is led by She-Hulk, a character that hasn’t been established in the MCU. It also includes Spider-Woman and Dazzler, two other badass females who are not established. But if the MCU A-Force featured the ladies present in the photo…I mean, who is gonna say no? Like, if the MCU A-Force was led by Black Widow or Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who’s getting mad?
And if Squirrel Girl is established, then Avengers: Infinity War is turned into one two-hour movie. Squirrel Girl would wax Thanos’ shit post-haste. Just sayin’!
Bottom line, everything that I’ve seen about Avengers: Infinity War is absolutely amazing. This is only the first trailer; there will definitely be more before the movie’s May 2018 release date. All I know is that what this trailer shows is more than mere mortals like I can handle.
