Thanos’s Cinematic Family Tree And The Fate Of The Eternals

It’s been a while since I posted anything and this’ll only be short, but sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest of places. If you’re a reader of this blog, I suspect you may also follow a YouTube channel by the name of KindaCulty. Guy’s a genius with a lot more content and output than me, so definitely go check him out. In his latest video, which I just linked for you, he mentions that [SPOILER ALERT] Red Skull addresses Thanos as a “Son of Alars” while retrieving the Soul Stone on Vormir [END SPOILER]. In the comics, Thanos’s father is indeed called Alars, bearing the pseudonym Mentor. However, having seen Avengers: Infinity War five times, I couldn’t help but think that that’s not actually what Red Skull says. On my first viewing of the movie I was shocked to hear the words, “Thanos, son of Eros” come out of Red Skull’s mouth. The reason being that, in the comics, Eros is the name of Thanos’s brother.

Eros is a fun-loving miscreant, hell-bent on shagging anything with a pulse. He’s the complete opposite of Thanos in every possible way. The two have a rivalry akin to Thor and Loki, but with much less of the occasional display of brotherly affection. It’s a dynamic I had hoped would play out on screen, but that no longer seems possible. Not just because Eros is now Thanos’s father’s name (which I had to confirm for myself by looking up the Infinity War script) but all the Titans are dead. This ties back into a theory presented by KindaCulty in his video, though: with Thanos now being an only child, and the son of Eros, has his entire family tree been done away with? In the comics, Thanos’s grandfather is Kronos, the Titan God of Time and one of the first Eternals. However, Titans are not the same in the MCU as they are in the comics, with no links to Eternals, Deviants, or Celestials ever brought up in Infinity War. In fact, from what little we see of Titan, which is now a planet of its own and not the moon of Saturn, when Thanos shows Strange a glimpse of what it had been like using the Reality Stone, all the Titans look just like Thanos. Thanos’s character motivations differ from those presented to us in the comics, with regards to his love of the cosmic abstract of Death, and it seems his entire history has been altered for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well.

I hold out a modicum of hope that perhaps we’ll see some interactions between Thanos and his extended family in Avengers 4, but given the liberties taken with his background and his character arc already in Infinity War, I don’t see much in the way of getting Kronos or even Eros and Alars on the big screen. That modicum takes the form of Kevin Feige alluding to the possibility of Eternals being slated as a feature film in an upcoming Phase, but nothing is confirmed yet, and the film may likely end up with all the other projects that were supposedly going to be movie releases before being canned or moved to TV. Remember when everyone thought Vin Diesel was going to play Black Bolt in an Inhumans movie and Runaways was going to be a Phase 2 film? Pepperidge Farm remembers. If the Eternals movie ever does come to the big screen though, I doubt if there will be any connection at all to the Mad Titan.

I wrote about the potential for Eternals ages ago, so if you fancy it, you can check that piece out right here. I’ll be trying to post more from now on, but I got a job and have much less free time. Between working, exhaustion, and sleep, it’s tough to find the time to ponder on the multiversal goings on of a Cinematic Universe. But hell, I’ll try.

Some Further Speculations On The Nature Of The Quantum Realm After ANT-MAN AND THE WASP Trailer 2

Boy, oh boy, what a month April was. Or rather what a fantastic last couple of weeks it’s been. Avengers: Infinity War hit theaters hard and is still toppling global box office records with few signs it’ll stop any time soon. The same can be said of the MCU itself, as Ant-Man And The Wasp is set for release this July, and we recently got a second trailer for the movie that provided a greater look at the Quantum Realm as well as offering up some new tidbits of the plot. I’ve noticed something about the trailer that I don’t think anyone else has though. There’s a single shot in there that appears to show the classic Ant-Man and the Wasp in a warehouse fighting some goons. To see for yourself, skip to the 1:33 mark in the trailer.

Ant-Man and the Wasp as seen in 2015’s Ant-Man

Janet Van Dyne as The Wasp seen in Ant-Man And The Wasp Trailer 2

Hank Pym as Ant-Man as seen in Ant-Man And The Wasp Trailer 2

Either Scott and Hope are forced to don the classic outfits for some reason or we’ll be treated to a flashback sequence showing Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer as the original dynamic duo. Setting the plot aside though, because we’re focusing on the Quantum Realm here, and more importantly, how it works in the grander scheme of the MCU’s physics. This idea I’m about to present came out of watching some documentary about the universe on NatGeo Science or one of those channels, so this is some next level legit stuff. Or not. I’m no Quantum Physicist.

The idea is this: the Quantum Realm is to alternate universes what the fabric of space/time is to planets, or dark matter is to galaxies. Unlike space/time or dark matter, the Quantum Realm isn’t as straightforward as just being the cosmological soup that planets and galaxies sit in. It seems to me that the Quantum Realm is just as macroversal as it is microversal. Take Ghost’s abilities for example; she derives her powers from the Quantum Realm (which I’ve discussed before) according to Luis, and has the ability to phase through solid objects. It would seem to me that her abilities involve destabilizing the atoms of her body, much in the same way that Pym Particles shrink the space between atoms. It never hit me before, but fiddling with atoms means fiddling with electrons, which are commonly focused on in Quantum experiments. As I understand it, electrons exist within a probability field, rather than fixed points in space/time. This is a staple of Quantum Mechanics, as it lends credence to the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment. In other words, in an environment where there are two possibilities, you’re not gonna know which possibility has become reality until you observe the environment. In that experiment, the cat is an allegory for the electron, but you can scale it up to the universal level. The possibility that does not become reality actually plays out in a parallel universe. I believe the Quantum Realm is where all these universes are stored, and we know for a fact, thanks to Doctor Strange in Avengers: Infinity War, that this principle of possibilities playing out according to actions in alternate realities is true in the MCU. He viewed 14,000,605 different futures in the buildup to the confrontation with Thanos. That’s all based in Quantum Mechanics, made possible by the existence of the Quantum Realm. In essence, just as if you grew to an unfathomable height, you’d see stars as no larger than atoms, you can shrink enough to see Quantum Events that spawn alternate realities within the Quantum Realm.

To cap off, the Quantum Realm is a universe-wide probability field that contains the roots of all alternate realities spawned by Quantum Events. I’ll go into this in a bit more detail in my next post, which will deal with the possibilities of Captain Marvel’s ties to the Quantum Realm and how that will factor into Avengers 4.

Will We Ever Be Seeing Ulysses Klaue Again?

SPOILERS FOR BLACK PANTHER AHEAD

 

One of, if not the, biggest mistakes made in Black Panther relate to the usage of Ulysses Klaue. I myself thought he was an unnecessary feature of the movie, and I think most comic book readers would agree that the character was under-utilized to the nth. That said, the most painful mistake the film made was the killing off of Klaue. Naturally, after seeing the movie, I couldn’t help but try to think of ways to remedy that situation, given how important Klaue is to the mythos. Andy Serkis hasn’t provided any insight as to whether he’ll be returning as the character, but rather than take that as confirmation of the permanence of his death, let’s assume instead that we might be seeing Klaue again down the line.

In the comics, Klaue is not just a long-standing Black Panther villain, but just an overall necessity in the Marvel Rogues Gallery. A Marvel Universe without Klaue is just missing that special something, especially if he’s played by Andy Serkis. However, there is a chance for Klaue to come back. In the comics, Klaue doesn’t last very long as a normal human being, but instead becomes a being of pure sound thanks to an encounter with some Vibranium and his sonic cannon. I think something similar to that situation is entirely possible within the MCU.

Klaue’s body is brought to Wakanda by Killmonger, sonic cannon still intact. We see nothing of the body after this (I was expecting a post-credit sequence) but I believe the precedent is there for Klaue to be brought back to life, purely by virtue of being buried in Wakanda. The soil in Wakanda all contains trace amounts of Vibranium, as per one of my other theories, I believe Vibranium is capable of absorbing much more than just energy. I think there’s a chance that Klaue’s very consciousness could be absorbed by the Vibranium in Wakanda’s soil, along with the energy from his sonic cannon.

Klaue’s death in Black Panther need not be permanent, and given the character’s fairly limited pantheon of villains, bringing Klaue back to life wouldn’t be detrimental to the franchise in any way. In fact, it’d be all for the better. Let’s also not forget that Serkis is the king of motion capture, and a sound-being Klaue would more than suit his acting capabilities.

The X-Men in the MCU: How Are They Gonna Do It?

I’m no corporate wunderkind and so I’m not about to try and break down the potential minutiae of the as-yet-finalized Disney / Fox deal, but instead I’m gonna offer a potential story for the merger of the X-Men universe and the MCU. I’ve developed something of an obsession with stories revolving around the Multiverse, most expressly those concerned with its formation and makeup across the many fictional facets of reality. One such notion, that I touched upon in an earlier post, is the idea of the MCU adhering to the same cosmology as the comics, thus making any comics about cosmology canon to the MCU. That means that the MCU acknowledges the eight incarnations of the Multiverse, the cosmic entities, etc. My inspiration for this potential story adaptation draws from some of those notions.

I reckon that it’s entirely possible that the next two X-Men movies (X-Men: Dark Phoenix and its follow-up) will adapt the stories from Adventures of the X-Men # 11 and # 12. In these comics, the Multiverse collapses and gives way to a new Multiverse. The Phoenix Force is a central element of these two comics, as are the Shi’ar, who will be replaced by the Skrull in the upcoming movie. If these two new movies are used to merge the X-Men universe with the MCU, then these stories provide the best framework. The issues even provide a look at Galactus’s origin, which would be a fantastic thing to adapt, and set the World-Eater up as the next big bad of the MCU. But of course, we’ve got to speculate on the next few Marvel Studios movies to get a full picture.

My best estimations of what we can expect from Avengers: Infinity War suggest that Thanos is going to be victorious in some way. So much so that perhaps the majority of the heroes in the MCU are going to be killed. What little we’ve seen of Avengers 4 suggests to me that we’ll be seeing a significant time-skip between that and Avengers: Infinity War. We’ve seen very little from the fourth installment’s production, outside of a few set photos that I’m now convinced involve the BARF technology. To be clear, I don’t think those set photos show a time travel sequence at all. I believe that Ant-Man and the  Wasp and Captain Marvel will tell a two-part story of their own that ties directly into Avengers 4. The involvement of the Quantum Realm in both movies is suggestive of some kind of a joint narrative between the two. If there are any time travel / alternate reality shenanigans, they’ll be in those two movies. On top of those two movies having time travel shenanigans, we can expect to see some in Deadpool 2 as well. I’ve read that that movie is going to have multiple post-credit scenes, all involving Deadpool screwing with time travel to hilarious effect. All this potential for time travel creates the possibility for the MCU to experience the effects of this wanton tom-foolery within the time stream. Something that’s been pushed in the MCU, at least in Doctor Strange, is that messing with time can have serious consequences on a Universal level. I do hope we see those effects moving forward past Avengers 4.

Essentially, what I’ hope to see is the time travel across the different movies have ramifications down the line. Go read Adventures of the X-Men #11 and #12 if you want a better understanding of what I’m getting at. If Dark Phoenix introduces the M’Kraan crystal, a Nexus of All Realities, then there’s every possibility that that could be used as the focal point for an in-universe explanation for the merger of the X-Men Universe with the MCU.

Just How Keyed Into The Marvel Multiverse Is The MCU?

This one’s more for your own personal head-canon than it is a proper theory, but it’s probably my favorite to date.

With the release date for Avengers: Infinity War having been moved up to the 27th April the world over, there’s no better time to start nailing down the nature of the film’s Macguffins, the Infinity Stones, as well as delving into the cosmic scope the film’s set to have. Ever since I started this blog, figuring out the MCU’s cosmology has been one of my greatest interests, and up until a couple of days ago, I didn’t really have anything nailed down. However, lightning struck just a few nights ago. I had been involved with some discussion about the Marvel Multiverse’s cosmology in an online forum, and as a result have been reading up on everything from the most obscure of cosmic abstracts to the most colossal of crossovers. I was trying to reconcile the plethora of comic book lore that quite genuinely has to also apply to the MCU, as it’s just as much a part of the Megaverse / Omniverse as any other fictional universe is. I hypothesize that the MCU and the Marvel Comics 616-Universe share a special relationship in the form of a feedback loop, where the events of one universe inform the events of the other. This feedback loop seems to be growing more rapid, as the films have begun adapting more recent comic book events and stories, as well as fabricating new stories that in turn influence the comics. Something that supports this idea is the infamous chalk board in Thor: The Dark World.

There is no greater smorgasbord of information regarding the MCU’s cosmology than this damned chalk board. All kinds of things are referenced on there, but most importantly for my hypothesis is the 616-Universe Easter egg. As far as I’m concerned, that, plus some other things on the board, are definitive proof of a relationship between these two Universes. No doubt I sound as mad as Selvig right now. However, some other things of note on that chalk board are mentions of The Crossroads, and the Nexus of All Reality. These two things both relate to travelling between alternate universes. However, when it comes to the Nexus of All Reality, we’re not just talking Marvel. The He-Man universe has a Nexus of All Reality inside Castle Grayskull. The “Steven King-a-verse” has the Dark Tower. The 2005 Man-Thing movie has the swamp. The 90’s X-Men cartoon has the M’Kraan crystal. There are no shortage of examples. I’m sure we’ll eventually see one in Rick and Morty. And all these Nexuses are linked together, allowing travel between these alternate universes. They’re all a part of the same Megaverse, but mostly stick to their local Multiverse. By Multiverse, I basically mean Corporation. Copyright Laws tend to be what separate fictional Multiverses from one another, but every now and then you get a crossover of Multiverses, like in JLA / Avengers. To boil it down, the Nexus of All Reality is a tool employed by creators to allow for and to justify crossover events while also expanding the cosmology of the Universe / Multiverse. While we’re on that fact, let’s look at the cosmology of the Marvel Multiverse.

The best series to read in order to get a grasp of this is Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort’s Ultimates, and the proceeding series also by Al Ewing, but with art duties being handled by Travel Foreman. Basically there have been seven incarnations of the Marvel Multiverse. Each Multiverse has its own unique cosmology and history, but as far as our knowledge of these Multiverses go, we only have personal experience with three of them. Those being the sixth incarnation, the seventh incarnation, and the current eighth incarnation. The seventh incarnation is the one we’re the most familiar with, as it only saw its end during the 2015 event “Secret Wars”, by Jonathan Hickman. The sixth incarnation is where Galactus hails from, and he’s the sole survivor of that now dead Multiverse. There’s precedent to believe, although Al Ewing has denied it, that the X-Men cartoon of the 90’s was one of the Universes within the sixth incarnation of the Multiverse, and that Galactus actually entered the seventh incarnation of the Multiverse from that Universe. If you want to know more about that, you can read Adventures of the X-Men #11 & #12. In those two issues, the destruction of the Multiverse is detailed, and believe me when I tell you it is one of the most mental stories ever. Especially if you’re familiar with DC’s Darkseid. All of this is just general trivia, though. How does it apply to the MCU? Well, like I said before, the MCU is contained within the Marvel Multiverse and so anything that happened to that Multiverse must apply to all the Universes within it. There has to be some evidence to suggest that the previous incarnations of the Multiverse are known to someone in the MCU.

Ever since I heard the Collector’s brief monologue in Guardians of the Galaxy, I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell any of it  meant. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, I’ll go ahead an quote it for the bazillionth time: “Before creation itself there were six singularities. Then the Universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots: Infinity Stones.” I read Ewing’s Ultimates series in 2016, and I had watched Guardians of the Galaxy first in 2014. I don’t know how may times I’ve re-watched that movie, but it’s in the high double digits. And now, I’ve finally put the pieces together. The singularities the Collector is talking about are the previous incarnations of the Marvel Multiverse. In the seventh incarnation, which is anything released before 2015’s Secret Wars, a being that existed before the Big Bang was destroyed during that Universe-spawning explosion, and pieces of that being were scattered into every Universe in the Multiverse. These pieces became the energies that would become the Infinity Stones. Each Universe has its own six Infinity Stones / Gems that only function within that Universe. As it was put in Gerry Duggan’s All-New Guardians of the Galaxy recently, the Infinity Stones are like the “Source Code” of a universe. Another thing to note is that Secret Wars, and its predecessors Infinity and Time Runs Out, were Multiverse-wide events. During Infinity and Time Runs Out, a race called the Builders seek to destroy the planet Earth, as destroying Earth is the only way to save the entire universe from destruction at the hands of a race called The Beyonders. The Builders employ robots called Alephs as a means of exterminating a race they deem to be undesirable in the grand scheme of the Universe. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ultron’s goal is to cause the extinction of the human race by using the city of Sokovia as a meteor. Ultron was brought to life by the Mind Stone. He has a connection to the Universe itself, and his immediate response upon gaining consciousness is to wipe out mankind because their mortality means they’re not worth saving. I believe that the feedback loop between the MCU and the 616-Universe kind of peaked during Avengers: Age of Ultron. To me, the Mind Stone can be seen as a link to that ethereal notion of creativity and storytelling spawned by human consciousness, and I reckon it tapped into something that told it to create Ultron, wipe out mankind and save the Universe. Obviously it could all be coincidence, but coincidence isn’t interesting. This notion of saving the universe via mass genocide is backed up by what we know to be Thanos’s goal in Avengers: Infinity War. He sees all the life growing at an impressive rate across the universe and deems it his duty to slow that growth and restore a semblance of balance. Pictured below is an Ultron sentry and a couple of Alephs from Infinity. The latter is one of the stories being used as inspiration for Avengers: Infinity War. Secret Wars began the month after Avengers: Age of Ultron was released, meaning that the movie is set firmly during the Time Runs Out story arc that preceded Secret Wars. Time Runs out featured the Illuminati, made up of Iron Man, Black Panther, Namor, Doctor Strange, Beast, and Black Bolt, destroying other Earths during events called incursions, where the Earth of one universe came into close contact with the 616-Universe Earth.

Ultron fails in his attempt to destroy the Earth, and we continue on a few months to see Scott Lang take up the mantle of Ant-Man in July of 2015. I’m skeptical as to whether that’s the in-Universe date. By this point, Secret Wars is in full swing, not coming to an end until January of 2016. The Multiverse has been destroyed, with only a handful of pieces held together by Doctor Doom. Meanwhile, the MCU seems fine and dandy. Ant-Man introduces us to the Pym Particle and the gateway to the Quantum Realm. I’ve already hypothesised that the Quantum Realm is actually a means of accessing alternate universes, and I hold to that belief a little more now. It seems to me that, in-Universe, Scott’s descent into the Quantum Realm could be seen as either his entry into a new Universe roughly identical to the old one, or he caused an aberration that led to the existence of something / someone who hadn’t been there before in the MCU.

At the end of Ant-Man, we see Sam Wilson AKA Falcon, asking a journalist about new enhanced individuals on the scene, to which she replies, “We got a guy who jumps, we got a guy who swings, we got a guy who crawls up the walls.” It was later confirmed by director Peyton Reed that that was in fact a direct reference to Spider-Man. Upon its release in July, Ant-Man makes reference to Spider-Man five months after the Marvel / Sony deal in February, and in Captain America: Civil War, we discover that Peter Parker has had his abilities for six months. Ant-Man‘s ending with Luis telling Scott about his cousin’s date with the journalist has to be set within that six month time period of Peter Parker getting his powers. There’s a newspaper that makes mention of the Sokovia incident in Ant-Man, but I couldn’t make out a date on the front page. Regardless, the fact that an article about Sokovia is front page news suggests that the events of Ant-Man are set quite close to Avengers: Age of Ultron. I thought that maybe Scott was emerging into a remade MCU, set in a post-Secret Wars Universe but seeing as Secret Wars ended in January 2016, that’s not really plausible. What I believe we’re going to see is an adaptation of Secret Wars in Avengers 4. Both the movies coming out between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 will deal with the Quantum Realm and, by extension, the concept of the Multiverse. Just how much they’ll deal with the Multiverse is up for question, but there’s a lot of potential in Captain Marvel. It’s going to be set in the nineties and feature the Skrulls. X-Men: Dark Phoenix, coming out five months prior to Captain Marvel, will be set in the nineties and feature the Skrulls. Deadpool 2 is going to deal with time travel. It’s looking like Avengers 4, and possibly Ant-Man and the Wasp, will also deal with time travel. Given the recent Disney / Fox deal and the possibility of the X-Men making the transition into the MCU, there seems a great deal of potential for some Multiverse hints in those two movies. That is of course, if the deal goes through.

Seeing as we’ve talked about Infinity Stones, alternate universes, and corporate crossovers, let’s talk a little bit about cosmic entities. We’re yet to encounter any of the cosmic entities in any significant form, but we’ve caught glimpses of them and and had them teased as far back as The Avengers. Although there’s still a lot of skepticism surrounding the notion of actually introducing the likes of Eternity and Death, we’ve met a few beings already that dis-spell any skepticism from my perspective. Dormammu and Ego the Living Planet are pretty crazy cosmic entities, and people managed to process their existence just fine. I have little doubt that we’ll be seeing cosmic entities as early as Avengers 4, or maybe even Avengers: Infinity War. Fingers crossed it’s the latter. However, we’ve got a cosmic hierarchy to sort out, and we’ve got just enough information to make a start on it. Here’s a list of cosmic entities / gods  / divine beings confirmed to exist in the MCU, plus the movies they’re referenced in or that they appear in:

1. The Living Tribunal (Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy (?*) )
2. Eternity (Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)
3. Infinity (Guardians of the Galaxy)
4. Entropy (Guardians of the Galaxy)
5. Death (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy)
6. Ego the Living Planet (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)
7. The Celestials (Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok)
8. The Collector (Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy)
9. The Grandmaster (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 credit scroll, Thor: Ragnarok)
10. Agamotto (Doctor Strange)
11. Bast (Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther)
12. Sekhmet (Captain America: Civil War)
13. Dormammu (Doctor Strange)
14. The Watchers / Watcher Informant (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 / Almost every Marvel movie ever made)

*The reason I question whether we see the Living Tribunal in Guardians of the Galaxy is because I think there’s a figure stood overseeing the creation of the Infinity Stones in the mural. You can’t see the figure’s face, but that means it could be the Living Tribunal showing his fully shrouded face, which is the face he bears when he deems an action to be necassary for the good of  the Universe. The creation of the Infinity Stones certainly seems lie something the Tribunal would oversee.

And then we get to the point of regarding aliens like the Asgardians as gods, so we’ll stop there. As far as hierarchies go, the Living Tribunal is always at the top. He’s the Multiverse’s judge, jury, and executioner. Then comes Eternity and Infinity on somewhat equal footing, although Infinity is a kind of abstraction of time encompassed by the fact that Eternity is an abstraction of everything. Entropy and Death are a level below that, as they only bear influence over the finite and are geared toward the concept of finality. Beneath them it starts to get tricky, but I’d put Dormammu, Ego, Bast, and Sekhmet around here. They’re beings of great power, and in the case of the former duo, are capable of Universal infestation. When Peter Quill gets shown his father’s master plan and his eyes glaze over all cosmic-like he says, “I see it. Eternity”. I reckon that’s because Ego’s plan was basically to become the universe. Kind of like Unity in that one episode of Rick and Morty. I’ve mentioned Rick and Morty twice now, so I apologise if that taints your perception of me. Bast and Sekhmet also rule over a domain of their own, much like Dormammu, and so I deem them similar. Beneath those “small g” gods we have the Celestials like Eson and whoever’s head became Knowhere. Although ancient, we haven’t seen a Celestial do something without the aid of an Infinity Stone, and we know that even a Kree could achieve a similar goal, and so even though Ego calls himself a Celestial, it’s clear he’s a rank above the likes of Eson. Beneath them then we have the likes of Agamotto, The Grandmaster, The Collector, and The Watchers. These are beings with Universal purpose and a role to play, but no real Universal power. Agamotto defended the Universe as a Master of the Mystic Arts and keeper of the Time Stone. The Grandmaster provides haven for all the Universe’s unwanted junk. The Collector preserves flora and fauna. The Watchers watch. Here’s a poorly compiled visual representation of the cosmic hierarchy.

This is probably off by miles, but that’s mainly because we haven’t seen much in the way of cosmic powerhouses yet. I toyed with the idea that Ego is actually the MCU’s Molecule Man, but that relied on the whole post-Secret Wars thing I mentioned earlier. In time, we’ll no doubt see just who belongs where in the grand scheme of things. I’ve pretty much gone through all I could go through, so I’ll leave you with this: Stan Lee’s Watcher Informant character could well be the key to all this movie Multiverse stuff. He’s been in almost every Marvel movie, all set in different universes, and there’s no reason to believe that he’s not playing the same character in all of them given the nature of what a Watcher Informant is. So, even if you don’t take the whole thing of the comic book Universe feedback loop with the MCU setting the stage for a Secret Wars event in Avengers 4, or the idea that Ant-Man’s trip to the Quantum Realm may have brought him into an MCU with Spidey in it, or maybe even caused Spider-Man to appear, then leave safe in the knowledge that Stan Lee’s been Universe-hopping for the best part of two decades.

If you enjoyed this piece, check out some of my other stuff about cosmic craziness.

A List & Synopsis of Marvel’s Cinematic Universes

Let’s Take A Look At That First AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Trailer

Lemuria And The Deviants; Thanos’s Ancient Ancestors?

In Marvel comics, Lemuria is an underwater nation and rival to Atlantis. In reality, it was hypothesized as an ancient land bridge between India and Madagascar, although that idea has been disproved since its inception in the 19th Century. Regardless, the land-mass is referenced in the MCU, specifically in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where we see a ship called the Lemurian Star in the Indian Ocean. The reference is too obvious to be ignored, and upon further examination of the Marvel Universe’s depictions of Lemuria and its history, there’s plenty of reason to discuss the topic further. The most notable element of Lemuria’s comic book history is that at one point it was home to the Deviants, a race most closely associated with Thanos the Mad Titan.

Although his lineage remains a mystery in the MCU, in the comics, Thanos is the first Deviant born on Titan. Before Thanos’s birth, Titan was home to an off-shoot society of Eternals that left Earth in ancient times. Earth had been home to Eternals, Deviants, and humans, but Eternals secluded themselves in mountain ranges and other such hidden locations due to their advanced physique and superior genetics. Each of the three races existed as a result of genetic tampering by the Celestials. As time went on and mankind began to dominate the planet, Deviants and Eternals were forced into smaller and smaller communities before finally having to go into hiding altogether or face extinction. Lemuria became a haven for Deviants, but was sunk beneath the ocean during a cataclysm. It then became home a branch of Homo Mermanus, the same species that live in Atlantis, and the two underwater nations became steadfast enemies.

Although we don’t see anything of Lemuria itself, the ship hijacked by Batroc and his mercenaries is called the Lemurian Star, and is situated in the Indian Ocean. Now, that on its own is nowhere near proof enough of the actual country of Lemuria having ever existed in the MCU. Lemuria as a concept exists in our world just as much as it would in a fictional universe, and given the location of the ship, its name is hardly surprising. What’s necassary is evidence that suggests an underwater civilization of some kind exists within the MCU already. And what better underwater civilization than the underwater civilization: Atlantis.

Way back in 2010, Iron Man 2 threw a whole mess of Easter eggs at the audience as the film drew to a close. Among them were markers on a holographic map of the world, all of which had significance of some kind. Tønsberg is marked on there, Wakanda, Captain America’s last known whereabouts, New York, California, and New Mexico too. All locations with connections to a hero or event within the MCU. The only one that’s out of place is a marker in the Atlantic Ocean. Here we are in 2018, nearly a decade after the map was first seen, and that marker is the only one that hasn’t been elaborated on. It’s always been regarded as a marker for the underwater nation of Atlantis. If Atlantis exists in the MCU, then at least there’s precedent for Lemuria to exist as well. Now that we can say with a bit of caution that Lemuria, potentially a former Deviant haven, exists in the MCU, then we can conclude as to how this relates to Thanos. Maybe some other stuff too.

As I  mentioned earlier, Thanos is the first Deviant ever to be born on Titan. Due to his species, Thanos was cast out by society and treated with malice and disrespect, which is what led to his obsession with Death. In the MCU, we’ve had little hints here and there as to what Thanos’s motivations are (“To challenge them is to court Death”, etc.), but they’re still quite murky. If this whole deal with the Lemurian Star is a hint  toward the old Deviant sanctuary, then we can assume that Thanos’s comic book origins and motivations will be mirrored by the MCU. Also, and I’m saying this only because I’ve been watching a lot of  Joe Rogan lately, I think it’s possible that the meteor impact that led to the Vibranium mound in Wakanda may well have been the catastrophe that led to the submergence of Lemuria, and possibly Atlantis too.

The only downside to all of this is that Namor the Sub-Mariner’s film rights are still at Universal Studios, and the likelihood of us ever seeing him in the MCU is slim to none. However, we’ve got plenty to keep us occupied until then. So, to wrap up, ’cause I think this one’s been a bit all over the place: Thanos’s motivations are typically driven by his Deviancy from the Eternal norm. The existence of Lemuria, a Deviant colony in the comics, suggests that Thanos’s motivations in the MCU will also be driven by his Deviancy, and that he won’t just be from a race of Titans that all look just like him. Seeing as how much praise Jim Starlin has leveled at the character’s portrayal in the upcoming movie, I’m going to assume that they’ve nailed it.

Connections Between Vibranium, Bast, And The Astral Plane

Theories surrounding the Soul Stone being in Wakanda aren’t dead yet, so I figured I’d pose a counter-theory rather than attempt to do some more debunking. But on the debunking front:

“I love the Infinity Stones as much as any comic book fan, it’s just Wakanda already has its thing, which is Vibranium. For us, that was special enough, so to throw in something like another special thing didn’t feel right. It felt like we should stick with our one MacGuffin for the country and explore that, let that be the important thing because, frankly we didn’t need to have another piece like that,” Coogler explained. “[Marvel Studios] never really was interested in putting a stone in there, either. ” – /FILM

That’s the writer and director of Black Panther telling us that there’s no Infinity Stone in Wakanda.

Let’s move on. The Wakandan Realm of the Dead, it’s not referred to as Djalia in the movie, is still being touted as evidence of the Soul Stone’s presence in Wakanda. Having seen the movie, and taking the broader MCU into account, I think there may well be an even more intriguing explanation for how the Realm of the Dead functions. My belief is that the Vibranium in the soil of Wakanda absorbs the astral energy of those buried within it.

 

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[SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN]

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The movie opens with a monologue from T’Chaka as he talks us through the history of Wakanda, focusing on the nation’s foundation. The Vibranium meteor impact is detailed in this sequence, followed by the account of the war of the five tribes. We discover that the Panther Goddess Bast appeared to a shaman in a vision, and directed him to the heart shaped herb which grants those who eat it the abilities of the Black Panther. It seems to me that Bast, and the Vibranium, are not only of this world, but are extra-dimensional in nature. Bast seems to fit the bill of an extra-dimensional entity like Dormammu. She rules over the Realm of the Dead, which I believe to be a realm that feeds on the astral energies of dead Wakandan kings, much in the same way that the Dark Dimension feeds on planets. Where Dormammu is a conqueror, Bast is more passive, allowing her servants to live their lives and enter her realm at the point of death. Both also grant their servants with a kind of immortality. Not even a powerful sorceress like the Ancient One was capable of preserving her astral spirit, and so preservation of such a thing seems befitting of a Goddess.

While the Realm of the Dead stands out as separate from the astral plane in many ways, something that makes me think there’s a relation is that when someone leaves the astral plane, they struggle to catch their breath afterwards. We see this twice in Doctor Strange. First, when Steven is cast out of his body for the first time, and second when he returns to his body after fighting one of Kaecillius’s allies. In Black Panther, every time someone returns from the Realm of the Dead they struggle for breath and enter a brief panic. This is likely because they’ve basically just died and come back to life. In all of those cases though, the people are all fully aware of their trip into the other dimension and have total control over themselves in that other dimension too.

It’s worth noting that in the comics, a Black Panther story is being setup that involves an intergalactic Wakandan Empire which resides on a planet called Bast. Any revelations from that story may well give a bit more credence to some of the theories I’m posing here. Cheers for reading.

How Will The Thor Franchise Shape Up After AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR?

Of all the MCU franchises, the Thor franchise seems the most overlooked. I personally enjoy Thor, and much as I hate to say it, I can have fun with Thor: The Dark World. It wasn’t until Thor: Ragnarok that the potential of the Thor character was properly realised, and the potential for the cosmic scope of his stories became more apparent. With the MCU setting up shop for the future, what can we expect to see from the God of Thunder and his many as yet unmet friends?

SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR AHEAD!

Ever since the MCU began, us fans have been hoping and praying for the eventual debut of everybody’s favorite horse-faced android, Beta Ray Bill. In the comics, Bill is a member of a race called the Korbinites, and while his species slept in cryo-stasis, Bill acted as the lone defender of a Korbinite fleet. He’s the result of cybernetic enhancement and genetic engineering, having been taken apart and put back together, his DNA having been spliced with the DNA of ferocious predators. Taking that origin into account, it’s little wonder the guy managed to beat Thor in a fight and wield Mjolnir. Odin made Bill a hammer all of his own, allowing Bill and Thor to go fight Surtur side-by-side and become the best thunder-bros the universe has ever seen. So, obviously we all wanna see that bromance realised on the big screen, and we may be getting close to seeing it.

LAST WARNING FOR SPOILERS!

It looks as though the new weapon that Thor forges during Avengers: Infinity War won’t be the axe, Jarnbjorn, but will instead be more reminiscent of the hammer wielded by Thor in the Ultimate Universe (Earth 1610). What’s more, reports of the handle being provided by Groot seem increasingly more truthful. You’ll notice some Norse runes on the blade of the axe and where the handle meets the hammer. The runes on the blade read, “LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR”, while the runes on the hammer end read “IMMORTALITY” (right) and “HONOR” (left). Whether or not those runes will be of any significance is yet to be seen, but keeping those phrases in mind while watching Avengers: Infinity War will most certainly be worth doing. Aesthetics aside, this new hammer is called Stormbreaker. In the comics, the name Stormbreaker is typically associated with the hammer wielded by Beta Ray Bill. My thoughts are tending toward the idea that perhaps this is set up for a passing of the mantle once Chris Hemsworth is done with the Thor character. The thing about that is: Hemsworth is very much on board for doing more Thor movies.

Chris Hemsworth has expressed his desire to continue playing Thor into the foreseeable future, and Taika Waititi has made it clear that he’d love to return to the Thor franchise. Of the Marvel Studios Big Three, Thor is the one with the most potential for future storytelling. With Hemsworth also being the youngest actor to portray one of the Big Three, I feel we’re nowhere near done with the Thor character yet. Furthermore, there’s been plenty of talk in the past about the potential for the Avengers to go more cosmic. If this ends up happening, then the likelihood of us getting a brand new Thor trilogy seems pretty high. The problem is that the entire supporting cast of the Thor franchise is dead. Odin’s dead, Volstagg’s dead, Hogun’s dead, Fandrall’s dead, Sif’s nowhere to be seen, Natalie Portman hates the role of Jane Foster, and the Earth-based characters like Darcy and Selvig have been left in the dust since Phase 2 ended. What does that leave us? Loki, Heimdall, and Valkyrie are all we’ve got left, and even then it seems likely that at least one of them will die in Avengers: Infinity War. Thor needs a new supporting line-up.

Beta Ray Bill was actually going to be given a real cameo in Thor: Ragnarok, but the idea was scrapped so as to allow for Bill’s introduction to the MCU to be more significant further on down the line. As well as Beta Ray Bill, we see Ares, Bi-Beast, and Man-Thing, along with some others that I’m still trying to identify, carved out as sculptures on the Grandmaster’s tower. Of the lot of them, Ares and Beta Ray Bill present the most intriguing possibilities. If Taika Waititi were to return to the Thor franchise, there’s little doubt in my mind that these two characters would appear. Ares being the Greek God of War opens up the potential for exploring the Greek Gods in the Marvel Universe. In fact, given the heavy influence of the Jack Kirby aesthetic on Thor: Ragnarok, I think it’s highly likely that the Thor franchise will now be used to explore the different pantheons of Gods that exist in the Marvel Universe, and will trace their origins back to the Eternals. Thanos belongs to a special breed of Eternals that live on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Rather unsurprisingly, they refer to themselves as Titans rather than Eternals, although Thanos is a Deviant. Deviants are Eternals born with grotesque physical deformities; in Thanos’s case it’s his rough purple hide. Given Thanos’s prominent role in shaping the future of the MCU, I think an exploration of his origins and mythos would be a given in Phase 4.

There’s no shortage of potential stories to tell with the character of Thor and the supporting cast we’ve yet to meet. If anything, the Earthbound nature of Thor and Thor: The Dark World has provided us with a cosmos of possibility just waiting to be discovered on the Silver Screen.

Looks Like The Purifiers Will Be Appearing as Villains in DEADPOOL 2

The first full trailer for Deadpool 2 just dropped, and while we’re none the wiser as to who the primary antagonist of the film will be, we do have an idea of the organisation that will be the root of all the evil: The Purifiers. While they’re not mentioned by name in the trailer, we do see a couple of clues that hint toward their presence. In case you’re unfamiliar with them, the Purifiers are a group of radical mutant haters who seek to murder anyone with mutant genetics. The usual X-Men villain stuff, really. The trailer starts off with a focus on Cable and during the period where we see him inside some sort of detainment facility, he’s obstructed by a group of guards in riot gear. Their shields read: DMC, which I think stands for Department of Mutant Control or something along those lines. These scenes that we glimpse from that facility appear to be set in the future.

If those scenes are indeed set in the future, and an organisation like the Department of Mutant Control exists as a figure of authority, then how did the world end up that way? Simple, the Purifiers. It seems as though preventing their rise to power is going to be the driving force of the film’s plot. As for why Cable goes to Deadpool for help, it looks as though Deadpool is imprisoned in the facility we see in the trailer. So, maybe Cable knows Deadpool in the future, and goes into the past for his help in preventing the rise of the Purifiers.

We later get a glimpse of Domino kicking ass. Her and Deadpool are both seen attacking people in white garments, and the environment appears to be some sort of medical facility or perhaps even the home of a cult. We see some lockers in the background, sign to do with “HUMANITY”, as well as a couple of posters on the pillar on the right. Those posters read, “CLEAN BLOOD, PURE HEARTS”, and “PURITY, HUMANITY, INFINITY”, respectively. The prevalence of the idea of purity is a dead giveaway to the presence of the Purifiers. On a side-note, that “INFINITY” bit makes me think the Purifiers are going to be a sly commentary on the MCU’s nicely-polished family-friendly super hero movies.  After all, the MCU is somewhat genociding the X-Men movie universe. Heck, the Purifiers’ logo is a giant hole that kinda looks like an “X”, too, which might be a visual cue about the MCU’s lack of X-Men. Or maybe I’m reading way too far into it? It’s probably that.

What’s really interesting about the use of the Purifiers in Deadpool 2 is that they’ve been referenced in another X-Men property already, The Gifted. In that show, a group of Purifiers tried to attack Blink, and set her car on fire. According to the wiki I just linked, the Purifiers in the X-Men universe are not currently an organisation, but rather the term “Purifier” refers to anyone who’s anti-Mutant. Deadpool 2 looks set to deal with the Purifiers becoming a real organisation that eventually dominate mutants and imprisons them, leading to the future we see Cable escaping from. Lastly, we see Deadpool with a few other people about to jump out of a plane. There’s a little three-shot montage of them gearing up, and I gotta say, they all look to have costumes of their own, and I think this may well be a pre-cursor to the eventual X-Force movie. It looks as though we’ll be seeing more than just Domino introduced here. The guy between Domino and Deadpool looks like it could be Jack Kesy, who’s reportedly playing Black Tom Cassidy. In the comics, he’s Banshee’s evil brother. Black Tom is typically a wizard, but that may well have been changed. The guys on the right could be anyone as they’re not listed in the cast on IMDb, and their costumes don’t ring a bell to me. Although the person in white reminds me of Spiral, but she’s just not gonna be a thing in any movie ever. (UPDATE: Apparently we’re looking at Terry Crews as G.W. Bridge, Lewis Tan as Shatterstar, and Bill Skarsgard as Zeitgeist, adding more fuel to the X-Force fire).

I know I’ve done a lot of trailer breakdowns lately, but trust me, I’m working on something more substantial. That “more substantial” thing also ties into the fact that I’m now covering stuff from the FOX X-Men movies. And hey, who doesn’t like a little trailer breakdown? On that note, another interesting tidbit is that we see the painting from the first teaser in the background while Deadpool’s playing with the action figures. I’m pretty sure it depicts the villain of the movie, and it looks more and more like Juggernaut every time I see it.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Super Bowl TV Spot Breakdown

Never has there been a more hotly anticipated half-minute than this. As always, the Super Bowl has provided us with a plethora of TV Spots for upcoming movies, and foremost among them is the first TV Spot for this May’s Avengers: Infinity War. The spot consists almost entirely of brand new footage, and gives us some great new looks at the characters, while also providing a few more tidbits of  information about the film’s plot. With that said, let’s dive right into dissecting this thing.

The spot opens on a shot of Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange. It appears as though they’re on board the circular ship we saw hovering above New York in the first trailer. A thing to note about this shot is that we see Spidey’s in his Iron Spider suit, which is consistent with what we’ve seen so far, But later in the trailer, we get a shot of him clinging to the hull of this ship, and he’s wearing his classic suit. We’ll get to that momentarily though. Back to the shot at hand, it appears as though this will be the sequence that leads to the Avengers arriving on the planet we see them fighting Thanos on. From what we’ve seen of that sequence, it’ll at least start off with just Iron Man and Spider-Man facing off with the Mad Titan before the Guardians and Thor arrive. Also, there were some photos from a set visit a while back that I think show another bit of this sequence. We see Doctor Strange and Spider-Man on the monitor on the bottom right, and Spidey’s in his Iron Spider suit. My guess is that this is just after we see him land on that ship like we saw in the first trailer, and we’ll see some sort of a break-in sequence involving the three heroes and the ship. As to what’s on the ship, I’d assume it’s a member of the Black Order. Perhaps Ebony Maw, as we’ve seen set photos that look like they’ll be rendered in post where Ebony Maw (played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) is attempting to take the Time Stone from Doctor Strange.

The next shot shows Scarlet Witch and Vision, again extending upon something we saw in the first trailer. Wanda seems to be using her powers to read the Mind Stone. Typically, when Wanda uses her powers, the energy tends to manifest as a ball, but with strands of that energy running into (rather than away from) her hands. That tends to be the case for sustained manipulation of matter, but in the case of mind control, she fires a little ball of red energy into the target’s head. It’s tough to tell, because the shot lasts about half a second, but it appears as though the little strand of energy in the image above is running into the Mind Stone. This seems to me that Wanda is trying to get into Vision’s head, but the Mind Stone is actively resisting her efforts. We’ve seen Wanda overpower the Mind Stone before in Captain America: Civil War, so is this scene perhaps alluding to the possibility that the Stone has grown immune to her powers? Judging by the look on her face, whatever the case is, it’s worrying to her.

We then see the Guardians of the Galaxy, with Thor just about visible behind Gamora. They appear to be disembarking the Milano in this shot, which makes me think this is the team arriving on Knowhere. We’ve only caught glimpses of that sequence in the leaked Comic Con trailer, but we know that the Guardians will be there at some point, and we’ll also see Thanos confront the Collector there. The rumor is that the Collector sends Thanos after the Reality Stone, which is likely going to be in one of Collector’s other facilities. James Gunn confirmed quite some time ago that the Collector has more bases than just Knowhere, and that the room we saw him in in Thor: The Dark World wasn’t Knowhere.

Next we’re shown a quick shot of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner inside Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. It appears as though the sequence of events here is that Hulk will crash into the Sanctum, be found by Doctor Strange and Wong, who then call Tony in to deal with the situation. The shot above could well be the first time Bruce and Tony meet in the movie. It begs the question though, how does Hulk end up at the Sanctum? Saying he managed to land there after being launched through space is a bit of a stretch. The more likely case is that Hulk was brought to Earth by the circular ship. Whether it was a case of hitching a ride or being taken prisoner is anyone’s guess.

The following shot shows Thor inside a pod with Rocket Raccoon and Groot. This likely takes place just after the Guardians have been to Knowhere, as they split into two parties. One to chase down the Reality Stone (which is probably on the planet from the first trailer), and another to help get a new weapon for Thor. Some of the earliest concept art for the movie showed Thor wielding his axe, Jarnbjorn, while fighting alongside Rocket Raccoon. This shot likely shows the gang on their way to meet Eitri the Dwarf King, Peter Dinklage’s rumored role in the film, in order to forge Jarnbjorn. On a lesser note, Groot is still playing on the handheld console we saw him with in one of the post-credit scenes of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

This brings us to a shot of Loki, and it looks like this shot is from the same scene as the one in the first trailer where we see him handing over the Tesseract. Judging by the blue glow, I wouldn’t be surprised if Loki is conversing with Thanos at this point. We’ve heard tell that Loki will actually side with Thanos, presumably filling in the same role as Mephisto did during the Infinity Gauntlet event in the comics. If that’s the case, expect a betrayal from Loki. Of course, it need not be a betrayal that’s beneficial to the Avengers, but a betrayal nonetheless.

And now we come to the shot I mentioned earlier. We see here that Spider-Man is wearing his classic suit, and not his Iron Spider suit. I think this is because this sequence is set right after we see Peter on the school bus. He likely has his regular suit with him, changes into it, and goes off to do some super hero-ing, only to find himself way in over his head. This could tie into the Hulk’s arrival on Earth. The one thing about this ship that seems odd to me is that it appears as though it’s going to come down to Earth, go back into space, then come back down to Earth, and finally go back into space again (and if you’ve seen the leaked Comic Con trailer, you know this thing crash-lands on the orange planet). Why the rise and fall? The ship seems to be causing damage to New York, seemingly pulling structures apart, in the first trailer. Perhaps there’s some kind of gravity weapon on board.

Our first look at Cap in the trailer also gives us a better look at Black Widow’s new style. We see the pair escorting Vision and Wanda through what appears to be the New Avengers facility. In the shot below, taken from Captain America: Civil War, you can see in the background a very similar table and chairs to the ones pictured in the TV Spot. Plus, you can see the weather outside in the shot above, and it does not look like Wakanda.

You can just about see Scarlet Witch behind Cap, her hair being the main visual cue. She appears to be wearing the same clothes we saw her wearing in the first trailer, where she’s presumably fighting Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight before Cap, Widow, and Falcon show up to help. That puts this shot in a scene directly after that fight, which apparently happens in Scotland. So, the Avengers bring Vision and Scarlet Witch to the New Avengers facility all the way from Scotland. They’re likely looting the place for supplies before leaving for Wakanda. Another thing to note here is that the Mind Stone is still in Vision’s forehead, it just isn’t glowing, which is probably a side effect of Corvus Glaive’s attack that we saw in the first trailer. We also see that Vision’s clutching his ribs, as though hes’ received some physical damage. My theory about Vision needing medical attention in Wakanda just got a little stronger.

This is a tough shot to place. Thor is stood on a structure not unlike the circular ship we see hovering over New York. However, it’s also possible that this is a scene from his jaunt to meet Eitri with Rocket and Groot. I read something a while ago that Eitri, although a Dwarf, was going to be giant-size. The way Thor’s looking up here reminded me of that. He doesn’t appear to have Janrbjorn on him in this scene. However, going back to my point earlier about the circular ship crash-landing on the orange planet in the leaked Comic Con trailer, it’s possible that Thor, Rocket, and Groot rendezvous with the Avengers and Guardians on that planet. It could also be that this is on the pod we saw earlier. A later shot provides a couple more hints.

We see Cap trying on his new shield as T’Challa looks on, presumably this is an Attack of the Clones style moment of watching the assembly of his armies before the big battle. Given that this is  obviously set not long after his “Engage all defenses, and get this man a shield!” line, I’d wager that T’Challa may well be looking out of a window at some just-landed Outrider ships. We see in the first trailer that they hit the ground, but the horde might not actually come pouring out as soon as they land.

Tony will be wearing his long-awaited Bleeding Edge Nanotech armor. This armor is actually stored inside his body, and can arrange itself according to Tony’s thoughts, meaning that he can construct just about any weapon imaginable as an attachment for the armor. A lot of the promo material shows Iron Man with winglike structures on his back. This will be a result of the Bleeding Edge technology. You can see a little orange stripe on Tony’s shoulder here which matches the clothes we see him wearing when he meets Doctor Strange. And the background looks like a city, so it’s probably in New York. Given the style of the shot, I’d say this will be the first time we see Tony suit up in the movie, and it will probably not be long after he meets Doctor Strange. The armor itself will likely be built upon the tech we saw with the Mark 42 in Iron Man 3. We saw Tony implanting receptors into his skin in that movie, not unlike what he did in the comics when he created the Bleeding Edge suit.

This shot of Groot also appears to be on board the pod we saw earlier, and makes me think that the earlier shot of Thor is definitely set on the pod. The lighting behind Groot here matches the lighting on Thor in that shot, and so I think what we’re seeing here is  Groot staying back to guard the ship, while Rocket and Thor go to meet with Eitri. Groot looks kind of bummed out as well, and given that he apparently looks up to Thor, being told to sit out on a mission likely wouldn’t sit well with him. Thor was probably speaking to Rocket in the TV Spot when he asked, “You ready?”.

Our first look at Nebula in the movie! It appears that Nebula will be joining with the Avengers and Guardians on that orange planet. The debris in the background matches the debris we saw in the very first Avengers: Infinity War sneak peek with Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland, and Chris Pratt all stood on a set identical to the one in the image above. Based on all the trailers so far, it seems like that orange planet will be the climactic battle of the movie, and I’m pretty much one hundred per cent certain that the Reality Stone is going to be there. In other words, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see the Soul Stone until Avengers 4.

The next three shots aren’t much, offering up the same shot of the Outrider horde as we saw in the first trailer, plus some new shots that show Black Widow on board a Wakandan military transport, and Winter Soldier seemingly getting the drop on someone. The shot of Black Widow has her looking back over her shoulder, probably at Bruce Banner, before she heads off to the front line. A thing to note about Winter Soldier is that he has his new arm, and there is no longer a Soviet Red Star on his shoulder. Which is nice.

We next see Iron Man and Doctor Strange teaming up to attack someone, possibly the Ebony Maw, or maybe it’s just a few Outriders. One thing to note here is that it looks like Tony is projecting some hologram on the right. That pattern doesn’t look like Doctor Strange’s magic, but looks more technological. I have to wonder if maybe they’ll have Tony perform similar feats as Doctor Strange using technology as a way of solidifying the idea that the magic we see in the MCU is really just harnessing energies that can be explained scientifically but are far beyond the knowledge of the everyday person.

The spot ends on the same note as the first trailer, showing the Avengers charge in Wakanda. But we also get a new look at Thanos.

Judging by the lighting here, I’d assume this is the same scene in which Thanos gets the Tesseract. The dark background matches up with all previous shots of that scene, and the orange glow on his face is probably from a fire.

So, there you have it; a shot-by-shot breakdown of the Avengers: Infinity War Super Bowl TV Spot! Be sure to check back soon for more speculation on the MCU’s future. You can watch the TV Spot here!