It’s here.
I’m scared. I’m nervous. I’m also tired. I want the nightmare to be over, but unfortunately, we’re going to see some more folks bite the dust. (Pun not meant, but there you go.)
First thing’s first–I see we’re basically starting where we left off, emotionally. The Avengers are still down for the count, and half of the world is still gone. Even worse, the fates of a beloved few seem to be hanging in the balance, like Shuri.
Thankfully, I don’t have to go through a lot of animus about Shuri’s possible death, since I’ve already written about this at Shadow and Act, and I’ve included some heartening stuff from Angela Bassett, who said a while ago that both her character, Queen Ramonda, and Shuri live. WHOOO! So we don’t have to worry about that. And of course, we eventually won’t have to worry about T’Challa either. With Black Panther 2 already in the works, he’s gotta be back, of course.
Someone else we don’t have to worry about: Peter Parker. Even though we’ve seen our baby boy disintegrate in front of our very eyes while clutching onto Tony Stark, he’s got to come back for Spider-Man: Far From Home. So little Peter will be back. Probably emotionally and psychologically damaged for life, but he’ll most definitely be back.
I don’t think I ever wrote a formal review on Avengers: Infinity War, but the film annoyed me to no end, and this was before everyone got snapped. I didn’t like how so much time was wasted on filler elements like romance. Did we need to see Scarlet Witch (who largely seems ineffective and the most underdeveloped Avengers character thus far) and Vision have some type of romantic tryst? Did we need to see her call him “Vis” of all things? The word “Vision” doesn’t need a nickname. Well, I retract that–I’d rather she called him “V” instead of “Vis.” But this is such a small, petty point. The overall point is this: Infinity War is a movie that angers me because it manipulated my emotions. Even more angering was seeing my beloved T’Challa disappear right in front of me, mere months after seeing him wow me in Black Panther! This lead to another article I’ve written for Shadow and Act months ago about how Marvel seemed to not understand what it had in the Black Panther franchise.
Maybe because the film angered me shows how successful the movie is. I mean, it’s not a film that is supposed to make you feel good afterwards. And from what we’re seeing in this Endgame trailer, we’re not going to be left feeling that great after this film, either.
“But how?” you might ask. “Isn’t Captain Marvel going to come in and fix everything? Shouldn’t we be happy at the end of Endgame?” Yeah, there will be some happiness in this film–folks will come back and probably much of the world will come back. Captain Marvel is going to work her mojo to make us feel a little better about what happened in Infinity War. But you and I both know someone’s going to die by the end of this film. Probably multiple people will die. Sadly, many of these deaths–deaths of some beloved superheroes–will be permanent.
“But people died for real last time!” Yeah, they did. Loki and Heimdall, for starters, are classified as “actually dead.” But let’s say that Captain Marvel does the “go back in time” business. If they’re going back in time, Loki and Heimdall can probably come back in some way.
The only person who can’t come back, unfortunately, is Captain America. We’ve already seen Chris Evans sign off on his time as Cap, which means that one big theory could be official–a part of the only way for the Avengers to save the world is for Cap to give the ultimate sacrifice. Co-director Joe Russo said something cryptic about Evans’ fate with the franchise, saying in part, “he’s not done yet,” but followed it up with that he doesn’t want to explain what that means, “but the audience will soon understand what I’m talking about.”
However, while I’m writing all of this, I still don’t know how the plan will add up. Some of the moving parts people are working with is that Captain Marvel will utilize her powers or whatnot to retrieve the dusted people who have been exiled into the Soul Stone (one of the stones in the Infinity Gauntlet). Somehow, Ant-Man’s ability to go into the microverse (as Double Toasted called it) will be tied to this, as well as the powers between Wong and Doctor Strange, who was also dusted, but said before he left that this horrible path was “the only way” for the team to win. He might be in the Soul Stone so he can help everyone. Maybe, since Captain America is so old, he’ll sacrifice himself and send himself to the Soul Stone to bring everyone else back? Even with me just writing that, I’m immediately sad. Spending an eternity in the Soul Stone? That’s a fate worse than death. Maybe Cap will just be able to ride off into the wind after the story’s over–maybe he can just go off on his own and not die.
With whatever happens, I’m ready to see what happens and get this over with. I’m ready for the months-long agita to be over so I can finally get some closure.