It’s finally out.
The seeds for Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” were planted all the way back in “Iron Man,” released in 2008. The film promises a team up of every single superhero from the cinematic universe, as well as the long awaited payoff to the question of what the evil Thanos plans on using the Infinity Stones for. Set to come out on May 4, 2018, fans have eagerly anticipated the release of the film’s trailer, which was teased at Comic Con in July. It finally arrived on November 29, and it did not disappoint.
Being the insane Marvel fan that I am, my first reaction to the trailer release was to go through it frame by frame and see what sort of references and easter eggs I could find. This is what I noticed. Expect spoilers for all previous Marvel films (“Thor: Ragnarok” included).
Throughout the trailer, there seems to be three main planetary settings: one on Earth, one in space, and one where the odd lighting and backgrounds seem to indicate an alien planet of some sort. On Earth, we see Bruce Banner crashing into Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City, the two later being joined by Tony Stark, who seems to have reinstalled the arc reactor in his chest. We also see Peter Parker use his spidey sense for the first time, as he turns to face some sort of giant teleporter hovering over NYC. Later in the trailer, we see him climbing and fighting on top of this in the new and improved Spider Man suit gifted to him by Stark at the end of “Spiderman: Homecoming.” Also, assumed to be on Earth (although I’m not sure where), are Wanda Maximoff (aka the Scarlet Witch) and Vision, who seems to have learned to change his android appearance to that of a human. We also see the Mind Stone being ripped out of Vision’s forehead by a spear that looks similar to Loki’s scepter from “The Avengers.” I’m not sure if Vision can survive without the Stone, so that’s probably not good.
Also shown on Earth is the country of Wakanda, home of T’Challa (aka Black Panther), being attacked by ships apparently controlled by multi-armed aliens of some kind. Here, we’re reintroduced to Captain America, who dodges a spear thrown by an unknown assailant (who is theorized to be Proxima Midnight, one of Thanos’s daughters from the comics). Cap’s best friends are in Wakanda as well: Sam Wilson is shown flying above the battle in his Falcon gear, and Bucky Barnes is up and moving after being frozen at the end of “Captain America: Civil War.” Natasha Romanov (aka Black Widow), sporting new blonde hair, is here, too, and it seems that she is reuniting with Banner for the first time since their romance in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” In this scene, Banner seems to be standing in front of Stark’s Hulkbuster armor, and a later shot of the battle on Wakanda shows said armor being used against the alien creatures. However, it remains uncertain as to who is wearing the armor. The shots on Wakanda end with Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky, Hulk, Falcon, and War Machine (who was paralyzed at the end of “Civil War,” so what’s going on there?) rushing the enemy together. Why would Wakanda be a target of Thanos’s armies? This unanswered question may be explained in “Black Panther,” which will be released February 16, 2018.
In space, it’s less chaotic. Most of these shots center around Thor, whose ship of Asgardian refugees seemed to be in peril at the end of “Ragnarok” at the assumed arrival of Thanos. In the trailer, he’s shown standing on a ship, staring out what seems to be several windows. Later, we see him perched in the middle of some sort of circular device, similar to the teleporter in New York, where he appears to be straining to hold the sides together. And finally, he’s seen standing on the Milano (Peter Quill’s ship) speaking with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Also in space, we see Loki stepping over the bodies of an unknown group of people (widely assumed to be the Asgardian refugees) to hand the Tesseract, or the Space Stone, to someone/something much larger than him. Does this mean Loki has betrayed his brother Thor again? That’s what it looks like, but I have no idea.
Now on to the mystery planet. We see Stark in his Iron Man suit going up against Thanos, who is wielding the Infinity Gauntlet– the glove designed to hold all six Infinity Stones at once. However, Thanos only seems to have two stones here: the blue Space Stone (which Loki was seen presenting to someone) and the purple Power Stone, which was last seen at the end of the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie, when it was given to the Nova Corps to be stored safely on the planet Xandar. Does this mean that our mystery planet is Xandar, and Thanos has just collected the Power Stone? And is this happening before the Mind Stone is ripped from Vision’s forehead, as Thanos doesn’t seem to have it yet?
The rest of the scenes on the mystery planet consist of Iron Man and Spiderman both getting knocked around by Thanos, which, if it’s any indication of the rest of the film, doesn’t bode well for our heroes. We also get a shot of Stark on the planet without his armor on, looking somber and mournful as he holds his head in his hands. Could this be his reaction over the injury or (dare I say it?) even death of Peter Parker, his protege?
And that’s the trailer. You may think I’m crazy, but I’m not the only one having a hard job holding in their excitement. All over the Internet, thousands of reaction videos, trailer analyses, and fan theories have been released in the week since the trailer came out. Marvel has a dedicated army of fans, and they are jumping at the bit after nearly ten years of hype. They’ll be, like me, counting the seconds until May 4, 2018.
