Avengers: Infinity War Part II - The End of the Beginning?

Welcome to the second half of my Avengers: Infinity War post. Like a lot of movies in the MCU, you may want to go back and read my previous column, mostly focusing on the Infinity Gauntlet comic series, which served as the film’s inspiration. But you don’t really have to read it to enjoy this one. But go ahead. It’s short.

Anywho, as Fans know, The movie Infinity War was mostly the story of Thanos gathering the Infinity Stones. There was apparently a 45-minute sequence cut that saw him go to the planet Xandar and get the Power Stone where the Guardians of the Galaxy left it at the end of their first movie. While I would have liked to have seen that carnage, adding 45 minutes to this movie would not have been ideal, so it’s totally fine that they cut it. The movie actually opens where Thor: Ragnarok left off, with Thanos and his buddies killing half of the Asgardians and forcing Loki to give him the Space Stone, which was inside the Tessaract all along. I have always liked the fact that the Macguffin for two previous Marvel movies, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers, and also a part of the next movie, Captain Marvel, is crushed like a Dorito by Thanos, and revealed to simply house one of the six Infinity Stones. It sells how powerful these things are.  

Thanos, with two of the stones, is now rocking and rolling. He promptly kills Loki and sends his minions to Earth to go after the Time and Mind Stones. As Fans know, Dr. Strange has the Time Stone and Vision was given the Mind Stone at the end of Age of Ultron. Thanos, meanwhile, uses his newly-acquired Space Stone to warp himself to Knowhere to grab the Reality Stone from The Collector, where it was left at the end of Thor: The Dark World. The sixth stone, the Soul Stone, is supposedly lost in the cosmos, but we learn through the course of the movie that Gamora, Thanos’ adopted daughter, actually knows where it is.

Because there is no personification of Death in the MCU for Thanos to worship, he is portrayed as a sort of radical environmentalist, figuring that if he wipes out half the population of the universe, then there will be enough resources to go around for everyone. There is a joke in the 6th issue of Infinity Gauntlet that Thanos was simply “thinning the herd,” but that’s after Death has spurned him, so he’s probably just trying to save face. Here, that is exzactly what he is doing. Obviously, killing half the universe is a bad thing, but he’s not really wrong in thinking that there are too many people walking around. And that’s what makes a cool bad guy; one where you can kind of see where they are coming from. He even tells Gamore at one point that, after he killed off half of the life on her planet, the survivors have plenty of food and energy to go around. It takes the lovesick puppy aspect out of it, but overall, it enables the snapping element, and just getting the Stones in general, to make more sense.

Speaking of Gamora, the one love element that makes Thanos an almost-sympathetic character is how he obtains the Soul Stone. After forcing Gamora to bring him to it, he is told by its guardian, the Red Skull (voiced by Ross Marquand. Hugo Weaving was the only one who did not return to reprise his role.) that the only way to obtain the Soul Stone is to give up something you love, “A soul for a soul.” Gamora scoffs, thinking that her adopted father loves nothing, but Thanos proves her wrong. He sacrifices her life by throwing her off a cliff to her death. After a flash of light, Thanos awakens in possession of the Soul Stone. After (presumably) murdering The Collector earlier and getting the Reality Stone earlier, he now has four out of six.

He goes back to his home on Titan, only to find himself in battle with a collection of Guardians and Avengers. During the struggle, they are almost able to wrest the gauntlet from him by having Mantis put him in a trance. However, once Star-Lord learns that Thanos has killed Gamora, he goes berserk and smashes Thanos in the head with his gun, breaking the trance. Thanos snaps back to reality literally just as Spider-Man was about to pull the Gauntlet off his hand. Once Thanos realizes how close he was to losing it all, he uses the Stones in concert and the fight is on. After several minutes, it comes down to Thanos vs. Iron Man, man vs. god. As they begin their battle Thanos calls him Stark, and Tony is surprised that his fame has reached across the cosmos. Thanos tells him that Tony is “not the only one cursed with knowledge.” Tony responds with, “My only curse is you.” Once again, Fans will remember that Tony suffered PTSD from almost dying while saving the Earth at the end of the first Avengers movie, and he learned earlier in this film that Thanos was the one who sent the Chitauri to Earth in the first place. So, for Tony, this confrontation has been building for years. 

He fights gamely, but Thanos is too much. Thanos is about to deliver the killing blow when Dr. Strange agrees to relinquish the Time Stone in exchange for Stark’s life. A heroic gesture indeed, since Strange and Stark had not really gotten along throughout the movie, and Strange had stated in no uncertain terms that if it meant having to choose between protecting the Stone or saving Tony’s life, Strange would choose the Stone in a heartbeat. However, he had also used the Stone to go forward in time to look at every possible outcome of the battle with Thanos, and only found one in which they weren’t defeated. So you can assume that they needed Iron Man for that one victory. You also have to figure Strange knew that Stark would have to sacrifice himself to save the universe, but couldn’t tell Tony that or it wouldn't happen. I imagine that’s a lot of baggage to carry for Strange. But that is the future, and in the present, Thanos now has five of the six Stones, and is off to Earth to grab Vision’s Mind Stone.

A lot has been happening on Earth while Thanos has been amassing Stones across the galaxy. Vision and Wanda have been sneaking off to, ahem, hang out since Captain America: Civil War, which saw the Avengers, as Stark phrased it, “break up.” They are attacked by Thanos’ henchmen (who are pretty bad-ass, by the way.) They are then rescued by Captain America and his Rogue Avengers. After the rescue, Black Widow chastises Wanda and Vision by saying that they should have stayed in touch, and Wanda responds by saying that they just wanted “more time.” Time is not only one of the Stones, but a theme that runs through this movie as well as the next one.

The heroes hatch a plan to bring Vision to Wakanda to extract the Stone from his head and then destroy it so Thanos can’t obtain all of them. They also have to prepare for battle because they are pretty sure Thanos’ goons are on their way. When they arrive, everyone goes into battle mode. In one of my favorite moments in all of the MCU, King T’Challa begins giving orders: “Evacuate the city, engage all defenses. And get this man a shield.”

The MCU never really had a lot of time to devote to the significance of Cap's shield, but as a fan of the comics, I always loved the damn thing. It not only protects him and serves as an offensive weapon in battle, but it is also a symbol of the kind of hero he is. At the end of Civil War, he relinquished it when Iron Man accused him of not deserving it, because Tony’s father made it for him. Now, Cap is getting a new one, and a suped-up Vibranium one at that.

While Shuri, another beloved character from a previous movie that they were able to insert into this one, works on getting the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head, the Battle of Wakanda ensues. As it begins, there is another classic moment as the heroes charge at Thanos’ minions, and because of their physical enhancements and incredible courage, Cap and Panther are way ahead of everyone else. Even though when they reach their opponents, it is two against hundreds, they are up to the challenge. Soon, nearly every MCU hero not on Titan is on the battlefield, fighting for the survival of the universe. 

Yes, I said nearly. Thor is not accounted for and believed dead. But he was rescued by the Guardians of the Galaxy after Thanos destroyed his ship, and then he went on a little quest of his own, along with Rocket and Groot, to get himself a weapon. A “Thanos-killing kind” of weapon.

Thor, to me, is the real hero of this movie that is full of heroes. Now, I loved Ragnarok, but Thor wasn’t really super-heroic in it. He was kind of a goofball. It was a fun departure for him, and one that was apparently requested by Chris Hemworth, who was getting bored with playing Thor like a Shakespearean understudy. But when you are facing a demigod who wants to wipe out half of the universe, you need more than gentle comedy. You could say that having watched Thanos easily beat down The Hulk and then kill Heimdall and Loki was enough to scare Thor straight, but to me, it just seems like the Russo brothers just have a better handle on toeing the line between Goofy Thor and Heroic Thor. Don’t get me wrong, he does have some funny lines, like when he constantly refers to Rocket as “Rabbit” and reveals that he can speak Groot. However, the scene where he re-ignites a star so that Eitri the Dwarf can mold his new Thanos-killing ax, nearly sacrificing himself to save the universe, is about as heroic as it gets.

Like all hero’s journeys, this one has its ups and downs. Just when Thanos has ripped his final Infinity Stone from Vision’s head and you think all is lost, lightning literally strikes, as Thor throws his ax, and as advertised, despite Thanos’ immense power, the ax nails Thanos square in the chest. For the first time in the movie, Thanos actually is wounded. Thor lands in front of him and pushes the ax in deeper, reminding Thanos that he swore he would die for killing his friends and brother. Thanos cries out in pain, and for a brief moment while sitting in the theater, I remember thinking, “Oh, ok. This is how they’re doing it. The good guys win.”

Until Thanos, despite the pain, mutters, “You… you should have gone for the head.” And snaps his fingers. The Snap, which had been alluded to twice before in the movie, is accompanied by a blinding flash.

When everyone’s sight is restored, we see that Thanos’ gauntlet arm is severely charred. He takes a look around and again uses the Space Stone to open a portal and vanish, leaving Thor’s ax behind. He appears in a strange world, surprised that his wound is gone. It is never revisited, but I always believe it to be the Soul World, the reality that is inside the Soul Stone (at least, in the comics.) One of the reasons I always believed that is because young Gamora is there and asks him if it is done. He replies affirmatively. She then asks, “What did it cost?” and his response is, “Everything.” Despite the fact that he accomplished his mission, he had to sacrifice all of his minions, his planet, his arm and Gamora, who he did love despite the fact that he had a funny way of showing it.

Back on Titan, and Earth, we see the results of Thanos’ snap. Most of the Guardians, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Bucky, Falcon, and perhaps the saddest of all, Spider-man, crying to his father figure Tony Stark that he doesn’t want to go, all turn to dust. This is definitely an improvement over the comics, as everyone that Thanos snapped away simply vanished. The dusting made for a much more powerful image. And then the credits roll.

Theater-goers everywhere were shocked, some even annoyed that Marvel had made them care about all these characters only to kill them in the blink of an eye. Maybe they weren’t aware that most of these actors had already been cast in their solo sequels, and that there was even another Avengers movie coming exactly one year later..But let’s face it, it was pretty cool that the audience was that invested. The movie then ends with the post-credit scene of Nick Fury paging Captain Marvel as he himself is dusted, paving the way for the next movie. 

When the next Avengers movie is released, we see our heroes in bad shape, and they confirm that half of the universe was blipped out. They are able to track when the Stones were last used, fly to Thanos’s farm, and subdue him. Their plan is to force him to snap everyone back, only to find out that he actually had blipped out the Stones themselves, so there would be no undoing what he did. Thor then takes Thanos’ earlier advice and cuts his head off. As the heroes lament that there is no way to bring everyone back,Thor wanders off, and the next shot we see is of a title card that reads “Five years later.” All of this is about 20 minutes into the movie.

As I mentioned earlier, this may have been the beginning of the end.

I’m all for shock value and putting your heroes through the wringer, but that five year jump was maybe a bit too much. Literally every Marvel movie and TV series that has come after Endgame, with the exception of Black Widow, which was a weird and pointless prequel, has had to deal with the five year gap in the surviving characters’ lives. The Spider-Man franchise did it rather comically, and Secret Invasion dealt with Nick Fury’s reaction rather well, but overall, it’s been a bit of a cluster. This is the main area where I feel the comic book got it right: When Nebula reversed time to bring everyone back, she only had to roll it back one day. The only people who even knew anything had happened were the ones who were actually there. In the MCU version, everyone knows and has to deal with the consequences. 

I actually have another problem with this; when the Avengers decide to travel back through time to gather all the Stones, Tony Stark tells his comrades that, since he has a daughter now, he doesn’t want anything changed except that the blipped folks be brought back. So, all the horrible memories of their loved ones being dust for the last five years will remain, but hey, at least this one kid is still here. They also came up with a goofy version of time travel to explain why they couldn’t just go back in time and fix everything, but it is still presented to us as Tony Stark wants to make sure his kid is still his kid. I guess it would be the same for anyone who had a kid in those five years, but it’s still a bit convoluted, and comes off a little selfish on Tony’s part. I realize turning back the clock five years has some added complications, but if they didn’t write in a five-year time jump, then nobody would have to worry about any of this. I mean, I know it’s just a movie, but wouldn’t everybody be psychologically damaged by their loved ones blipping away for five years? Think of how messed up people got with COVID, and mostly it was because we couldn’t go out for a few months.

Time jumps in movies and TV shows almost never work, anyway, but in this case, it changed all of the Marvel franchises, and in most cases, made for harder story-telling than necessary. One example of it working was on Wandavision, when we saw that Monica Rambeau’s mother (a main character in Captain Marvel) had passed away in the five years that Monica was blipped. So, she has to deal with that trauma. On the other hand, in Quantumania, Scott Lang’s daughter, now five years older (although, let’s face it, she actually seems a lot older than that), is mad at him for not being around like a good Dad should, even though he was trapped in another dimension for that whole time. Teenagers, eh?

We also had The Eternals come along in 2021, which did use The Blip as a plot device, but there wasn’t a lot of plot there anyway. That movie also makes one wonder, “What were you doing this whole time? You can really only fight Deviants?” Maybe Kevin Feige realized that dealing with The Blip was too hard, so decided with the next batch of movies, they would just forget about it. Just like I forgot about most of the movies themselves. Shang-Chi, which had some fun moments but overall was unnecessary, Wakanda Forever, which was kind of behind the eight ball after the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, the aforementioned Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania and Thor: Love and Thunder. For all of these movies, the time-jump wasn’t the only reason that they didn’t work, but it may have been the start of the slide. 

Really, it was a number of factors; mining characters that didn’t really have more stories to tell, like Ant-Man and the Wasp, creating new characters that nobody was asking for, like Shang-Chi and The Eternals, and giving one more Thor movie to Taika Waititi, who clearly wasn’t interested but just couldn’t turn down the payday. There also may be something to the argument that the Marvel movies are a little too fluffy in the wrong places, and that when it’s time to get serious and stop the bad guy from destroying the universe, there’s been too many jokes for the audience to take it seriously. That was really the problem with Thor, Ant-Man and Shuri as Black Panther. They were great characters, but so was Ron Burgundy, and I wouldn't trust him to save the universe. That’s why Infinity War and Endgame were so good. There were enough jokes to keep people entertained, but when it came to the final battle, nobody was laughing. 

I said that Infinity War made cinema history, but in the end,maybe it was just another Hollywood cautionary tale. A lot of studios try to squeeze a little more out of that lime, and it almost always leaves people with a sour taste. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 did a good job of telling its own story, and when it was over, you knew there wouldn't be a Vol. 4. Hopefully, The Marvels takes a cue from that one, and we don’t end up longing for the glory days of one of Hollywood’s most successful franchises.

Thanks for reading. As always, like, comment, subscribe, and please check out my podcast. It’s pretty much like this column, only two other guys and it’s audio. Just today,we posted our latest episode on 1997’s Batman & Robin, a movie that I feel might be one of the worst movies of all-time.  Thanks for your support and remember: Always go for the head.