Infinity War (Spoiler free)

I made the rare decision for me these days and decided to see Infinity War on day one, fortunately the theater wasn't starting the showings at midnight but rather at seven PM instead, so I still get to sleep tonight. Like the article title suggests I won't be spoiling anything, especially the ending, but I think it's still worth talking about.

I wondered how the filmmakers would deal with the presence of so many major characters, and so many A-List stars, how could you possibly give any of these people enough time, lines, and arcs? This was partly solved by having 19 Marvel movies leading up to this point, but I still felt like it was a risk to not have a real main character or anything, but the solution was quite clever I felt.

They made Thanos the protagonist.

Thanos is of course the villain hinted at and shown in the end credit teasers for the last few years, he finally gets off of his chair and takes a hand in events, and you know, even without knowledge of the comics he establishes himself very clearly as the villain, it's been a known problem with a lot of the MCU offerings that they don't really have much in the way of good villains, I mean, do we even remember or care about any of the three Iron Man antagonists? Who were they, why they did what they did? I would venture to guess that none of you clearly recall their motivations or goals without looking it up, the same goes for most of the other movies, there are exceptions of course, I thought Spider Man: Homecoming had a good villain in the form of the Vulture, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor 3, and Black Panther all gave us characters that were varying degrees of memorable at least, with Killmonger topping the list. It is probably no coincidence that these villains are showing up more often as Marvel moves away from just focusing on the hero always being right and making their wold a bit more complicated instead. They are no longer worried about scaring viewers off with complex characters, we have proved over the past decade or so that we are willing to trust their decisions, we proved that with billions of dollars and they clearly have heard, making moves that might have been considered risks if they tried it earlier.

Which brings us to Thanos, of all the characters in Infinity War, there is only one who has an arc, who shows character growth and loses something during their journey. Yes of course heroes die and so on during the film, but we all know they probably won't stay dead, more on that later, but we also know that Thanos is going to get beaten at some point, which makes any growth that happens or sacrifices he makes feel more meaningful.

This character is a departure from the comic book version, on paper Thanos is an omnicidal madman and dictator with a hard on(Literally) for Death, who is of course an actual character in the comic book world, his quest for the Infinity Gauntlet is entirely selfish and personal, and after it all ends, and in the decades since, he really hasn't changed much.

The movie version is not that guy, I do not know if the MCU is going to introduce an actual avatar of Death, although there is a scene in the movie that suggests a solid maybe, but either way he isn't doing what he does for selfish reasons, not as he sees it anyway, he's a very "Ends justify the means" person but that doesn't mean he likes those means, or that it doesn't hurt him to lose something.

He gets more lines than any of the heroes, he gets to be witty, vulnerable, grandiose, angry, and sad, he faces unexpected challenges and grows to meet them, he is a complete character and if the movie was just titled "Thanos" it wouldn't be inaccurate.

You don't end up rooting for him, at least I hope you don't, but you do understand him by the end, and that is an achievement considering the raw charisma he is up against.

This movie and the so far untitled Avengers 4 coming out next year are a two parter, which is good, because this one... is pretty bleak. But with the end of this series comes the end of the current wave of Marvel films, this suggests to me an answer to some of the questions I have seen around the movie.

"What is Marvel going to do with so many major characters dead?" I see asked, by people who clearly have never read a comic book or seen a movie before, "How can the MCU continue with flagship characters killed?".
Obviously resurrection is the answer, but perhaps only part of it. You see, in comic books, both the major companies periodically like to do a reset on their universes, to trim dangling plot threads, rewrite origin stories, and otherwise perform continuity maintenance. In practice this take the form of a reality threatening massive year long crossover event. My guess is that is what we are seeing here. The MCU has some changes coming, rumor has it Marvel studios has the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic 4 again, but they have no room for those properties right now in the MCU, additionally, some major actors are probably not going to be in the series for much longer, both Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. have said that they are done with the characters soon, but you know that Marvel isn't done with those characters. So why not reboot a little bit?

Let's say the Infinity War continues in Avengers 4, characters die or are wiped from reality or whatever but eventually Thanos is beaten and the Gauntlet captured by the good guys and used to restore the universe, I feel like that is not a stretch right? From there though it is pretty easy to change what you need, perhaps the universe was put back together differently because reality warping artifacts aren't easy to use, and in the new universe a young man in a concentration camp suddenly develops magnetic powers. Or perhaps mutants just start popping up in the current timeline. easy enough to consider, same thing with the Fantastic 4. Need a new actor to play Tony Stark? Kill the character and bring him back to life with a new face Dr. Who style, or have him pass the torch to someone else(Shuri? Pepper Pots? War Machine?) and have Downey make a cameo as the grizzled mentor now and again, have Bucky take over as Captain America, or do the same resurrection with a new face idea.

I think that is where the MCU is going after the Infinity War concludes, a few fresh faces, a few dangling plot threads, and a return to the status quo, such as it is. But perhaps they keep trying some new stuff, perhaps they do keep a major character dead, perhaps they learn from Black Panther and address real world issues while still showing the expensive flashy images on the screen.

Pretty sure most of us will watch it.