Thor actor Chris Hemsworth has a habit of bringing his props home from work, and according to his wife Elsa Pataky, the Avengers: Endgame star’s hoarding of MCU weaponry has now gone too far.
A new still from the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reunites the three main heroes of the Sequel Trilogy, along with series regular C-3PO, all of whom appear to be looking off-screen at a potential threat approaching.
2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron isn’t exactly the most cherished entry in Marvel’s Infinity Saga, and its titular A.I. is often held up as an example of the MCU’s spotty track record when it comes to villains.
After losing his fight to Thanos in the opening minutes of Avengers: Infinity War, Hulk chose to sit out the rest of the film, leaving Bruce Banner to man the Hulkbuster during the climactic Battle of Wakanda.
While the female team-up sequence at the climax of Avengers: Endgame served as a tribute to the various women of the Marvel franchise, one notable absentee from the action was the original MCU heroine Black Widow, and if you ask concept artist Andy Park, it’s a real shame that she couldn’t be included.
While the reversal of Thanos’ genocidal snap was a development that just about everyone saw coming, the return of the MCU’s fallen heroes still made for one of the biggest, most crowd-pleasing moments in Avengers: Endgame, and one that co-writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus had no intention of wasting.
Back in 2015, Avengers: Age of Ultron got the fans speculating with a scene in which the various heroes try their hand at lifting Thor’s hammer. Though the mighty Mjolnir only seemed to budge slightly when Captain America attempted to lift it, it was a popular theory for years that Steve Rogers was fully capable of carrying the weapon but pretended otherwise to avoid bruising Thor’s ego.
In Avengers: Endgame, it was ultimately Hulk who had the honor of wearing the Infinity Gauntlet and undoing the genocide of last year’s Infinity War with a snap of his fingers. This heroic action, however, came with a price, as Bruce Banner’s arm was injured severely and perhaps permanently.
In all likelihood, it’ll be a long wait before Marvel delivers another crossover moment as big as the climactic battle of Avengers: Endgame, but while almost every major hero in MCU history plays a role in the final fight, the section still has a few notable absentees.
Though 2013’s Iron Man 3 remains one of Marvel’s more divisive movies to date, there’s no denying that Tony Stark’s third solo outing was a huge hit, ranking at the time as the fifth highest grossing film ever made. Despite this box office success, however, the original MCU hero has never been given a fourth standalone flick, and considering his demise in this year’s Avengers: Endgame, he probably never will.
