Everything You Need To Know About Marvel’s Phase Three Slate

Avengers: Infinity War Parts 1 and 2

Release Dates: May 4th, 2018 and May 3rd, 2019.

Character/group synopsis: In the first Avengers, we learn that Loki’s mysterious benefactor is Thanos, the Mad Titan, who gave Loki an army in exchange for the Tesseract, an Infinity Gem of untold power. In Thor: The Dark World, we see The Aether, another powerful Infinity Gem wielded by the Dark Eleves. Then, in Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan the Accuser is tasked by Thanos to collect yet a third Infinity Gem, but Ronan betrays Thanos and uses the Gem to attack Xandar, homeworld of the Nova Corps. Three Infinity Gems remain unknown, but they will be brought together on the gloved hand of Thanos, creating the greatest weapon the universe has ever known

Origin(s): In the comic book crossover event The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos brings together the six gems, and in an effort to prove his worth to Death (yes, The Other’s line at the end of The Avengers about “courting Death” was literal) he eliminates half the universe’s population. Several of Earth’s heroes are affected, but a force is put together including several Avengers, X-Men, and cosmic characters to fight Thanos, who progressively gets drunker with power. Eventually, Thanos is defeated by his own hubris and the Infinity Gems are separated after the universe is restored.

Powers: The Infinity Gems each represent a specific power: time, space, reality, mind, power, and soul. According to The Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy, the stones are remains of six singularities that existed before the Big Bang. The Tesseract, which has been confirmed as the space gem, is currently residing on Asgard; and the power gem, which was the one Peter Quill found at the beginning of Guardians, is now in the possession of the Nova Corps. The Aether was left in the care of The Collector, but its fate, along with the question of what Infinity Gem it is, is unknown after the events on Knowhere in Guardians. The power source for Loki’s staff in The Avengers may also be an Infinity Gem, possibly mind.

Greatest Enemies: Well, you might have heard about Thanos. He’s the secret power behind the events of both The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Also key to the Infinity saga is Nebula, Thanos’ granddaughter, who plays a very surprising, but very important role in the Mad Titan’s downfall. The other two members of Thanos’ inner circle in the comic story are the Lady Death, and Mephisto, Marvel’s version of the Devil.

Casting: Josh Brolin has already stepped into the boots of Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy, and one assumes he’ll pop up here and there in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians 2 before Infinity Wars. And if Nebula is there, then so is Karen Gillan. As for the good guys, expect just about any combination of pre- and post-Age of Ultron characters. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Drax the Destroyer and the Hulk were all part of the army sent against Thanos. (Spider-Man too, so this might be a good time to talk about that crossover deal with Sony…) The most pertinent piece of new casting might be Death, but who could play the haunting and beguiling, but quite lovely, personification of the end of life? My vote goes to Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey.

History and future: The Avengers films have become culminating book ends to the events of each phase of the Marvel movie plan, and as Phase 3 is the studio’s most ambitious slate yet, so to is the appropriately double-shot of Avengers part 3, which follows the trend of turning the final chapter of a film series into two parts.

This will be a huge project for whatever filmmaker takes it on, as they will likely have the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe to play with, and if Age of Ultron turns out to be bigger than the first Avengers, then I don’t even want to calculate the expectations for Infinity War.

Right now, only two questions remain: Can Marvel pull together all the elements they’ve been weaving for 10 years into a single, epic story? And will the superhero movie bubble still be expanding, or will it have burst, by 2019?

– Adam Donaldson