Last night, a rumor made its way online that the official title for next year’s Avengers 4 will be Avengers: Annihilation, and while it’s yet to be confirmed if this is indeed the name that Marvel Studios is going with, surely there’s no harm on speculating a little on what the implications could be of this one ominous word.
A new piece from Comic Book Movie has done just that, and its first idea of what the ‘Annihilation’ part of this alleged name might mean is that the Avengers: Infinity War sequel could actually be drawing on the lesser known definition of the word. Though we usually think of annihilation as something destructive, it can also refer to the conversion of matter into energy, which may well have been what happened to the characters who were dusted at the end of the last Avengers movie.
Alternatively, it’s also been observed that Annihilation was a storyline from the comic books that involved the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thanos, though it’s unclear how these events could be tied into the upcoming release. That particular saga does, however, end with the Mad Titan being punched through the chest by Drax, suggesting that the movies could have a similar fate in store for the character, even if it isn’t necessarily Dave Bautista who delivers the final blow. What’s more, with the Negative Zone currently owned by Fox, it’s suggested that the Quantum Realm could in some way serve a similar purpose in the film to this antimatter universe.
Of course, the alleged title could also have nothing to do with the comic book saga, with ‘Annihilation’ really being in reference to either the fate of half the universe’s population in Infinity War or the fate of certain characters in Avengers 4. After all, you can expect heavy losses on both sides when this film hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019. If Avengers: Annihilation truly is the title that they’re going for, though, then maybe that’s just one more reason for the saga’s Phase 1 heroes to be nervous.
