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I saw Avengers: Infinity War over the weekend. This is certainly one of those films which I needed time to process after viewing. The ending really caught me off guard and threw me for a loop. It should go without saying that I'm going to spoil the hell out of the film in this post, so if you haven't seen it yet, for the love of Pete stop reading!

Body Count

I thought for sure they'd kill Captain America, and then make Falcon into the new Captain America. Or maybe Bucky. Instead, they killed off pretty much everyone except the original Avengers. I'll tell you, the one I'm saddest to see go is Drax. Dave Bautista is so good in the role. I just about died with his standing-still to be invisible gag, and when he was calling Thor a pirate/angel.

I didn't realize immediately that they're really going to have to bring back most if not all of the dead characters, and I really liked the notion that the characters might all be perma-dead. I'd have missed Drax, and I think Tom Holland's Spiderman is spectacular. (yuk yuk) I mean, the Peter Parker death scene, when he was basically in tears, crying to Tony "I don't wanna go" - that was just a hell of a well-acted scene. Tom Holland's Spider-Man is so earnest, and so enthusiastic. And his inexperience is written and portrayed so well.

I'd initially started thinking about the upcoming Spiderman sequel, and my thought was that this would be an amazing opportunity to introduce Miles Morales, who appears in the comics as a new Spider-man after Peter Parker dies. But when I realized that there's a pending Guardians of the Galaxy film, I realized that they'd need to bring back Star Lord at least, because Rocket is the only remaining member of that cast, and they're not going to do a Guardians film with all new characters. I'm fine with that, because now I've got the chance for more "Hey guys, remember that really old movie?" gags.

My guess is that they're all somehow inside the soul gem. If you'll remember, in the second after Thanos snaps his fingers and does the deed, he finds himself in a place. A reddish place with water everywhere, and he speaks to a child Gamorra. I think that this place was the inside of the Soul Gem, and that everyone he kills somehow goes there. This is my best guess for how they'll undo everything. I wish I could listen again to Red Skull's explanation of how that gem is different. There might be clues there.

Speaking of Clues

On the way to Titan, Dr. Strange tells Tony that if there's a choice between saving him and Peter or the stone, he'd save the stone. Then, Strange looks into the future and sees only one way to win. Then, he ends up giving Thanos the stone to save Tony's life. Obviously, he changed his mind based on what he saw.

Hulk

I liked Thanos outfighting Hulk. Hulk is strong, but not accustomed to hand-to-hand combat where he's not able to simply overpower any defense. Why dodge when nearly nothing can even hurt you? But then Thanos actually turned out to be even stronger than Hulk. That one really surprised me. I've always thought that Hulk was just strongest in MCU period.

So now Hulk is too scared to come out, I guess? This is obviously a plot thread they'll need to dive into in the next movie.

The Jokes

The film had some fantastic jokes. That will kill you! Only if I die. That one has to be my favorite, although there were a few close seconds, like Tony asking Bruce not to embarrass him in front of the wizards, and Thor calling Rocket "Rabbit". I also loved when Tony called Thanos "Grimace". How many kids today even know Grimace?

• He's from space. He's here to steal a necklace from a wizard.
• I'm gonna get that arm...
• Kevin Bacon? Is he an Avenger now? I don't know, I've been gone for a while.
• I am Groot! I am Steve Rogers.

So Close...

They really honestly could have stopped Thanos but for our heroes' mistakes. Peter Quill got so mad at Thanos for killing Gamorra that he slapped him out of the trance just as Spider-Man actually got the Infinity Gauntlet off. Gamorra chose to lead Thanos to the soul stone. Wanda chose to not destroy the Mind Stone much earlier and hide the location of its destruction to avoid the rewind. Steve Rogers's "We don't trade lives" line comes to mind, and I love the character's philosophy, but it doesn't change the fact that they could have saved half the lives in the universe.

The Black Order

Thanos's lieutenants (children?) were very cool. Apparently, they're The Black Order. Ebony Maw, the evil telekinetic priest wizard, was the best. The assassin twins, Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, were also great villains. And the giant who gets him arm amputated by a portal at the beginning and ends up thrown into the Wakanda shield at the end is Cull Obsidian, who appears to be Black Dwarf renamed.

More Tidbits

• Tony Stark still thinks Thor is dead. After Bruce came back, he told him "Thor is gone", and Bruce had good reason to believe that. But while Bruce saw Thor's return in Wakanda with Stormbreaker, Tony's been away on Kronos. Tony's current situation neatly fulfills the prophetic vision Scarlet Witch gave him in Age of Ultron, wherein everyone else was dead and it was his fault.
• In the Infinity War comic, Thanos wanted to kill half the universe to woo Lady Death. That doesn't work as well in the movie for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we just saw a different goddess of Death: Hela.
• Thor has become so powerful! Now he's just fine jumping around in a vacuum?
• I didn't love Captain America nearly as much in this film. Maybe that's because he has so little screen time.
• I love that General Ross orders Rhodey to arrest Steve's group for violations of the Wakanda accords and Rhodey just ignores the order.
• Thanos was a great character and a great villain. I listened to a podcast that used a good word to describe him: morose.
• My 10-year-old daughter, who's seen all the Marvel films in order and has been tracking the whereabouts of each infinity stone, went to see the film with us. She was crushed by the ending. I mean - she was really upset.

I'm from the Future

Of all the things I'm writing about here, this crazy theory is the one that blows my mind the most. It all comes down to one throwaway line from Spider-Man which I'd honestly forgotten until a friend brought it up today in a Telegram discussion. Early in the film, Peter swings in and says "I'm from the future". Haha, silly joke. I think I immediately disregarded the line. But wait. We know now that something like time travel shenanigans is going to have to happen to allow the dead characters to come back. So what if that Peter really is from the future?

Imagine this. Peter and Ned are on the bus. Peter exits the bus and starts towards the spaceship. But by the time he gets there, the ship has just taken off. He sees Iron Man flying after it, and... boy. That looks like another Spider-Man on the side. He stays in New York, and soon lots of people disappear into weird black clouds. What's going on? Lots of other stuff happens, then at some point in the future, Peter travels back in time to just before the ship lands, and helps Tony in the fight, then joins him in the spaceship to save Dr. Strange. We know the story from there. So what do you think? Feasable? How cool would it be if the new Spiderman film starts this way?

EDIT: So, I did some digging and found out that the line wasn't actually "from the future". Stark said "Kid, where'd you come from?" and Peter replied "Field Trip! Sonoma!" Sigh. It really did sound like "future". There goes that theory.

Looking Forward

This film looks to be the Empire Strikes Back of the MCU. It ends on a down note, with the heroes having actually lost. Personally, after having gotten over the initial shock, I love it.

So after this, we've got Ant Man and the Wasp in July, and then next year, we have Captain Marvel, the second part of this Avengers story, and then a Spider-Man sequel. After that, we know there's going to be a third Guardians of the Galaxy and another Black Panther movie, but there's a lot that's not clear, including the name of the next Avengers movie. I'm guessing the name must be something of a spoiler, so they're waiting for everyone who cares a lot to see this film first.

I've seen it brought up that it's going to be tough to market a Spider-Man film when the Avengers movie which will shockingly reveal that he's not dead happens only two months prior. If they show any footage from that Spider-Man movie, it will immediately spoil that Peter Parker isn't actually dead. I wonder how they'll handle it.

I'd nearly forgotten, but Adam Warlock is going to have a large part to play in the upcoming fourth Avengers movie. They showed his Chrysalis in the keeping of The Sovereign at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I'm betting that he gets ahold of the gauntlet at some point.

I ranked all these movies recently, but Infinity War definitely cracks my top five and reorders some things. I've also recently rethought my previous top two, and I think the original Avengers film has to be above Civil War, despite all the great new characters and interactions in Civil War. I think I'm going to have to dwell on things for a while before I can decide whether I like the original Avengers film or Infinity War better though. It's a close one.