Tag: Infinity Stones

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Marvel’s Key Avengers: Part Seven

Back on Earth…

Following Avengers: Age of Ultron  (2015), new solo heroes were introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have had a drastic effect on the universe at large. 

Ant-Man: Ant-Man (2015), which premiered only a couple months after Ultron, introduces us to Scott Lang/Ant-Man. Scott is in jail following a Robin Hood-esque stunt in which he electronically stole huge amounts of money and returned it to the people it was “legally” taken from. Upon his release he struggles to find work to pay child support and see his daughter. Hank Pym/the original Ant-Man manages to trick Scott into stealing the Ant-Man suit, which enables the wearer to become smaller/bigger. Hank had previously worked with SHIELD before founding Pym Technologies and now finds himself being ousted. Together with Hank’s daughter, Hope van Dyne (later, the Wasp), the three of them work together to steal Hank’s technology and stop Darren Cross/Yellowjacket.

Later, Scott fights for Captain America’s team in Captain America: Civil War (2016), playing an integral role in Steve Rogers/Captain America and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier’s escape. To avoid jail time, he takes a deal that has him under house arrest for two years.

While Scott does not make an appearance in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the events of his second solo outing appear to be incredibly relevant to the forthcoming Avengers: Endgame. In Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Scott is nearing the end of his sentence while Hank and Hope are working to build a tunnel to the Quantum Realm to rescue Hank’s wife and Hope’s mother, Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp. Their experimentation leads to the realization that Scott and Janet became quantumly entangled with Janet during the climax of Ant-Man. Hank and Hope then kidnap Scott, leaving a decoy behind for the FBI as Scott nears his release day.

Hank, Hope, and Scott find opposition to their plans in the forms of Sonny Burch, a black market dealer hoping to profit off Hank’s inventions, and Ava Starr/Ghost, who seeks the Quantum Tunnel to end her own suffering caused in part by Hank Pym. In the end, Sonny and his gang are arrested, Janet is recovered and helps heal Ava, and Scott is released.

What appears to be the key element for Endgame is the Quantum Realm itself, which has the potential to enable time travel. From what we’ve seen, both from Ant-Man and the Wasp and from the Endgame trailers is that Scott loses everyone important to him in Thanos’s snap, but will find his way to the Avengers to help fix what happened in Infinity War.


Doctor Strange: Although referenced by name in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Doctor Stephen Strange doesn’t make an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe until his solo film in 2016. In the film, after losing the use of his hands, surgeon Stephen Strange turns to mysticism to get his hands back. Instead, he finds himself in an inter-dimensional battle for Earth, in which he uses the Time Stone to defeat his enemy. He becomes a Master of the Mystic Arts and the keeper of the New York Sanctum, which helps protect the world from forces outside their dimension.

Stephen makes his next appearance in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) in which he kidnaps Loki when he realizes he’s on Earth. As Earth’s primary protector from things outside the Avengers purview, he explains to Thor that he really just wants Loki off-planet as soon as possible before he can cause any new trouble. He does help the Odinson brothers find their father, however, whom he had helped previously.

Doctor Strange plays a huge role in the events of Infinity War. As the protector of the Time Stone, he is a direct adversary for Thanos. After arriving on Titan with Tony Stark/Iron Man and Peter Parker/Spider-Man, he looks into possible futures to realize that there’s only one in which they win. Before he disintegrates he tells Tony, “We’re in the endgame now,” implying that he knew what would come next and how it would be reversed.


Spider-Man: Following his introduction in Civil War, Peter Parker/Spider-Man becomes something of a son to Tony Star/Iron Man. In Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Peter establishes himself as a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”, realizing the he is not ready for the kind of responsibility that comes with being an Avenger (and an adult).

In Infinity War, Peter travels to Titan with Tony and Stephen. As in the comics, he (and the others) almost succeed in removing the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos. His disintegration is heartbreaking for both Tony and the audience.


Black Panther: T’Challa/Black Panther’s first movie came out only months before Infinity War, but actually only takes place a few weeks after Civil War. In Black Panther (2018), T’Challa becomes king of Wakanda and battles his long-lost cousin, N’Jadaka/Erik “Killmonger” Stevens for the title. His actions during the film unite all of Wakanda’s tribes and opens up Wakanda and her technology to the outside world.

T’Challa and the Wakandan people play a large role in protecting the Earth from Thanos. While T’Challa’s endlessly brilliant sister, Shuri, works to remove the Mind Stone from Vision so it can be destroyed, the rest of Wakanda battles Thanos’s forces. As the most technologically advanced country on the planet, they are the best equipped for such a task, however, many lose their lives during Thanos’s snap, including T’Challa himself. 

Okoye, the leader of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s elite female warriors is featured in one of the Endgame posters, which establish who did and didn’t survive the snap. While she hasn’t been an obvious part of the trailers, it’s fair to assume that she will play a big part. There is also talk that she may play a role in the potential/rumored A-Force movie, which will have an all-female Avengers team. 


Nick Fury: Although he was the director of SHIELD for years, in 1995, Nick Fury was still someone else’s subordinate and new to the amount of weird in the world. It’s also when he meets Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. It’s after meeting her that he gets the idea for the Avengers Initiative and he is the one to initially bring them together. In the present, Fury hasn’t been seen since he came to the rescue in Ultron, providing lifeboats for the Sokovians. At the end of Infinity War, however, he manages to use his modified pager (a gift from Carol at the end of Captain Marvel (2019)), to send a message before disintegrating. We don’t know what Carol has been up to since we saw her leave Earth, but it’s clear that she will play a role in Endgame, thanks to Fury’s quick thinking.

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Marvel’s Key Avengers: Part Six

The Guardians of the Galaxy

In 2014, The Guardians of the Galaxy looked like a risky choice. Not only was it the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into a story with no connections to events happening on Earth, but the team and it’s stars were not big names.

Chris Pratt, who plays Peter Quill/Star Lord was known mainly for a supporting role on NBC’s Parks and Recreation (2009-2015), while Dave Bautista (Drax the Destroyer) was known primarily as a professional wrestler. Zoe Saldana (Gamora) had been gaining increasing fame as a female action star. Add in that perhaps the biggest stars at the time, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper would be voicing a talking tree and raccoon respectively was a jarring concept. Oh, and additional supporting roles would be filled by Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, John C. Riley, Glenn Close, and Benicio Del Toro.

What would this movie be? With an August release date it was clear that Marvel Studios had little faith in the property, perhaps just hoping to break even.

Then the first trailers aired.

Set against Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling”, audiences were given a taste of a comedic action movie unlike any other superhero film at that time. To great surprise, Guardians broke records for August, and, in many ways, Guardians took the MCU to the next level, beginning a trend of increasingly ambitious films. Personally, I knew within the first five minutes (I timed it) that this would be one of my favorite movies.

While I could go into the impact the Guardians have had on the MCU, today I want to recap just who they are and what role they play. When we first meet Peter Quill, it is 1988 and he has just watched his mother die from cancer before being abducted by a group of alien bounty hunter/pirate/adventurers called Ravagers. Twenty-six years later, after making a life amongst the Ravagers, he is sent to acquire a mysterious orb. After fighting for it, he travels to a planet called Xandar where he hopes to sell the item for himself. Here is where he meets Gamora, Groot, and Rocket.

Gamora is the adopted daughter of Thanos, an intergalactic warlord (who the audience may remember as being partially responsible for the events of Marvel’s The Avengers in 2012). Like he did with Loki in The Avengers, Thanos has allied himself with Ronan the Accuser, a soldier who seeks to undo the peace that has recently come to his people. Gamora and her adopted sister, Nebula, are sent on loan to help him acquire the stone in return for Thanos’s help. Gamora wants nothing to do with either of them and wants to use the orb to get out from under her father’s thumb.

Rocket Raccoon and Groot (a sentient tree) are codependent bounty hunters, unaligned with any other group. Learning of the bounty on Peter, they don’t know anything about the orb and merely seek a quick payday. The resulting brawl between our four unlikely heroes ends with them arrested by the Nova Corps, the police force on Xandar.

In prison, they meet Drax the Destroyer, whose family was slaughtered by Thanos. Together, the five of them escape and Gamora leads them to the Collector (Benicio Del Toro), who informs them that what they have is an Infinity Stone, specifically, the Power Stone. After Ronan gets his hands on it, Peter and the others persuade the Ravagers to help protect Xandar, contacting the Nova Corps to warn them. In the end, these misfits manage to stop Ronan (in a dance battle), but it costs Groot’s life. The newly dubbed Guardians of the Galaxy (and a baby Groot growing in a pot) have their criminal records expunged. The Power Stone is safely tucked away on Xandar and the team of anti-heroes decide to see where the universe takes them.

Months later, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), the Guardians are fighting an inter-dimensional monster in exchange for Gamora’s volatile adopted sister, Nebula (Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan). In an other excellent opening musical number, we see the Guardians are still doing what they’ve become known for, fighting the good fight (but often with a selfish ulterior motive).

In general, Guardians 2 is a much more emotionally complex film with a lot of important elements. However, the key details are: Peter meets his father, the Celestial and living planet, Ego. Ego wants to take over the universe and is destroyed by the Guardians. Being half Celestial, however, is part of how Peter survived his encounter with the Power Stone. Ego’s servant, an female empathic humanoid named Mantis, joins the Guardians, while Gamora and Nebula make amends, and Gamora and Peter begin a romantic relationship.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) takes place four years later. The Guardians play a key role as they have the most direct connection with Thanos. While Earth’s forces are gathering, The Guardians of the Galaxy (and Thor and Nebula) serve as the central group based outside of Earth’s solar system. After they rescue Thor from his destroyed refugee vessel, the group splits up, with Groot and Rocket going with Thor to get a new Thanos-killing wepaon, while Peter, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis go in search of the Reality Stone, which leads to Gamora’s capture.

In going after Gamora, Peter, Drax, and Mantis meet up with Tony Stark/Iron Man, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and Doctor Stephen Strange and nearly succeed in getting the Infinity Gauntlet off of Thanos. This fails, however, when Peter learns that Thanos sacrificed his daughter, Gamora, the only thing he loves, to obtain the Soul Stone. In attempting to kill him, Peter disrupts Mantis’s mental control.

Once Thor acquires Stormbreaker, he, Rocket, and Groot travel to Earth, arriving just in time to help the fight in Wakanda. Groot and Rocket fit right in as they help destroy the attacking monsters. As we know, however, that isn’t enough. While Groot fades away on Earth, Peter, Drax, and Mantis do on Titan, along with Stephen Strange and Peter Parker.

In the end, all that remains of the Guardians are Rocket and Nebula, two of the characters least likely to be selfless or noble, but both seem horribly shaken by the end of Infinity War. Based on trailers for Avengers: Endgame, both characters will be joining the other Avengers on Earth. Like the rest of the characters, we know very little about what role they will play. None of the Guardians appeared in Captain Marvel‘s (2019) post credits scene, but trailers suggest that while Rocket is on Earth, Nebula is helping Tony Stark come home. With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 expected to release in 2021, it’s fair to say that at least a few of them will be resurrected by Endgame‘s end.

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