Although there is excitement and a whole lot of spectacle for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s growth, it is easy to forget that the characters on screen started out in the comic books. The comic books are the source, and although MCU movies do not always feature exact adaptations from comics to the screen, Marvel Studios looks to them for inspiration.
Avengers: Infinity War will see the Avengers unite and fight against Thanos and it is very clear from their very first trailer that the movie will borrow from the classic 1991 comic storyline The Infinity Gauntlet (Jim Starlin, Ron Lim, and George Pérez). One of the key scenes from the trailer happens to be lifted right from the comic series’ first issue, with a little twist.
Fans of the comic may recall the opening scene where the Silver Surfer crash lands into Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. Strange and his friend, Wong rush to Surfer and their surprise visitor’s presence was not an accident. He had arrived with a warning: “Thanos is coming!” This is the scene that has launched the entire event.
In the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, we see the scene brought to life — there is a hole in the roof, and Doctor Strange and Wong rush to find who stumbled into their house. But there is one difference: instead of the Surfer, Bruce Banner crash lands.
The last we saw of Banner, he was on an Asgardian ship with Thor, Loki and the Asgardians in Thor: Ragnarok. A ship that was about to come under attack by a bigger ship.
Loki is surrounded by the dead with the Tesseract, and it stands to reason that the vessel belongs to Thanos. In the fires of the space battle, Hulk may be thrown back to Earth. In the hole he had created in the Sanctum, Banner will be the one to warn of Thanos’ coming.
After that, the pieces will fall into place. Banner and Strange calls Stark who visits the Sanctum and that is when Stark will call Steve Rogers and call in the cavalry.
