Comic-Con 2017 gave a treat to Marvel Fans by unveiling the first official banner for the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. This banner was created by merging, several posters, each of which featured a special mix of the heroes from Marvel Cinematic Universe shown in the color of a specific Infinity Stone with Thanos and his Black Order lieutenants occupying the central space with Thanos holding the all mighty Infinity Gauntlet.
Fandom is abuzz with the speculation that this Infinity War artwork contains some story spoilers in the imagery. There is a new Reddit thread dwelling upon the issue, and it provides some interesting theories about what could this imagery reveal about the storyline of Infinity War.
Let’s have a look at what this Avengers: Infinity War banner might be telling us:
Exact Placement
The first premise is that we should believe this banner to be accurate and consider that the way the characters are placed in this artwork is the representation of actual groupings and narrative that we will see in the Infinity War.
Thus, the groups will be as below:
- Rocket, Groot, Drax, Thor, Loki
- Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, Vision and Scarlet Witch
- Iron Man, Gamora, Nebula, Doctor Strange, Mantis, Spider-Man
- Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, War Machine, Black Panther, Hulk
They have already teased us with the possibility of a mashup between The Guardians and Thor in the film’s trailer. We might see this kind of cosmic meeting take place in the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok. The team led by Captain America hasn’t surfaced after the Civil War, but, it is still unclear how Vision got tangled up with them. As per the timeline, Black Panther and Winter Soldier are at Wakanda, and they could be joined by Hawkeye and War Machine.
Iron Man was on the government’s side and making efforts to protect Earth. His group is quite vague. However, each of his groupmates has a great understanding of the cosmic threats and thus, it is logical that Tony will keep himself updated with the best information available.
The two characters who are doubtful are Spider-Man and Hulk. Some people consider Spider-Man to be in the group of Black Panther while as per the artwork, he seems to be swinging through to back up Iron Man’s team. However, Hulk is shown at the top of the photograph, and he is partly transparent which doesn’t look good for his prospects. Either he won’t be seen as a strong guy in the film, or he might just be killed or dispatched to some far off corner by Thanos, early in the film.
Stone Rainbow
The other aspect of this artwork which needs to be deciphered is the color coding from the various Infinity Stones as seen here.
Thor’s group is capsuled in the purple light of the Power Stone , and a red light beam (Reality Stone) separates Thor from the team of the Captain. This might mean that Thor and team might get tangled up in some multidimensional battle or expedition.
Captain America’s group is bordered by the Mind Stone’s yellow light which is still possessed by The Vision.
The Iron Man’s group is outlined by the green light of the Time Stone which is held by Doctor Strange.
While it is not clear as to what light is framing the Black Panther’s group, but, it should have been where the Soul Stone’s orange light should have been seen. The Space Stone’s (Tesseract) blue light is surrounding earth which signifies another alien invasion through some portal, and that light is beaming back at the Black Panther group, but, not at the others. Does that mean that this is the final group that would line up to defend Earth and the missing Infinity Stone (Soul)?
Set Photos Shuffle
Several Reddit users indicate that this artwork and its groupings are not symmetrical to how we saw things in the earlier leaked Avengers: Infinity War set pictures and videos:
As some Reddit users point out, this mural and its groupings run contrary to things we’ve already seen in Avengers: Infinity War set photos and videos:
- Doctor Strange is shown working alongside Starlord to fight Thanos in the setting of the “Battleworld.”
- Captain America is supporting Bucky and Panther in Wakanda.
- Hulk as Bruce Banner Is with Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, and Wong.
- Hawkeye and War Machine are in Wakanda supporting Winter Soldier, and Iron Man is teaming up with Gamora and Nebula.
We should also not forget that Avengers: Infinity War is going to have a very dynamic plot, therefore, teams and locations are most likely to alter as the film progresses.
All said and done; there is a great deal of this banner art which might just gel with the narrative which shows the Marvel superheroes are trying to outrun Thanos and his Black Order to take control of the Infinity Stones. Just think about this:
- Thor and Star-Lord can recover the Power and Reality Stones from the Nova Corps and The Collector respectively.
- Captain America’s team protects Vision and his Mind Stone.
- Doctor Strange and team Iron Man are in charge of the Time Stone (Strange’s Eye of Agamotto).
- Thanos has already captured the Space Stone from Asgard after the Thor: Ragnarokhappenings and he uses it to transport The Black Order to various locations to capture the other stones.
- It is revealed that the Soul Stone fell on Earth as a Vibranium meteor in Wakanda and that’s where Black Panther is taking guard along with his team and the Wakanda army (as seen in the set photos).
Ultimately we know that the superheroes would be on the losing side and Thanos will possess the Infinity Gauntlet which gives him omnipotence. Well, all these are speculative theories based on the hints given in this artwork.
Avengers: Infinity War will hit the theaters on May 4, 2018.
