The very first trailer for “Avengers: Endgame” is now out, and surely you’ve seen it if you’re reading this. If not, well, get on it!
It’s not super heavy on detail, which is to be expected this far out, but there are still details that we can glean about the plot of this crazy thing. So let’s do dive in.
1. Tony Stark is adrift in space in the Guardians’ ship
The entire first minute of the trailer is spent with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who is adrift in space in the Benatar (named after Pat Benatar, similar to how the Guardians’ first ship was called the Milano) seemingly about to run out of food and air. Tony is recording a goodbye message to Pepper Potts. It seems likely this could be the very beginning of “Avengers: Endgame,” with a rescue to mirror Thanos’ attack on the Asgardians in “Avengers: Infinity War.”
The question is: who’s doing the rescuing? Could Captain Marvel show up on the stage that early in this?
2. Nebula is with him
Nebula (Karen Gillan) was the only other survivor from Titan, and I guess the ship that she rammed into Thanos during the big battle in “Infinity War” wasn’t fit to fly after she wrecked it.Of course, if Nebula is with Tony, why wouldn’t they be able to get anywhere? She would know how to fly the Benatar, you would think. Hmmm.
3. Thanos is still wearing the burned up Infinity Gauntlet
We get a brief look at Thanos (Josh Brolin) on that planet he retired to after doing mass murder on a scale hitherto undreamt of. (Yes, we seriously just said “hitherto undreamt of.”) He’s set up his armor as a scarecrow, and he’s still wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. We know it’s not completely broken — we saw him use the burnt-out gauntlet to teleport out of Wakanda at the end of the battle there. But is there a reason he’s still wearing it? Maybe it’s welded to his body after that finger-snap. Or maybe he knows that the Avengers will need it if they wanna undo what he did? That’s how it goes in the comics, anyway.
4. They know Spider-Man got dusted
There’s a shot in Avengers HQ with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) looking at two pictures and crying. The pictures are of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Peter Parker (Tom Holland). Presumably this means the Avengers think they both got dusted. That makes sense for Scott, since he really did disappear at the time of the snap as he was in the Quantum Realm at the time. But they would have known Peter went to space with Tony Stark in pursuit of the Black Order.
Of course, there’s a pile of other questions this item inspires. Like: Could that scene happen after Tony is back on Earth? Do any of the other Avengers even know Spider-Man’s secret identity? I guess Pepper or Happy could have told them, presuming they survived. Anyway, this is an interesting nugget, at least.
5. Also, RIP Shuri
Meanwhile, in people we didn’t know if they died: it looks like Shuri (Letitia Wright) didn’t make it either. Which, considering she was the greatest technical mind on Earth, that seems like somewhat of a setback.
6. Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) is now Ronin
There’s been a lot of speculation that Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) would show up in “Avengers: Endgame” as Ronin — who in the comics is kind of a Russian Captain America type of character who was married to Natasha Romanov/Black Widow back in the day. It looks like the Ronin part of that is definitely true, and it’ll be interesting to see if their backstory as a married couple is also part of this.
One thing that seems clear, at least, is that given the look on Clint’s face and the narration laid over that shot (“We lost friends, we lost family, we lost a part of ourselves”), it seems fairly safe to guess that his family did not survive the finger snap, and that’s why he reverted to this old identity.
7. The surviving Avengers on Earth have a plan
I mean, of course they have a plan. But it’s still important that it’s there. Unfortunately, there is not much here to guess what that plan is — they appear to at least be heading out somewhere when Black Widow utters her “This is gonna work, Steve,” because it looks like they’re in a quinjet at during that scene.
But maybe the bigger clue about the plan comes with the stinger at the end of the trailer.
8. Captain America shaved his beard!
That is truly depressing.
9. Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) is out of the Quantum Realm
And there we are. This was the big “EndGame”-related moment from “Ant-Man and the Wasp” — Scott goes into the Quantum Realm and gets stuck there when Hope Van Dyne, Janet Van Dyne and Hank Pym get snapped. Now, it seems incredibly unlikely that Scott just managed to somehow get out without learning something important down there.
In fact, it seems like the logical assumption is to think that when Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) does show up it’s to save Tony, but my hunch is more in the direction of Carol Danvers popping up in the Quantum Realm and helping Scott. Because I think that would explain better why she hasn’t been on the galactic stage at all in two decades.
But anything is possible, and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Natasha are clearly surprised when he does pop up. My guess, at it always has been, is that whatever happened with Scott in the Quantum Realm will end up being key to the plot of “Avengers: Endgame.”
And that’s all we got right now. Like I said previously, there’s not a whole ton to chew on here. But even so we can’t help but get hype when watching it, because “Avengers: Endgame” is shaping up to be the blockbuster event of, well, maybe ever.
This thing is out April 26.