Infinity War (Spoilers)

If you read this without having seen Infinity War, I will personally whack you with a rubber fish.

When I first came out of Infinity War, I felt like I’d seen half a movie.  I hate cliffhangers.  They make me nervous. What if the world ends before part 2 comes out?  Never mind all the death and suffering, an unfinished Marvel series would be the real tragedy. 

But after a while I started to feel pretty good about it.  You just have to think of Thanos as the protagonist.  He gets some backstory, he has a quest, he experiences personal growth, and finally he wins the conflict.  It helps that he actually believes he’s right.  It’s not like he’s taking over the universe just because he craves power or money.  He truly believes that by wishing half the universe into the cornfield, he’s making life better for the other half.  If you buy into his version of morality, the movie is almost uplifting.

Okay, so he’s not the first Well-Intentioned Extremist to appear in a comic book movie, but most of the others are focused on their own group.  Magneto, for example, wants to make a better world for mutants, but doesn’t care how many non-mutants have to die to make it happen.  But Thanos wants to make things better for everyone, and if half have to die for that to happen, he’s at least merciful about it. 

Infinity War had a lot of funny dialogue and some great action scenes.  On the other hand, it was so heavy-handed (giant metal gauntlets will do that) that I don’t know if I’m going to want to watch it over and over like I do some Marvel movies.  In addition to hating cliffhangers, I also don’t like sequels that undo the happy endings of other movies.  The Guardians of the Galaxy spent their first movie saving the planet Xandar, only to have it devastated off-screen in Infinity War.  Ragnarock’s bittersweet ending is also much more of a tragedy now.

Overall it’s a great movie, but “great” can also mean “large or immense.”  It feels like a gut punch, but it’s a solid story.  I might feel better about it after I see Part 2.  So, what’s going to happen in Part 2?  We already know that everyone who faded away at the end will come back.  Some of them already have sequels in the works, so it’s not much of a surprise that the whole “wiped from existence” thing will be undone.  That may have been the cheesiest part of Infinity War; they might have been smarter to only show characters getting dissolved who don’t have sequel plans.  The actual fading away took far too long, but I think they wanted us to take note of which characters are alive and dead.

Cheatsheet (thank you Wikipedia):

Alive and kicking: Thor, Tony Stark, Nebula, Bruce Banner, Okoye, Rhodey, Rocket Racoon, Steve Rogers, Black Widow, M'Baku.

Dead before the end: Loki, Heimdall, other Asgardians, Gamora, Vision.

Banished from Existence: Bucky, Black Panther, Groot, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Mantis, Drax, Peter Quill, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man.

Is Loki permanently dead?  I’d say it depends on whether there’s ever a Thor 4.  He’s the easiest one to bring back, since he fakes his death all the time.  But if they never make another Thor movie, then he’s probably dead in this continuity.  For that matter, how many of the other Asgardians survived?  Thor says Thanos "killed half his crew", so which ones did Thanos capture as slaves before blowing up their ship?  If Thor can survive a spaceship explosion, followed by floating through the vacuum space, can’t some of the other Asgardians as well? 

Is Gamora permanently dead?  This one is more complicated to me.  I think she’s a great character and the GotG series will be duller without her.  But at the same time, I think future Marvel movies will lose some of their impact if she’s magically brought back.  Like, what’s the point of even mourning for a character any more, if no one stays dead?  Still, I feel like there’s some clues that make her death iffy.  The way Thanos dropped her – after everything we’ve seen Gamora survive, I’m not even sure if a fall from that height would kill her. 

If the writers really wanted us to know she’s dead for good, they should have had something at the bottom of the drop, like spikes or lava.  To me, keeping her body intact seems like a writing trick – the writers may need that body later.  Her death led to obtaining the Soul Gem.  Maybe that means the gem contains Gamora’s soul.  What happens if that soul gets back to her body?  And the scene at the end where Thanos seems to retreat into the Soul Gem after Thor whacks him... what was that all about?

Is Vision permanently dead?  Well, was he ever really alive?  I love Paul Bettany and would hate to see him leave the series, but it’s hard for me to feel too bad for Vision.  He never really had enough screen time to make me care about him, and the character was so incredibly bland.  He also may be too powerful to use much, like how in Justice League cartoons they’re always sending Superman on deep space missions to keep him from defeating the villain-of-the-week too quickly.  I’m less worried about whether Vision lives than I am about how many tragedies they throw at Scarlet Witch.  If they keep killing off her loved ones, she’s going to be a supervillain again.

How are they going to fix everything?  I don’t know.  There’s probably clues in who didn’t disappear.  When Doctor Strange decided to give the Time Gem to Thanos in order to save Stark, we’re meant to think it was the standard “heroes always show weakness to save other lives” trope, but I don’t think so.  Strange knew that Thanos would kill far more people with the gem than without it.  When he looked into the future, he said he saw a million ways this plays out, and we only win one of them.  To me this means that the only future in which we win, is one where Stark survives.  Stark could still die later in Part 2, but only after he saves the day.

And why did Infinity War go out of its way to show us where the gauntlet was forged?  That seems like a clue as well.  And how will Captain Marvel factor into this?  Her insignia is the last thing we see in Infinity War, and her movie comes out shortly before Infinity War Part 2.  Is her movie going to be more like Infinity War 1.5? (Update: I have since learned that Captain Marvel takes place in the 90s.)

So many questions, so long to wait.