HitFix

The Major Villains From ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Have Been Revealed

Marvel blew pretty much everybody away with their D23 presentation on Saturday, and frustrated a few more who couldn’t be there live. The footage they previewed from Infinity War has not made its way online yet, but plenty of reactions and images of the Avengers cast have filtered out as time moves by. We still haven’t gotten any of the footage online — and probably won’t — but we did get another reveal from the company on Saturday.

As we shared at the close of the week, Thanos was on hand on the main floor at D23, looking ripped and ready to cause trouble sans his golden armor and the iconic Infinity Gauntlet. But he was also accompanied by a few covered figures that were set to be revealed after the panel, leaving a few feeling that Marvel might’ve pulled another Spider-Man deal with Fox for the Fantastic Four. That was not the case, but it was equally surprising for fans of Marvel Comics:

Josh Brolin joined the reveal to show off the Infinity Gauntlet itself with its full arrangement of stones and to introduce the film versions of The Black Order, also being referred to as the Children of Thanos for the film:

Now as we know, Nebula and Gamora from Guardians Of The Galaxy are the only “children” of Thanos we have at the moment in the film and comics, but it’s still not known if these are actually more kids or just followers of Thanos and his nihilistic terror on the universe. We also don’t know the full backstory of Thanos in the MCU at this point, but we do know he shares a lot of qualities with his comic counterpart, as do the members of the Black Order:

The members being included in the film are Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw, the completely bad ass Proxima Midnight, and what seems to be the renamed Black Dwarf, now known as Cull Obsidian. Glaive, Maw, and Midnight all look like they were ripped from a comic page, while Obsidian is a little more dark and reptilian compared to his comics counterpart.

Now if you haven’t read Marvel Comics in the past decade, you are likely a little confused about who the Children of Thanos actually are. In the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline in 1991 featured Thanos taking on the universe by himself for the most part. He created a partner named Terraxia to be his equal and make Mistress Death jealous, but otherwise it was Thanos on his own with the Gauntlet. He didn’t need any help. The Black Order didn’t come into play until the Infinity event in 2013, introduced as the ruthless followers of Thanos who visit worlds seeking tribute. Sorta like an intergalactic mafia seeking protection money from entire planets.

The original group featured Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Black Dwarf, and Supergiant — the only character not revealed during the D23 presentation. The storyline of Infinity deals with Thanos and his horde invading the Earth while the Avengers are off in the universe uniting the galaxy against The Builders. Meanwhile Thanos begins sending The Black Order to recover the Infinity Stones on Earth and battling the remaining heroes. This includes Dwarf invading Wakanda and being pushed back by Black Panther and his forces, something that might come into play with Infinity War and Black Panther (The Ryan Coogler film was reportedly moved up in the schedule because it features aspects that will play into the Avengers epic according to Kevin Feige).

Much of Infinity War will be dealing with Thanos’ search for the stones and battling the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in the process, so having The Black Order involved would make sense since all of the Infinity Stones have appeared elsewhere within the universe. They need to be collected and Thanos needs some hands to do his dirty work. As for that aspect with the Builders, one would have to assume that the events of Civil War will replace that aspect for the Avengers. If the team is already split apart by their own doing, it would have a better impact than the heroes being off world fighting some other threat.

As we know from the descriptions of the trailer from D23, Thanos is THE threat and doesn’t need anybody else stealing the spotlight. He has followers, a gauntlet, and a desire to tear everything apart.

Speaking of the Infinity Gauntlet, the finished product looks amazing. It’s definitely an upgrade from Josh Brolin’s version from Comic-Con, even if it isn’t as shiny and gold as the one we saw at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. According to the tidbits from D23, Thanos doesn’t even have all the stones in his possession yet when he’s laying out the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, so who knows what we’ll see when he’s collected them all. If he’s lobbing moons and planets at people (depending on the descriptions you read) you have to think it’s going to get worse from there.

Should be a fun build to May 2018 either way.