THANOS CONFIRMED TO KICK THE AVENGERS AND THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY’S ASSES (UPDATED)
Let’s discuss Avengers 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy, and how these two films have the potential to tell a story that could go down as one of the most insane cosmic epics in cinema history…
First off, the rumor mill regarding the Guardians has been churning like crazy in the wake of Marvel’s announcement that Super director James Gunn would be taking the writing and directing reins on the project, with most of the speculation centered around the film’s antagonists.
A contributor for the site Cosmic Book News supposedly ran into Marvel comics legend Jim Starlin at the Montreal Comic-Con, and the writer/artist behind many of Marvel’s cosmic epics like The Infinity Gauntlet told the blogger that a deal was struck to allow Starlin’s greatest creation, Thanos, to appear not only in the Avengers sequel, but also in Guardians of the Galaxy. This piece of information seems to dovetail nicely into the film’s “logline,” which was revealed back in August:
Now, the idea here is that Thanos would still be mostly working from the shadows during Guardians, plotting and scheming to get his hands on that “something everyone wants,” which is heavily rumored to be the aforementioned Infinity Gauntlet, a powerful item that is 1,000 times cooler than the Nintendo Power Glove and can turn the wearer into a Godlike being with nigh-omnipotent power. The likely course of events would involve Thanos seizing the Gauntlet at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, handing the cosmic superteam their asses, and sending whoever is still alive running for Earth to warn the Avengers of Thanos’ coming.
If all of that weren’t enough, our old friend Roger Wardell, the guy who Tweets Marvel rumors and has a pretty good accuracy record (although he was wrong about Viggo playing Dr. Strange in Thor: The Dark World), sent out a tweet that claimed Guardians of the Galaxy would also feature two very interesting characters:
I would need an entire article to properly explain who Adam Warlock is, and why it would be mind-blowingly awesome if he showed up in this movie alongside The Magus, who had the most amazing 1970′s afro ever:
Suffice it to say, Adam Warlock is a cosmic badass with golden skin who, in the comics, is actually the one who ends up coming to Earth to warn The Avengers that Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet and is preparing to destroy the very fabric of time and space or something to that effect (and this is after Thanos has already killed half the population of the universe in the blink of an eye). Oh, and he also hangs out with a cigar-chomping, three-foot-tall troll named Pip. Yes, really.
So, the implications of this rumor seem to point to The Magus being the main villain of Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos being a puppet master in the background (but still actually appearing in the film proper, and not just in a post-credit sequence), before heading to Earth to be the main baddie in Joss Whedon’s Avengers 2.
We’ll see how this all plays out in the months ahead, but it’s certainly exciting to think about all of this cosmic, universe-shattering spectacle actually being translated to the movie screen. It’s something that my 16-year-old mind couldn’t possibly fathom as I sat and read The Infinity Gauntlet series in the early 90′s. Back then we were content with Arnold Schwarzenegger shooting at a blob of CGI or Michelle Pfieffer vamping it up in tight black vinyl S&M wear, and now we’re on the verge of seeing Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, and a Racoon wearing a jetpack battle a crazy Space God with a glove that can annihilate galaxies. Far out, man.
Guardians of the Galaxy will be in theaters on August 1, 2014, and Avengers 2 hits on May 1. 2015.
UPDATE: Kevin Feige talked to MTV today and commented on Thanos role in Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two.
“I think we feel pretty free to recast. That was cast for literally that one shot. Depending on what the role requires from future movies, we’ll go from there. Suddenly, you have a million people who had never heard of an Infinity Gauntlet or a Mad Titan learning those terms. I love that. I love when the experience goes beyond the movie theater and encourages people to look deeper into our universe.”
About the Author
