The dubious honor of being the first (but far from the last) leading hero to die in Avengers: Infinity War goes to Gamora, who’s sacrificed by her own adoptive father in order for him to claim the Soul Stone. Unlike many of the film’s other deaths, there’s even a body to confirm that she’s really gone for good. Being thrown off a cliff by a Mad Titan will do that to you.
However, if you combine a peculiar scene in the film with some comic book background knowledge, Infinity War might also reveal a way that the Guardian can come back… and bring the rest of the deceased heroes with her.
Immediately after Thanos snaps his fingers once all six Infinity Stones have been plugged into his Infinity Gaunlet, the villain finds himself in some dream-like landscape where he encounters Gamora as a child, much like how she looked when they first met (as depicted in a flashback earlier on). She seems to possess the memories of her older self, too as she scolds Thanos for what he’s just done, asking if it was worth it.
The film frames this as a moment of guilt for the Mad Titan, but the comics suggest that something else is going on here. In The Infinity Gauntlet storyline, which is perhaps the primary inspiration for the movie, the lives that Thanos takes with the Gauntlet are saved into the Soul Stone itself, in a dimension known as Soulworld. In the villain’s conversation with young Gamora, the atmosphere is tinged with orange – the color of the Soul Stone.
So, if Soulworld also exists in the MCU, then the lost souls of the superheroes aren’t necessarily gone for good. The reason Gamora was on her own in this scene could be because Thanos has only just snapped his fingers and the process of halving the universe has yet to begin. If everyone else ended up there as well, though, then that gives the surviving Avengers a big boost towards bringing their fellow heroes back to life.
We’ve still got a long time left to perfect our Infinity War theories, as Avengers 4 doesn’t arrive in theaters for another year, but feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments section down below.