Earlier this month, leaked Avengers 4 concept art seemingly put an end to the Civil War. Although, the authenticity of the slip-up was called into question. Thankfully, though, additional seepage has oozed onto the interweb and not only corroborated the initial drip but elucidated several telltale signs that the fourth supergroup installment will indeed use time travel to reverse some, if not all, of the deaths that occurred during the cataclysmic finale of Avengers: Infinity War.
Yesterday, we theorized – by way of Nerdist – that a piece of the leaked concept art, which depicted Thanos (Josh Brolin) wielding what looked to be a functioning, unused Infinity Gauntlet, served as confirmation Avengers 4 “will use time travel elements to undo most of the character deaths that happened during the dusting.” Seeing as, if you recall, once the Mad Titan wiped out half of the titular supergroup, the glove of doom was looking a little worse for the wear, to say the least.
Whether or not our heroes will be doing battle with Thanos across a multitude of timelines in next year’s sequel does remain to be seen, but MCU Cosmic has noted a few indicators, stemming from the leaked concept art, which appear to confirm that Avengers 4 will pick up quite a while after the Mad Titan wiped out half of all life in the universe.
First, it seems that the death of Peter Parker (Tom Holland), which had an unbelievably profound effect on Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), has forced him to retire. As such, Iron Man’s still wearing the “bleeding edge” armor from Infinity War and not something new. Second, because Stark’s no longer developing new suits, War Machine (Don Cheadle) is “seriously upgraded,” which would make sense if Tony isn’t Iron Man anymore, as the government would pour money into Rhodey’s suit instead. And third, Hulk’s (Mark Ruffalo) no longer dressed in skimpy attire and instead dons a uniform, indicating that Bruce Banner has somehow managed to take control of the big green guy.
Given that we’ve seen Avengers 4 set photos which tease a trip back in time to the Battle of New York from 2012’s blockbuster, and the “Ant-Man series heavily insinuating that the Quantum Realm allows for time manipulation,” we could very well be in for an array of time swings next May. And we couldn’t be more excited.