Avengers: Infinity War Teases The Death Of A Favorite Character

Avengers: Infinity War is an event of cosmic significance, both in our world, and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

For us, it's one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, an unprecedented culmination of 10 years and 18 movies leading up to a gigantic finale. But for the characters of the MCU, Infinity War looks primed to be their bleakest outing yet, and with the release of its massive first trailer, many commentators are increasingly starting to fear that some of these characters may not be around for much longer. 

The biggest potential candidate on the chopping block for many fans is also the most powerful member of the team: Paul Bettany's synthetic life form, Vision.

Key to the theory of Vision's impending demise is the fact that the exact thing that gave Vision life in Avengers: Age of Ultron—his forehead-embedded Mind Stone—is one of the six powerful items Thanos has spent the last decade killing his way across the universe to acquire. 

One shot in the trailer, with Vision sprawled on the ground in evident defeat having his forehead violently probed by one of Thanos' allies, suggests that Thanos is going to get his hands on the stone—and if this doesn't kill Vision outright, he probably won't last long against Thanos and his horde without his powers.

In a storytelling sense, it would make sense to take Vision out of commission for the Thanos fight. The strange and romantic being, not quite man and not quite computer, is immensely powerful, so much so that the movies have pointedly neglected to use him during certain battle scenes, in a similar fashion to the way they've sometimes treated the Hulk. 

Vision's romance with Scarlet Witch—along with his new, empathetic human form—also raises suspicions that the end is near for him. It's a classic move—they remind you why you love the character, and then they stick the knife in.

Honestly, it wouldn't be a surprise if many of Marvel's heroes met their ends in shocking ways in Infinity War, and it doesn't have anything to do with the actors' expiring contracts. Marvel Studios' head Kevin Feige hasn't been shy about foreshadowing a coming violent end for some of the company's most beloved heroes, recently sharing his thoughts about the future of the franchise with Vanity Fair.

"If Marvel is going to survive, they have to start making movies with characters who are a little different," Feige said. "They have to start allowing characters to die."

It increasingly looks like that time of reckoning is now. Not only have the movies been building to a fatal conclusion with the mad titan Thanos, the comics on which the story is based saw Thanos getting away with lots and lots of murder of some very recognizable names—at least, for a while.

In The Infinity Gauntlet, the six-part series that saw Thanos attain all of the Infinity Gems (or Stones, in the movies), Thanos used his unprecedented power to effortlessly blink half of all living creatures in the universe out of existence. 

Yes, half—and that includes our superheroes. In one instant, Thanos killed the likes of the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and many of the X-Men, leaving the surviving heroes to band together for an all-or-nothing mission on Thanos' side of the galaxy.

With that comic book history in mind, could this be what Infinity War is building to?  It was previously said that the subtitle for the fourth Avengers movie hasn't been released because it is in itself a spoiler—does the title refer to the Avengers' defeat? Is Disney pulling an Empire Strikes Back on us? Is this why Don Cheadle freaked out when Mark Ruffalo said "everyone dies" in that one interview five months ago?

Well—maybe. We'll know for sure when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on May 4, 2018.