Leaked Avengers 4 Promo Art Reveals New Costumes For Thor, Rocket Raccoon
The gift of life isn't the only one the heroes who survived Avengers: Infinity War will get in Avengers 4.
Leaked promo art for Avengers 4, posted to the KPOW! Instagram account, shows Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) rocking slick new suits.
The art looks to be the back side of packaging for an Avengers-related toy, and while the leaked photo isn't high-quality, it does give fans an idea of what a few Marvel heroes might wear in Avengers 4.
Accented with red patches, the suits are a shiny silver-white color along the torso, arms, and sides of the legs, and black everywhere else. Thor sports a thick, black Avengers "A" on the chest-plate of his suit, and wields what looks like an upgraded version of his newest weapon, the hammer-ax hybrid Stormbreaker. And though Rocket goes without a tool to bludgeon enemies with, the fact that he's seen standing with his arm crossed over his chest and wearing a stern look on his face signals that he'll be merciless in his actions in Avengers 4.
Taking a closer look at the promo photo (we know it's difficult, the image is pretty blurry), you'll notice that Captain America (Chris Evans) is also wearing one of these cool new suits. To the left of the Star-Spangled Avenger is Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), who isn't done up in a fancy costume. She instead wears her standard red, navy, and gold suit from the comic books and from the trailer for the upcoming Captain Marvel movie. Carol Danvers donning her signature suit rather than getting all matchy-matchy with her new crime-fighting mates is understandable, as she'll probably be introduced in Avengers 4 as the mysterious outsider Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) called upon for help at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. It's sort of like when Sandy wanted to join the Pink Ladies in Grease: she couldn't just show up and score one of those sweet bubblegum pink jackets, she had to earn it. Captain Marvel just might have to do the same.
With their silver-white, red, and black color scheme, Thor, Rocket, and Cap's suits evoke the costume Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) wore when he was leaping through the Quantum Realm in search of Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfieffer), as well as the suit Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) sported in Ant-Man and the Wasp. A popular Avengers 4 fan theory suggests that the heroes who didn't dissolve into intergalactic dust in Infinity War, when Thanos (Josh Brolin) snapped his fingers and killed half the universe's population, will travel back in time, snatch up the Infinity Stones for themselves before Thanos can ever get his meaty purple hands on them, and bring back to life everyone who previously perished, effectively reversing the events of Infinity War.
Thor, Rocket, and the two Captains actually appear again in the upper righthand corner of the photo, seen next to Ant-Man, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and War Machine (Don Cheadle). The photo of these Marvel heroes together matches up almost perfectly to another image that surfaced earlier this year. Uploaded to the fansite Heroi X, the purported promo image features Captain Marvel in her standard costume, Hawkeye in his new superhero identity as the masked Ronin, Black Widow with dark ginger hair rather than the light blonde locks she had in Infinity War, and Hulk wearing a suit that appears to be made out of Wakandan vibranium, as well as Ant-Man, War Machine, Rocket, and Thor in their typical attire. Nebula (Karen Gillan) is seen in the previously leaked image, but is missing from this new snap.
So, what could all this mean?
Well, since the text in the photo appears to read, "The Asgardian Thor wields the mighty Stormbreaker in his battle against his foes. Rocket teams up with a new crew to guard the galaxy against an even greater threat," it seems likely that the group Rocket joins post-Infinity War — during which Guardians of the Galaxy members Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Groot (Vin Diesel), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) disintegrated — are Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, Hawkeye, The Hulk, Ant-Man, and War Machine. Of these characters, Thor and Captain America might be Rocket's closest companions, given that all three are shown here wearing the same silver-white costumes. From there, one could theorize that the trio will partner on a mission, slipping into the new suits to travel through the Quantum Realm, locate time vortexes, skip around in the past, stop Thanos from committing mass genocide, and ultimately defeat the so-described "greater threat."
The remaining heroes seen in this leaked image might split up into mini groups to carry out their own tasks, much like the characters did in Infinity War when battling Thanos for the Infinity Stones.
Avengers 4 co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo haven't confirmed anything about the forthcoming flick (not even its title), so there's no saying with absolute certainty that the film will show Thor, Rocket, and Captain America suited up in new threads, or if the movie will even feature the team using time travel to take down Thanos. It isn't uncommon for toy companies to create alternate costumes that characters never wear in films — as TheWrap pointed out, an action figure for the first Thor movie featured the God of Thunder with "deluxe blaster armor" that didn't appear on screen — so maybe these suits are only for Avengers 4 action figures and not Avengers 4 actors. And the theories about the film utilizing the Quantum Realm? Yeah, they make a ton of sense, but without backing from the Russos, they're just thoughts and ideas for now.
Furthermore, there's no clear source for this photo. We only know that it materialized on Instagram, and though the social media platform is great for keeping an eye on the cryptic photos the Russo Brothers upload at random, it isn't a super reliable authority when it comes to leaks like these. The KPOW! account was the first to share the image, but it's difficult to tell at this point how the administrators of that account obtained the photo or where it originated from in the first place, and that makes it impossible to formulate any concrete conclusions from what's shown in the picture.
Sourceless leaks and unconfirmed speculation aside, it's clear that the pieces of the Avengers 4 puzzle are slowly but surely starting to come together. As Avengers 4 inches closer to its May 3, 2019 launch date and starts its official marketing campaign, we should have a better idea of what's legitimate and what's simply a product of the ever-moving rumor mill.