SPOILER WARNING: The article that follows main contain some gigantic spoilers for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you do not wish to know anything that could potentially ruin your experience for the film, we would highly recommend you check out another story on the site.
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be heading for what appears to be a colossal cosmic collision with Avengers: Infinity Wars Parts 1 and 2 in 2018 and 2019, a new report is indicating that the lineup of Marvel’s megateam could be drastically different by the time we get there. So, if you're the excitable type regarding spoilers, then you may want to brace yourselves for what could be potentially game-changers. It may be surreal to imagine, but could it be the case that Captain America and Thor will be out of the team? According to a massive bundle of info dropped by Latino Review, that will allegedly be the case.
First, let's talk about Cap. For comic book fans in the know, the very title of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War has been seen as a harbinger of misfortune for Steve Rogers, and according to the report, such fears are warranted. Like in the famous eponymus comic book storyline and its aftermath, Captain America will reportedly be killed by Crossbones in Captain America 3. While death has somewhat of a lesser meaning even in the more realistic Marvel Cinematic Universe (Agent Phil Coulson being the primary example), it would effectively sideline the character indefinitely from the MCU.
The situation with Thor is just a bit different. Details on 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, other than its Norse apocalyptic theme, are still scant. but according to the new rumors, that film will see a lot of Asgardians get killed and resurrected, and Thor will somehow end up in some kind of "galactic prison." While we have seen how Asgardians do prison with Loki in Thor: The Dark World, there looks to be something a bit more permanent and cliffhanger-ish in mind for the God of Thunder. (My guess is that he floor-smashes one too many collectible novelty mugs.)
How, might you ask, could they possibly have the audacity to carry on The Avengers without Captain America and Thor? Well, thankfully, beginning with this summer’s Age of Ultron, there will be a transfusion of some new blood to the team. (And even some radioactive spider blood by the time we get to Infinity War.) Plus, there are signs pointing towards Doctor Strange getting his own "A" lanyard at some point, not to mention Ant-Man and Black Panther.
We knew that Marvel wasn’t going to keep retreading movies with same lineup of stars repeatedly until we got sick of them. Marvel Stuidios President Kevin Feige is too much a long-term planner to let something like that occur. Indeed, anyone even vaguely familiar with The Avengers comic book titles over the last half a century will tell you that the team lineup has always been constantly in a state of flux. So, in that sense, none of these tidbits come as a serious surprise to those of us who have been speculating for years on how the MCU would take shape as it matured. While comic books allow characters to shine in all their glory in perpetuity, the rules of the MCU are more adherent to realism and - sadly - Hollywood contracts. In that sense, when one looks at the way these unrealistic comic stories have been merged into the mechanism of real life feasibility, it makes you appreciate the MCU's skillful synthesis.
