SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War. If you have not yet seen the film, please bookmark this page, and save the read until after your screening!
In the creation of Avengers: Infinity War, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were offered the opportunity to work with a lot of the same Marvel players they previously utilized in Captain America: Civil War, but there were plenty of new heroes and villains to develop as well. As we now know, this is a list that includes Thanos, Doctor Strange, Wong, all four members of the Black Order, and the original Guardians of the Galaxy - so it may surprise you to learn the specific new character they told me they had the most fun writing scenes for:
Christopher Markus: Oh, well the Guardians are fun.Stephen McFeely: Probably Nebula.Christopher Markus: I loved working with Nebula. She's automatic friction in any scene she's in, particularly to people who haven't met her.
I learned this interesting tidbit sitting down with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely at the Los Angeles press junket for Avengers: Infinity War earlier this month. At the time I had not seen the movie, so I was winging it when I asked them about the new character they had the most fun writing for, but they were pretty quick to come up with a firm answer and solid reasoning for their choice. Apparently they got a real kick out of working with Karen Gillan's Nebula, basically for being a conflict-generating machine.
In retrospect, though, their choice is interesting when you consider the size of Nebula's role in Avengers: Infinity War. All things considered, she doesn't actually have much to do in the monster blockbuster. She first appears when Gamora is brought in to witness her torture, and that sequence is followed later by a brief scene where she escapes bondage and kills the minion guarding her. She winds up jumping into the fight with Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis, but that just leaves her on the losing team. Of course, the good news is that at the end she isn't one of the heroes killed when Thanos snaps his fingers... but that fact also makes me reflect differently on Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely's response to my question.
Not only did Markus and McFeely write the script for Avengers: Infinity War, they also scripted next year's untitled Avengers 4, and their comments make me lightly wonder about what Nebula's role will be. We have no reason to believe that the next movie will pick up immediately after the last one, but it's worth noting that the only other character alive on Titan with Nebula at the end of the movie is Iron Man. She, of course, makes sense as his ticket off of the planet so that he can get back to Earth, but that just has me wondering about all of the potential fantastic banter shared between the eternally witty Tony Stark and the eternally pissed off Luphomoid assassin.
We probably won't have any firm answers for a while, with Avengers 4 not scheduled to arrive until May 2019 -- but for now we can just enjoy Nebulas awesome albeit limited antics in Avengers: Infinity War. The 19th film from Marvel Studios is now in theaters everywhere, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for a whole lot more of our coverage!
