Massive spoilers ahead for Avengers: Infinity War. If you haven't seen it yet, look away!
It's been over two weeks since Avengers: Infinity War, and Marvel fans haven't recovered from the absolutely wild and emotional ride. The Russo Brothers used every second of the film's runtime to move the overall story forward, introducing a complex and flawed villain as the film's protagonist. The directors had a massive pool of characters to play with, and there's one pairing that fans expected, but never got: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. We haven't seen Cap and Iron Man reunite since their final battle in Captain America: Civil War, and now writer Stephen McFeely explained why it never happened.
Our first sort of wonky draft [had] the idea that they had to get back in the same room together and deal with that. [But it] meant that you're slowing down your Thanos [Infinity] Stones [quest] to deal with other threats from other movies. And that became, as much as we wanted to do, and as many times as we wrote those scenes, it became clear that this movie needed to be propulsive and be about Thanos and what he represented to the Avengers.
It looks like there simply wasn't a logical way to bring Cap and Iron Man back together, at least not in Avengers: Infinity War. Each hero had their own mission to complete, and their forces probably needed to be divided in order to give the planet a legitimate chance at survival. Unfortunately, it didn't do much good (thanks, Star-Lord.)
Stephen McFeely's comments to Yahoo will be a relief to some Marvel fans, who were hoping that Steve and Tony would meet face to face during the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Their conflicting ideologies resulted in the events of Civil War, with the Team split in two and Cap leaving his signature Vibranium shield behind. But it looks like we'll have to wait until Avengers 4 for the two heroes to reunite, in a desperate attempt to reverse Thanos' snap of death.
Ultimately Iron Man joined the likes of Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and the Guardians on Titan. Meanwhile, Cap and the rest of the Avengers traveled to Wakanda in an attempt to keep Thanos and his forces from Vision. This kept Infinity War's pacing and excitement at a steady build, making the eventual loss even more devastating.
Now that there are way less characters to juggle, Avengers 4 will no doubt go back to basics and focus on the members of the original team. All of the OG Avengers were spared by Thanos' finger snap, and Tony and Steve are going to have to work out their differences if they have any hope of taking on the Mad Titan again.
Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters now, and Avengers 4 will arrive May 3, 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
