The Road to Doomsday Part 5 — Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Infinity War is widely recognized as a Thanos movie. We get to follow his own story, and all the events that lead up to his inevitable win. And, according to the promotional material we got until now, Avengers: Doomsday will follow the same structure of introducing the audience to a villain that, in principle, has a valid argument. The film’s tragic ending, with Thanos snapping half of all life out of existence, instigated debate about his motivations and their outcome rather than pure hatred towards him. Some of Thanos’s quotes are also weirdly applicable to Doom’s perspective — “Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same. And now it’s here. Or should I say… I am”. 

MCU: The Road To Doomsday:

• The AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Trailer is Out, and It’s Everything We Could Hope For!
• Avengers: Doomsday Trailer, X-Men Cast Announcement, VisionQuest Trailer and more! — Everything that happened for Marvel during D23
• The Road to Doomsday Part 1 — X-Men (2000)
• The Road to Doomsday Part 2 — X2 (2003)
• The Road to Doomsday Part 3 — Avengers (2012)

We see characters that we know and love, including the original six Avengers from the 2012 film and Loki (although not for long). It is, however, the first time we see a crossover this overarching on screen — we get the Avengers, Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and Wakandans all in one film.

Though the crossover will be even more significant in Doomsday, this is surely a foundational step towards the impressive quantity of characters that will be on our screens in December. 

Personally, I have always felt that loss and sacrifice are huge parts of this movie. Thanos needs to sacrifice his own daughter to get the Soul Stone, and the Avengers have to sacrifice family, loved ones to try to stop the mad titan. The void left when half the people in the universe vanish is one that our heroes will have to deal with for the next five years. And the place of sacrifice in a multiversal war will surely be one of the main thematic points of Doomsday. 

With an outstandingly well-paced script that allows for perfectly placed comic reliefs (such as Peter Quill’s “What am I supposed to say? Jesus?”) and more character development than expected in a movie this packed, Infinity War is epic, exhilarating and soul-crushing all at once. It also features some of the best performances in Marvel to date, including Robert Downey Jr. as Tony, Josh Brolin as Thanos, and Zoey Saldana as Gamora. Some of the hero entrances in Infinity War are also a topic in their own — saying Thor’s entrance in Wakanda is the best thing ever is still an understatement.