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Sunday, 4 August 2019

Why Your Team Sucks 2019: Denver Broncos

Photo: Joe Robbins (Getty)

Some people are fans of the Denver Broncos. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Denver Broncos. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Denver Broncos.

Your 2018 record: 6-10. Man, remember when Chad Kelly stumbled drunk into a random house and got chased out with a vacuum tube? That was interesting. Shame he didn’t work out, given how much fans loved his Colt McCoy-esque potential…

In all other aspects, the 2018 Broncos campaign was the kind of placeholder season everyone expected from a team that had a sitting duck for a head coach and Case Keenum (who can occasionally make coaches and fans happy, yet can’t seem to ever truly satisfy them) for a quarterback. So many NFL teams strategically plan around waste, and not in any PRODUCTIVE manner. It’s not like John Elway is in his stable, munching raw oats, cooking up a long-range scheme to stockpile assets in between having his mane brushed. Given Elway’s acumen, those assets would be seized and sold off at a bankruptcy auction later on anyway. It’s just a case of sucking to pass the time. And so many teams do it! They never fire people at the right time. They always keep around shit people they know can’t get them over the hump. THE FUCK ARE WE EVEN DOING HERE, GOD DAMMIT?!

In other news, some local radio pud demanded that punter Marquette King be more like Brandon Stokley. I wonder why! An Emmanuel Sanders taunting penalty cost them a TD and ended up being the difference in a loss to the eventual NFC champion Rams. The head coach elected to kick a field goal down 17-13 to Cleveland with under five minutes left (they would not overcome the gaffe). They lost to the Chiefs thanks to the refs missing a delay of game penalty. They also let Patrick Mahomes complete a left-handed pass. When you’re facing a Vance Joseph defense, suddenly you can open up the whole laboratory. You can toss lefty passes, run a tackle eligible, have the tight end catch a pass while standing on his head … THE ONLY LIMIT IS YOUR IMAGINATION.

In one of his trademark efforts to direct blame for his team’s demise toward anyone but himself, John Elway publicly called out the Broncos for being soft and girly, which is the normal football man way of solving problems.

YOU: Sir, the house is on fire!

FOOTBALL MAN: This is all because kids today get participation trophies. Maybe if kids had to EARN their trophies, fire wouldn’t come messing with us.

YOU: The house is gone, sir.

Elway also took time out from his duties drafting terrible quarterbacks to appear in an attack ad at the behest of the oil and gas lobby, urging voters to vote NO on banning those same companies from slant-drilling their way under area schools and whatnot to suck dry any precious natural gases they please. The ad worked. The proposition failed. HOORAY! Biggest win of the year for you, Bronco Nation. CAN YOU SMELL IT? Smells sulfurous and highly flammable!

The only other bright spot in the season was undrafted rookie Phillip Lindsay emerging as a stud back just before piranhas devoured his wrist.

Your coach: It’s former Bears DC Vic Fangio, who looks and acts like he was airlifted into this world directly from 1982:

Everything about Fangio’s resume suggests a potential Mike Zimmer clone: a well-regarded lifer who was forced to wait far too long to get a shot at a top job. Then again, given their recent QB history, perhaps turning to yet another cranky defensive guy wasn’t the wisest choice:

“Anybody’s who has been a position coach, or assistant coach, they don’t like the music,” Fangio said, via 9News.com’s Mike Klis. “It makes it hard to talk to your guys... I was an assistant coach and I don’t want to drum out the noise to talk to my players… I don’t like to have to yell to communicate to a player that’s standing as close as me and you are. That makes no sense.”

Good thing real games don’t have any other kind of deafening background noise to make communication difficult! Fangio coached while suffering from old man kidney stones last night. SETTIN’ THE TONE. Your new OC is the delightfully named Rich Scangarello. MADONE. Your new DC is Ed Donatell, who I believe has coached for every NFL team thrice over. And your linebackers coach remains Reggie Herring, who looks like someone who instigated a fight in the prison mess hall.

Your OL coach is Mike Munchak, if only so I can tune into Broncos games, see a shot of him patrolling the sideline, and be like, “Oh god, Mike Munchak is part of this.” Once again, the best-case scenario for this team is one where a mighty defense carries a listless offense on its back to a season that ends with 10-6 as both their final record and their average score.

Your quarterback: STRAP IN…

It’s Joe Flacco, and he’s been grizzlified by 20 percent! Elway traded Keenum to Washington for a fifth-rounder and dealt a fourth-rounder for Flacco, essentially moving down a touch in the ass-end of the draft in order to have, well, basically the exact same QB problem this team has had since Peyton Manning walked away. Getting Joe Flacco when you need a franchise QB is like getting a can of shoe polish when you need to treat your baldness. But at least team MVP and shark hunter Von Miller appears pleased…

“He looks like a Super Bowl MVP to me,” Miller said, via the Associated Press. “Today he had a play-action, rolled out to the right and threw the ball from the opposite 20 to the opposite 15. Now, I don’t know how far that is.”

Whoa whoa whoa, are you telling me that Joe Flacco, always known to have a decent arm, threw the ball a long way in a PRACTICE? Holy shit. Al Davis’s cock just sat up in its grave. Elway himself believes Flacco is in his prime, because he’s fucking blind. This is where I note that Flacco’s YPA last season was worse than that of both the man he’s replacing and the man who replaced HIM. Fucking great.

Flacco is due $18.5 million this season, the same lethal devouring of cap space that prevented the Ravens from building anything lasting around him. That’s a hefty price for a dude who’s here to warm the seat up for second-rounder Drew Lock, who looks like the love child of Jay Cutler and Grayson Allen. Then again, let’s have a quick peek at Lock’s game tape, shall we?

Okay, he might need a bit of seasoning. I watched Lock play last night and he was about as accurate at Netflix’s viewership numbers. Lock is here to replace first-round bust Paxton Lynch, who was drafted to replace second-round bust and human stork Brock Osweiler. It’s almost like I see a pattern developing.

What’s new that sucks: Well, Pat Bowlen died. Bowlen was a Hall of Fame owner because ALL owners make the Hall of Fame now. His death from Alzheimer’s has resulted in a sad but entirely foreseeable estate battle that’ll likely live on longer than any of the participants in it. Let’s see what one of Bowlen’s surviving children thinks of the new head coach!

This is entirely in line with a front office that, for the better part of a decade, has been drunk around the clock. Elway appears to be the only sober one of this bunch and he’s an ASSHOLE who drafts abominably and looks more like Gary Busey with each passing day. Elway is the kind of GOP-bred shitbag who believes his own past success validates everything else he’s ever done or ever will do. That’s why he keeps drafting Browning Nagle clones and inexplicably shooing away any coach who has accomplished something of note under him. Can’t have anyone else steal the glow from poor John’s halo. Why don’t you go feed yourself a sugar cube, you toothy shit?

Pacman Jones retired after getting arrested for cheating at a casino. That all tracks.

What has always sucked: Denver is Sacramento with legal weed and nicer scenery. It’s a cow town that has just about finished up ethnically cleansing itself, and now it has just the right kind of simplistic Big Ten–style football team to fit in with all the insufferable Midwest transplants living there, along with all the spruce-brained hicks rolling in from the flatlands to shake their manboobs and crow about how they’ve always wanted a working-class footbaw team. Well now you’ve got one. Everyone else is copying the Rams and Chiefs. Elway is copying Marty Schottenheimer. And honestly, it’s what these fans deserve. They’re as spoiled and impatient as the dude running things, and for what? A fucking rodeo clown death of a team. You’d think these people were cheering for the Pats, they’re so goddamn entitled.

That is the real core of Broncos culture. It’s a typically 21st century American portrait of a company and fanbase borne out of the Stone Ages, constantly dumping new layers of paint over their fusty arrogance to make it look new and interesting. Did you WATCH the Ravens last season with Flacco at the helm before he lost his job, to a dude who can’t even throw no less? Did you? They were slow. Just like you now! You people are higher on your own farts than you are on any soul diesel preroll they sell at the area dispensary. No place is better than Denver at getting you high and then KILLING that high as quickly as it comes on. Fuck Elway with his own teeth.

That the state is run by a cheerful craft brewery owner who loves charter schools fits entirely too well. [Update: That was the last guy. The new guy’s a gamer.] At least people can hydrofrack under your kid’s daycare center now.

What might not suck: With Demaryius Thomas gone, other Broncos might finally be able to get their hands on a free cruller at the training table.

HEAR IT FROM BRONCOS FANS!

Nate:

After Jim Harbaugh left the 49ers, Vic Fangio interviewed to replace him. They went with Jim Tomsula instead.

Matthew:

I honestly don’t want to watch a single game this year.

Paul:

Elway decided it was a good idea to replace the league’s 28th ranked passer with the league’s 25th ranked passer.

Eamonn:

Von Miller is more threatening to sea life than to opposing quarterbacks.

Matthew:

The collective accomplishments of Bowlen’s heirs amount to one No-Contest DUI.

Chase:

Blake Bortles turned down the Broncos.

Eric:

FUCK YOU VON MILLER YOU AIN’T A NERD, QUIT WEARING 70S STYLE HIPSTER GLASSES LIKE YOU GONNA BUST OUT THE D&D BOARD

Andrew:

Rahim Moore. Him flailing hopelessly is burned into my brain. It’ll be the last football thought I have before I die. It’s Moore’s fault Flacco is our QB now.

Samer:

Someone has surely made this joke before but Vic Fangio is second to Dr. Acula in terms of terrible vampire aliases.

Caleb:

John Elway’s playing career cemented him as the best QB in Broncos history. His GM work will ensure he never has that title threatened.

Chris:

This team is never winning again as long as Elway is in charge, which will be until he dies because no one in Denver has the testicular fortitude to tell him to leave.

Patrick:

In a division with Mahomes, Marmalard, and even Derek Carr, I can’t believe my team is making a concerted effort to convince me that Joe fucking Flacco is going to lead my Broncos to the promised land.

Ascher:

We would be off with fucking Jonny Hekker at QB than any sack of shit that Elway has drafted or traded for since Peyton left. Fuck John Elway with his son’s domestic violence summons.

Ian:

I had started really getting excited for football until last night when my brother texted me, “Can’t believe I’m about to watch a season of Flacco football. I really cannot accept it.”

RMH:

When Denver brought in Case Keenum I said to a friend that a ‘Case Keenum’ sounds like the kind of thing you have to use a special shampoo on your crotch to get rid of lice. I didn’t realize how right I was at the time.

George:

The Broncos suck, and in the “Von Miller is really good, but our offense is banking on Joe Flacco carrying the offense in 2019" way that results in 14-3 losses against bad teams and 42-3 losses to good teams.

Max:

Everybody and their mother knew that Vance Joseph was not fit to coach this team after one season except for John Elway.

Chris:

The Peyton Manning era truly was a blessing because it’s clear that John Elway can’t evaluate quarterbacks to save his ass. It was easy getting Peyton here: Colorado is a nice place to live. My cat could have made that fucking pitch to Mr. Forehead.
I’m studying for the bar right now. I’d rather keep studying for the next four years than watch Joe Flacco lead the offense to a record number of three-and-outs and then see Drew Lock come in and make Paxton Lynch look like Baker Mayfield.

Paul:

After Flacco throws his 25th interception in week 6, CBS is going to have a “WELL HEY REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES?” montage of his career, it’s going to show him lofting the ball over a visibly drunk Rahim Moore during that one godawful playoff game a few years back, and I’ll need to text my therapist again.
Last year, I went to 2 Broncos games in the Bay Area. The Broncos lost both.

Jake:

Bonus Denver sports story – one year our family went to a Father’s Day baseball game, the Rockies were up by 3 late in the game but the opposing team had the bases loaded. My dad yelled, “watch these idiots hit a grand slam” and of course that is exactly what happened. We left early after getting booed out of our section.

Corey:

Well, the man with the big fur coat is dead.
I still hate Rahim Moore for jumping that route. I want “Fuck Rahim Moore” etched on my gravestone, so my grandchildren know I care so little for them.

Matthew:

John Elway is still looms over the Denver area like the brown cloud that used to dominate the skyline. The worst part is despite being richer and more loved than God in Colorado, Elway has pimp a local mortgage company because he cannot stand the thought of not being on TV in the off season. John Elway just might be the only person whose head size actually matches his ego.

Charles:

In 1997 I was living in Saratoga Springs, NY in a 200 sq ft studio, broke, depressed and alcoholic. However I had the Broncos and they were finally not going to shit the bed. The four people in my life who I hadn’t driven away by that point came over to the my pathetic apartment and we proceeded to watch Bill Romanowski try and spear Mark Brunell 109x and either miss and allow Mark to scramble for a first, throw for a first or draw a penalty for a first down.
I was drinking tequila straight from the bottle by the fourth quarter. The game ended, I collapsed and started crying. My friends did a reverse Kool-Aid man in leaving so fast and then I spent the rest of the night throwing stuff against the wall and playing Twisted Metal 2 on the PlayStation while polishing off the bottle.
Honestly one of the lowest points of my entire life. That game hurts more than the SBs win felt good.

Manu:

The whole “John Elway only likes tall, strong armed QBs” thing became self parody when we traded for Joe Flacco. But it legit stops being so funny when you look at the depth chart… the shortest guy there is 6' 2" and he’ll probably be the one who’s gonna be cut.
Elway has shown zero ability to get a decent QB and I’m still 100% drinking the Kool Aid. Chugging it, in fact. Flacco will thrive in the thin air, Lock will get to learn behind him before taking over. 11-5, easy. THIS IS KNOWN.

Tom:

Denver sports radio is a 365-day circle jerk of all things Broncos. Nuggets with 2-seed? Who cares, let’s spend the next three hours dissecting how Joe Flacco is somehow an improvement over the blobs Dear Leader Elway has chosen since Manning. Watching a once proud franchise get lapped by a Muppet and the Kool Aid Guy in KC while the owner dies has to be a modern era low point. You wouldn’t know that listening to the Fan in Denver though. They willingly ignore every other professional team in the market to talk about this garbage. It’s pathetic. Every pro team sans the Broncos made the playoffs in the last 12 months.

Sam:

The fans here still want Tebow back, and claim his 8-8 season and a 15-yard crossing pattern that Demaryius Thomas took to the house was “the most excited I’ve ever been as a Broncos fan,” which is fundamentally wrong.
I was deeply upset when Osweiler spurned the Broncos and headed to Houston. I believe I used the phrase “huge mistake, Elway” on social media after the fact.
Pat Bowlen died this year, and while he did a lot for the city of Denver with regard to building its reputation as a legitimate city and perennial powerhouse in football, you’d think we were burying the father of the city or a fucking president with how the media covered his death and funeral. Sappy, forlorn anchors talking in muted tones about how much this billionaire meant to the city he bought into and threatened to move the team from, fans laying flowers and cards and notes at the foot of his STATUE outside the STADIUM that was PAID FOR BY TAXPAYERS (!!!!), talking to the media about how much he’ll be missed... it was performative sadness and grief at its absolute nadir, and just completely gross.

Derek:

Fuck Josh McDaniels.

Justin:

Also fuck Tim Tebow.

Submissions for the NFL previews are closed. Next up: Cincinnati Bengals.

Half-Naked Australian Man Uses Didgeridoo To Ward Off Intruder, Then Reenacts The Whole Thing

Thieves in Australia, beware: Do not try to break into the house of Adelaide’s Kym Abrook. Though he’s 52 years old, he teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has the ability to destroy you with a didgeridoo if it comes to that. He doesn’t even need pants to do it.

Abrook confronted the 32-year-old suspect early Monday morning in the neighborhood of Fulham Gardens and chased him down the street. Although the man in his underwear didn’t actually get to thwack anyone with the instrument, police were able to corner the intruder and bring him in. He was charged with theft and aggravated serious criminal trespass, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Are you wondering what a man in his underwear looks like while running down the street and clutching a didgeridoo? You’re in luck:

Was one reenactment not enough to whet your appetite? Here’s another where he’s wearing pants—still shirtless however, to preserve artistic integrity—and cussing.

Do not trifle with this man, or his 12 children.

God Man, Fuck You Bret Stephens

In case you were busy actually enjoying your weekend, Jordan Peterson celebrity cruise attendant Bret Stephens went ahead and ruined everyone else’s by scribbling out a bunch of racist bumper sticker slogans in the New York Times. And this time, ol’ Bret did so without the veneer of preciousness that he usually grants to everything he touches…

Nothing bad is gonna happen to Bret Stephens for this, of course. He lives in the same magical fairy-tale land other conservative dudes live in where they receive the largest bullhorn and grandest sum of money possible to cry out to the world that they’ve been sent to the guillotine for daring to speak their precious truths. This is a country where poor Brett Kavanaugh, vociferously defended by his companion in Bret-itude, can get credibly accused of sexual assault and still ascend to the Supreme Court—and cement gerrymandering as eternal law after he arrives there—by squirting out a few in front of the Senate and telling everyone he enjoys beer. The Times isn’t gonna fire Bret Stephens. That joint employs some genuinely excellent take havers, such as Charles Blow. But the people in charge over there know that what REALLY drives engagement is letting smug pricks like Stephens and Bari Weiss and four-eyed penis David Brooks scream DEMOCRATS DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW TO PLEASE ME from inside the battlements of a supposed fortress of impregnable liberalism.

Stephens will get to keep spewing his noxious brand of horseshit over there for as long as he likes. What’s more, he even gets to deploy the cheap wingnut trick where you address criticism by telling everyone SORRY YOU WERE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND MY REMARKABLY NUANCED TAKE:

The only nice thing I can say about Stephens’ thread linked in Jason Concepcion’s tweet above is that he limits the thread to just four tweets. And yet it won’t shock you to discover that he still someone manages to drone on insufferably throughout this miniseries, attempting to further clarify his shitty rhetoric like he’s doing YOU a fucking favor. Here comes the preciousness once more, now at full blast:

God man, FUCK you. Fuck you sideways. I think Stephens understands that he’s being dull, dishonest, clichéd, hostile, and still racist all in one go. But that’s a free lunch conservatives have been enjoying for years now. Stephens himself clearly has no problem grazing at that spread. No matter how much he says he’ll never vote for Trump—I AM CANCELLING MY SUBSCRIPTION TO DONALD TRUMP, SIR—he gets to act like people calling his views racist (they are) is the true offense here. And he is forever permitted to roll his eyes at anyone he finds beneath him, which means everyone.

Stephens should apologize for being who he is every fucking day of the week. He’s a repulsive slug of a man. That the Times would let Stephens indulge in the cycle of saying nasty shit and then arrogantly proclaiming that he expects people like Soledad O’Brien—who has had herself quite a week interacting with enormous alt-right shitbags—to apologize to him for daring to question him, is emblematic of the way the paper of record allows itself to get worked over by our least oppressed members of society positing that they are actually history’s greatest victims. Employing Bret Stephens means the Times gets to dodge criticism for being too liberal by going, “Look guys, we even let a shithead like Bret Stephens onto our pages!” Therefore, Stephens gets ample inches of column space to sort out who counts as a real American and who does not, and even makes sure to take an indirect jab at people who seek refuge here and end up dying because of the right wing’s institutional hatred and indifference toward them. And then… THEN… he gets to performatively wallow in the misery he’s sown.

It’s a fucking pathetic act. All of it. It’s a never-ending cycle where a conservative says some horrible shit, gets properly criticized for it, and then goes WELL I GUESS YOU JUST CAN’T SAY ANYTHING ANYMORE! in response to that criticism. Stephens doesn’t even have to pretend he’s listening to anyone else. Getting ratioed, to him, counts as prison time served. Inciting a wee bit of Timesman-on-Timesman violence is a point of troll pride for him. God forbid he suffer ACTUAL repercussions for saying such unapologetically ugly shit. The Times shouldn’t pay this fucking hack to trot out this labored act over and over again, but that’s precisely what Stephens has done throughout his entire tenure at the Times, with breathtaking amounts of both cynicism and condescension. And bossman James Bennet lets him. The Times doesn’t give a rat’s ass if they’re publishing de facto racialist pamphleteering. That’s just rounding out the discourse for them. Sorry if they can’t HANDLE the explosiveness of my perfectly aimed broadside.

And Stephens, of all people, has the predictable gall to say that everyone ELSE is the reason Trump is gonna win in 2020. It couldn’t possibly be because supposed guardians of democracy have foolishly offered STEPHENS asylum, helping disseminate his garbage into the mainstream and to act as sentry for the entrenched powers that be, and then paying him handsomely for the privilege. Nooooo… couldn’t be. I’d tell this pile of shit to take a look in the mirror. But I already know he’d gladly take me up on the offer, just for all the wrong reasons.

Let's Catch Up On The State Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe In Time For Avengers: Endgame

Screenshot: Disney (YouTube)

Hello friends! As you’re well aware by now, Avengers: Endgame opens in theaters this weekend, finally bringing to a—uh, well, not a close or a conclusion, but uh like some kind of large-scale branding transition for Disney and its Marvel Studios subsidiary, where they will arbitrarily plant a flag and say that a certain phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ended and the next one is beginning, but in all other respects will continue cranking out broadly samey superhero movies for as long as the public continues dumping billions of dollars onto them. Anyway I’m fuckin’ pumped.

It’s been about a year since Avengers: Infinity War, the last big entry in this very long series of movies that began with 2008's Iron Man. For those who are not hardcore Marvel fans, let’s catch up on where all of our favorite 9,717 Marvel Cinematic Universe characters are as of the ending of that movie, so that everybody will be ready to make sense of however the heck Endgame starts. (This will necessitate lots and lots of spoilers for that movie that came out a year ago.) Ready? Let’s do it!

Iron Man

Iron Man is not dead. He got all fucked up in his battle with Thanos and at one point Thanos skewered him through the guts, but then Iron Man sprayed some nanites on it, which as we all know is the cure for being impaled. I’m sure his organs are just fine in there and he does not need any antibiotics at all. He survived the Snap and appeared to be marooned on the planet Titan at the end of Infinity War.

Captain America

Captain America also is not dead. Thanos whomped him pretty good in the final fight of Infinity War, in the woods of Wakanda, but he survived the Snap. Also, he had a beard! And shaggy hair! And instead of his iconic shield and goofy but charming classic red-and-blue outfit, he had a pair of these dumb gauntlet things and was wearing a grim-’n’-gritty black outfit. At the end of the movie he said, “Oh God.”

Black Widow

Also alive, also in Wakanda. Took surprisingly little damage in a long battle against the evil tall alien lady who worked for Thanos, before Scarlet Witch came along and chucked the alien lady into the whirring blades of a giant lawnmower. Infinity War didn’t seem to have any real idea what to do with Black Widow, which frankly kind of makes sense, because the bad guys at this point are so preposterously hyper-powered that it seems kind of ludicrous for someone whose superheroic ability is “good at martial arts” to be playing any kind of crucial role in defeating them.

Thor

Thor nearly stole the show in Infinity War: His arrival in Wakanda with his cool new space-ax was the high point of the movie, and he nearly won the fight when he bashed that sucker right into the middle of Thanos’s chest and then pushed it even deeper in there. I don’t know anything about giant purple alien anatomy, but it makes sense to think that, for a creature shaped and proportioned like a (very very large) human, the torso is the best place to store most of the vital organs. In which case, having a giant space-ax bashed a foot into the center of one’s chest seems like it should be a fatal wound, to me? Like if you bash a proportionally similar ax into the middle of my chest, I’m definitely gonna drop extremely dead instantaneously.

Anyway it didn’t kill Thanos. He snapped his fingers and wiped out a theoretically randomly distributed half of all the life in the universe (while somehow sparing all of the Avengers from the first Avengers movie, including Thor, who is my personal pick to be the guy who lops Thanos’s head off in Endgame). Then he used the fucked-up remains of the Infinity Gauntlet to zap himself off to a vacation retreat.

As of the end of Infinity War, Thor was in Wakanda with his space-ax. I think it’s pretty much beyond dispute at this point that Thor is the coolest Avenger.

Hawkeye

Also alive. He wasn’t in Infinity War, unless he was in one of the 56 extra scenes Marvel habitually staples into the end credits of their movies to punish people who ever want to go home from the theater. I would just like to say here that, similar to Black Widow’s case, “very good at archery” is sort of a weird superpower in the context of a world with all the other Avengers and Thanos and such in it. There’s also no reason to think Captain America wouldn’t be able to do archery just as well as Hawkeye, and no particular reason to think the Avengers would need an archer on staff.

I don’t know where Hawkeye is as of the end of Infinity War. His farmhouse? Maybe. Apparently he was on vacation or something while earth was being invaded by genocidal aliens. Like he just saw on TV that earth was being invaded by aliens in giant circle-ships and they were smashing up New York City in a fight with some of his best friends and he was just like “That’s cool, I’ll sit this one out.”

And honestly, that’s reasonable! He wasn’t gonna swing the fight with his archery skills.

Hulk

Not dead. Thanos kicked Hulk’s butt in the beginning of the movie, and then he spent the rest of the movie cowering inside Bruce Banner. It’s been a rough two-movie stretch for ol’ Hulk! First he got whomped by Thor in the arena in Ragnarok, and then Thanos just straight up beat the damn shit out of him!

Anyway, in Infinity War Bruce Banner had to sorta jerry-rig Hulklike smashing powers by wearing a huge Iron Man suit to the battle in Wakanda. His most memorable moment was when Thor showed up and Bruce told the aliens they were screwed.

Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch got Snapped in Wakanda and is dead. Honestly the events of Infinity War went uniquely bad for the Witch. First, Thanos’s cabinet secretaries interrupted her and Vision’s romantic getaway by, uh, skewering Vision through the chest. Then, when they were all in Wakanda fighting the aliens, she got baited into leaving Vision’s side, which allowed Scary Hood Guy to thwart the work of safely removing the Mind Stone from Vision’s forehead, which meant the only way to destroy the Mind Stone was to also destroy Vision. Which of course only Scarlet Witch’s magic is powerful enough to do.

She had to explode her own boyfriend’s brain to save the day! That scene was awful. And then, when she’d finally murked the love of her dang life, Thanos just used the frickin’ Time Stone to run it back 45 seconds, bring Vision back to life, and re-kill him by yanking the stone out of his face. Then Thanos snapped his fingers and turned Scarlet Witch to dust. All in all not a super great day for your pal Scarlet Witch.

Vision

But an even worse day for Vision! He’s dead as shit, man. He died twice in the span of like one minute. He’s dead.

(On the other hand, unlike many others he was not turned to dust. I suppose in theory if the Avengers get the Mind Stone back from Thanos they could plug it back into Vision’s brain and reboot him. He’s just a computer, after all. I reboot my computer like once every six months, and it’s fine.)

Captain Marvel

I haven’t seen that movie yet. Apparently it was good! Anyway Captain Marvel wasn’t in Infinity War and I don’t think she is dead. Is she higher in the Avengers chain of command than Captain America or what. Maybe she can be promoted to Major Marvel.

Black Panther

Image: Disney

Dead... for now. Black Panther’s dusting at the hands of Thanos was the exact moment everybody knew for an absolute fact that the sequel to Infinity War would definitively undo the entire climax of Infinity War—which drained that climax of basically all its emotional power and made the decision to end a day-glo comic book movie with the genocide of half of humanity seem even more ghoulish and misbegotten. Black Panther made like eleventy bazillion dollars at the box office and is by far the most acclaimed and celebrated entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the people in charge of making these movies would sooner depict Captain America napalming a doggy daycare than wipe out T’Challa before they’ve made at least two more Black Panther movies.

Anyway, T’Challa led the good guys in the fight in Wakanda but got Snapped at the end.

Spider-Man

Spider-Man, like Black Panther, is temporarily dead. He was on Titan with Iron Man and Doctor Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy when the Snap happened, and he turned to dust, while begging for his life. It was upsetting. I looked over at my young kid when it was happening and I could see him struggling to keep it together. He was upset about it for the whole rest of the day and had trouble sleeping that night because he kept thinking about how scared Peter Parker was when he died. It’s stupid that these are the kinds of comic-book superhero movies American culture makes.

Anyway, there are already teasers for the sequel to 2017's very charming Spider-Man: Homecoming, so I think it’s safe to guess that Spidey will return.

Ant-Man

GIF: YouTube

I finally watched Ant-Man and the Wasp this past weekend. It’s charming! The best MCU movies are the ones that put their monstrous budgets and infinite cultural capital toward creating something fun and silly—something liberated rather than weighed down by its origin in comic books. Give me a thousand ramshackle, goofy, Looney Tunes-y capers like this one before another grim, gray-and-navy bore about Captain America Taking Duty Very Seriously.

Anyway Ant-Man was not in Infinity War but definitely will be in Endgame. I gather that the events of Infinity War left him trapped in the Quantum Realm because all of the people who were standing by to zap him back out of it got Snapped. That’s a tough break! Other other hand, Michelle Pfeiffer hung out in there for like 30 years with no food or water and she turned out okay, so I’m sure Ant-Man can handle it. Just gotta tighten the old belt and make the best of your time in the Quantum Realm, as I have always said.

Doctor Strange

GIF: YouTube

Doctor Strange was at the big battle against Thanos on Titan, gave Thanos the Time Stone, and got Snapped, and is “dead.”

The big important clue-type shit going into Endgame involves Strange: Early in Infinity War, Strange made tediously clear that his absolute highest priority was keeping the Time Stone out of Thanos’s hands, even explicitly telling Iron Man that he’d let him or Spider-Man or anybody else die without hesitation if it allowed him to keep the Time Stone safe. Then there was a scene where he used the Time Stone to view like 14 million possible alternate futures, and in only one of them were the good guys able to win. Then, after that, contrary to what he’d said earlier in the movie, he handed the Time Stone over to Thanos to save Iron Man’s life, and explained it to Iron Man by saying that “we’re in the endgame now” and “there was no other way.”

This seems to indicate that, in that one possible future out of 14 million in which the good guys win, Thanos gets the Time Stone and Iron Man doesn’t die on Titan, and Doctor Strange knows that, and that’s why he made the deal he did. You’d think he might have made more of an effort to explain that during the long minutes he and Iron Man and Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy were just hanging out on Titan after Thanos left, but, uhhhh........ maybe in all the possible futures where he explained it to them, that somehow caused Thanos to win? I don’t know, man, I have a headache.

Let’s pause here for a second for a note on Titan.

A Note On Titan

It does not speak very well of either the biodiversity of the planet Titan or of the taxonomical rigor of its inhabitants that the term for what Thanos is, like species-wise, is “Titan.” He’s a Titan from Titan. This is like if Earth were named “Human”—Hello, I’m from planet Human—or if people were called “Earths.” (This is Tony Stark, the Mad Earth.) No wonder that place went to shit! The big purple assholes at the top of the food chain thought themselves synonymous with the planet itself! In my opinion this disqualifies Thanos from making life-and-death decisions for the whole rest of the frickin’ universe.

Loki

Loki is dead as hell. Thanos choked him out and then—if the grody sound effect is to be believed—broke his neck, after taking the Tesseract (which was the Space Stone with a box around it) from him. Then Thanos blew up the space ship with Loki’s dead-ass body inside it. It’s hard to imagine even an elite-level trickster like Loki wriggling his way out of that jam.

Idris Elba

He has a cool song out!

I have been listening to this song on repeat for like a month. Also Thanos skewered him through the chest with, like, a pike or something. He’s extremely dead.

Eddie Vedder

Eddie is the worst of the MCU characters by a thousand miles. His superpowers are that he lost his arm a long time ago and got the leftover super juice that made Captain America special jacked into his bloodstream by weirdo Nazi scientists. That’s it. Evidently the Avengers are so hard up for rotation depth that they keep a spot open on the bench for a guy who has exactly one-fourth as many overpowered robot limbs as an empty Iron Man suit running on autopilot.

This grim-faced emo doofus was the MacGuffin of Captain America: Civil War, which was the silliest and most embarrassing part of that dull and excruciatingly over-serious movie that critics nonetheless loved for reasons surpassing all comprehension. In turn, the absolute lowest and most insulting point in Infinity War was when T’Challa—the Black Panther, the frickin’ King of Wakanda—personally marched down to Eddie’s frickin’ Hagrid Hut on the edge of Wakanda to present him with a new robot prosthesis, as though the fate of the world hinged on ensuring this gloomy sad-sack Budget Cap had exactly one (1) above-average limb to bring to the ensuing fight for the preservation of the human race. Get the fuck out of my face, Eddie!

Anyway this piece of shit was the first person Thanos turned to dust at the end of Infinity War. Serves him right.

Wings Man

Illustration: Me (Me)

I don’t give a damn about Wings Man! What even is his deal? Get this goober the hell out of here.

Wings Man turned to dust at the end of Infinity War.

War Machine

My kids are big fans of the Lego Marvel Superheroes video game series. Largely this is because of the truly astounding number of playable Marvel characters you can unlock and use. There are hundreds of them! Sometimes it seems as though every wacky costumed character Marvel ever crammed into a comic book made his or her way into these video games. Captain Britain and Moon Knight and Union Jack and Super Skrull and on and on and on.

It strikes me as less than ideal that out of all these wild and wacky characters, this insanely lengthy movie series has held open a crucial lineup spot for a guy whose deal is basically “An Iron Man suit, but with a different guy in it.” Don Cheadle could have played Silver Surfer! That would have ruled. Instead he is That Guy Who Borrows An Iron Man Suit. That doesn’t rule at all.

Anyway he’s not dead. He survived the battle of Wakanda and the Snap and was standing there in his goofy primer-gray Iron Man suit at the end of the movie.

Star-Lord

GIF: YouTube

Snapped. Star-Lord was the secondary villain of Infinity War. He took too long to make good on his promise to kill Gamora when the time came; he refused to take seriously the need for a plan to deal with Thanos on Titan; and he decided he absolutely had to shit-talk Thanos and punch his face before they got the stupid Infinity Gauntlet off, which screwed everything up and led directly to Thanos getting the Time Stone, which led directly to Thanos being able to get the Mind Stone, which led directly to the Snap. It seems only fitting that he got dusted!

When they undo the Snap, they should make this asshole clean up all the wreckage. He should also have to dig Vision’s grave!

Gamora

Dead. Thanos chucked her off a cliff on the pretty sunset planet so that he could get the Soul Stone. Lots of characters will be brought back from the dead in Endgame, but it seems like Gamora’s death has to be one of the permanent ones.

Rocket

Photo: Sam Greenwood (Getty)

Rocket is not dead. He survived the battle of Wakanda and the Snap.

Groot

GIF: YouTube

Groot got Snapped in Wakanda. This wasn’t as emotionally devastating as I might have expected—it almost certainly didn’t wreck anybody’s shit the way “We are Groot” did—mostly because cranky teen Groot just isn’t nearly as lovable as either baby Groot or original recipe Groot. Alas, that is what it means to be a teen: That if you get magically disintegrated by an intergalactic supervillain, people will say “Honestly, that could have been sadder.” But also, by the time Groot got Snapped, I’d already realized I was watching something incredibly cynical and cheap that existed solely for the purpose of its own undoing in the sequel.

Drax

Snapped.

Bug Lady Whomst Make Bad Guys Go To Sleep

Snapped.

Nebula

Photo: Francois Mori (AP Photo)

Alive. Thanos’s angriest daughter survived the big battle on Titan and lived through the Snap. She and Rocket are the only Guardians left. Buddy road-trip comedy time! (Sike, all the rest of them are coming back in Endgame except maybe Gamora.)

Nick Fury

I think Snapped? I think he got Snapped in one of the mid-credits scenes in Infinity War. I will leap into a volcano before I will confirm this.

The Serious Woman Who Is Always Hanging Out With Nick Fury

Probably also Snapped. There are too many people in this movie series.

Shuri

Did Shuri get Snapped? I honestly have no idea. She was in Wakanda trying to take the Mind Stone out of Vision’s forehead without killing him, then Hood Guy snuck in and attacked and Vision tackled him out of the window and that was the last I saw of Shuri.

Ideally I would have to hope that she didn’t get Snapped—ideally the matter of whether one of the MCU’s very most enjoyable characters died or not would have some weight—but it doesn’t matter, because all of that shit’s gonna just get undone later this week.

Okoye

Not dead. She survived the battle of Wakanda and was looking Black Panther dead in the face when he turned to dust. That’ll put a dent in your day, buddy.

M’Baku

Not dead. M’Baku fought in the battle of Wakanda and was kicking mega-ass and doing the insanely cool battle chant thing when Thanos did the Snap, and then had to stand there like a real fuckin’ schmuck while half of all his countrymen turned to dust around him.

Lupita Nyong’o

Photo: Joel C Ryan (AP Photo)

Lupita Nyong’o never appeared in Infinity War! That seems dumb to me. Maybe her Black Panther character, Nakia, was on vacation at Hawkeye’s house while aliens were attacking the nation she defends with her life. Lupita Nyong’o is not dead; as for Nakia, who knows?

The Wasp

GIF: YouTube

Snapped.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie wasn’t in Infinity War. I guess that means she died when Thanos attacked the big ship with all the Asgardians on it in between the end of Ragnarok and the beginning of Infinity War. The alternative possibility is that she survived that attack and Thor just left her floating in outer space when he joined up with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Not cool, Thor.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Photo: Amy Sussman (Getty)

The news has been pretty rough for Gwyneth Paltrow lately. Iron Man is marooned on Titan, Goop had to pay a bunch of money to customers who bought its bullshit about vagina eggs, and then she sued for crashing into somebody while skiing and then just skiing away like a real asshole.

Bilbo Baggins

I don’t recall seeing Bilbo in Infinity War. Maybe he was using the ring to be invisible. I do not know whether the power of the One Ring would protect him from the Snap. Frankly the lore is very unclear on this subject.

Tony Stark’s Uptight Limo Driver

This blog is over.

A Massive, Disturbing Look Inside A Marvel Superfan's Crumbling Mind In The Final Hours Before Avengers: Endgame

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s here. Again. And I cannot hold my shit together. Again.

A year after Marvel Studios’ hugely popular and perfectly perfect blockbuster Infinity War dusted half the universe to hell, or some alternate dimension, the finale has arrived. Avengers: Endgame purports to bring about closure to the 22-movie saga, and on Thursday night, I’ll line up with a half-dozen other psychos two hours before I sit down to watch a three-hour film, because I am stubborn and refuse to go to any movie theater other than my tried-and-true, old-timey cinema that doesn’t let you reserve seats. All I can do at that point is pray that my bladder has the wherewithal to hold up in line until 10 p.m. and hope that the Russo Bros. don’t fuck this all up.

To be perfectly clear, this post contains no spoilers, save for those bearing the official Marvel stamp of approval. That’s to say, no, I have not read The Spoilers; you can feel free to post whatever you want in the comments, because I will not be reading them in order to avoid said spoilers. It feels like a fairly obvious point that, if spoilers are posted and uploaded to Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube, they are very much fair game, for both fans and bloggers. So, if you’d like to read about them, because you hate fun or do not care much about the MCU or just like having shit spoiled, you can do so here.

Now, let’s get to it.

What The Hell is Even Going On, or: Who Ded???

So, just because I already typed all this shit out once, you can catch up on the detailed version of all the fairly important pre-Infinity War happenings in the MCU here or here. (If, somehow, you are not caught up on what happened in Infinity War, you can freak out with me all over again here.)

What you absolutely need to know ahead of Endgame is that Thanos, the big purple guy, lost his planet a while ago for some reasons he claims were due to overpopulation. To fix the universe’s over-population issue, the titan started going after the six Infinity Stones, which would, and eventually do, give him god-like powers. This search officially started in The Avengers, when he gifted Thor’s evil adopted brother, Loki, with the Mind Stone and sent him to Earth to snag the Space Stone. Ever since, the remaining stones—Reality, Power, Time, and Soul—have been the direct focus of various MCU offerings.

In the subsequent movies, there have been lots of punches thrown and super-buff guys and gals charged up and faced at one another. This led to The Teem being broken up and shattered into an illegally acting shadow group led by Captain America and an official Avengers roster led by Iron Man. Meanwhile, Thor and Hulk were out in space figuring out how to responsibly recalibrate a franchise, Dr. Strange was chilling in New York with his best-and-broke buddy Wong, the Guardians were firing off quips and producing subpar sequels on the other side of the galaxy, Wakanda’s Black Panther was dealing with some family drama, Ant-Man and Wasp were collecting some dust on top of a suspiciously empty San Francisco parking garage, and Captain Marvel—the latest/forthcoming addition to the group—was doing ... something heroic in space.

Then, Thanos sent his adopted children/evil-doing servants to go get the stones, and Infinity War happens, which includes this, the single greatest film review of a Tweet, possibly ever:

Sadly for Thor, none of his very rad toof-toofing really mattered, because Thanos snapped his fingers and parents around the globe had to explain to their 6-year-olds why Spider-Man disintegrated in Tony Stark’s arms. (It’s fucked up to admit, but watching these conversations unfold was actually one of the most fun parts of going to see the film three times in theaters, aside from the toof-toofing, of course.) Anyway, hearts were shattered and lots of people are dead now!

The important thing to note about the body count of Infinity War is there appear to be two kinds of dead people that will be crucial to understanding the forthcoming film. There is dead-dead, in which a character was killed by being choked or stabbed or what have you, and dusted-dead, in which a character was turned to ash after Thanos snapped his fingers.

Heimdall, Loki, Gamora, and Vision all appear to be dead-dead. That is, Thanos killed all of them by natural means—neck snapped, stabbed through the heart, tossed off a dang thousand-foot cliff, and life source ripped from forehead, respectively. While you can expect them to appear in flashbacks or various time travel adventures, I am entering this film under the belief that these characters have all been wiped from whatever the future of the MCU looks like. (Never mind that Loki has his own show coming out soon.)

On the other hand, a whole bunch of heroes are currently dust-dead, which is to say that they faded away after Thanos did The Snap: Black Panther, Falcon, Bucky, Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax, Groot, Scarlet Witch, Dr. Strange, and, of course, Spider-I-Don’t-Feel-So-Good-Man. Also, if we’re to believe the second trailer, Shuri, Black Panther’s genius younger sister, is dust-dead, or at least missing. The status of all these characters is very clearly TBD heading into Endgame.

To state the obvious, several stars of multi-million- and billion-dollar solo franchises are on both the dust-dead and dead-dead lists, so, yes, I am aware they were always going to come back in some form in Endgame and beyond. Pointing that fact out doesn’t make you interesting or these movies less entertaining.

In fact, thinking about it from that perspective ultimately serves as a major tell of a deadened imagination ... which is fine! On paper it is very silly that I, a 25-year-old man with a full-time job and bills and debt and whatever else constitutes being an adult, am as invested as I am in these comic-book movies. But that’s fine too.

The important thing to remember is that question was never whether Marvel will bring them back—of course they’re not killing off Black Panther and Spidey—but how.

On That Note: How On Earth(s) Are The Avengers Gonna Get Out Of This Pickle?

When we left them, Thor, Captain America, Okoye, Rocket Raccoon, Bruce Banner, and Black Widow were all staggering around Wakanda, wiping the dust from the hands. Halfway across the galaxy, a suit-less Iron Man and Nebula are stranded on a foreign planet with a wrecked Benatar (the Guardians’ new ship) as their only means of escape. Shit was bleak, hope was lost, and then the Russos decided, why the hell not, and ended the movie with a lingering shot of Farmer Thanos chilling on his new ranch, followed by the tagline “Thanos will return.”

Now, before we dive into my awful and likely incorrect theorizing, a couple of points of business. Despite what some cynical assholes would have you believe, the decision to end the movie with The Snap and leave fans drooling over the prospect of what comes in the second part was risky. There is a very real form of fan fatigue that exists around the ongoing decisions by producers and studio heads to split up their finales into multiple parts. Think Mad Men, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and the lot. Had Infinity War sucked ass, or even just been mediocre in an Aquaman kind of way, Marvel would have been stuck with the prospect of having to pour millions into their Endgame marketing campaign to convince people to turn out for the second part of their decade-spanning finale.

Instead, because of the studio’s immense trust in the two guys who directed You, Me, And Dupree to handle their two biggest movie events in back-to-back years (including a year that includes the finale to the Star Wars Skywalker saga), these two dweebs somehow cranked out a full-spread comic book film in Infinity War that dwarfed all prior entries in the MCU in sheer quantifiable fun. And now, because of what they pulled off and the ending they chose to go with for Infinity War, Endgame is going to make a literal fuckton of money and likely satisfy a constantly growing fanbase of tens of millions, and it’s all going to happen despite the fact that the marketing campaign has shown jack shit! Seriously, look at the first official trailer for Infinity War:

In just over two minutes, Marvel unveiled the meeting of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Dr. Strange, and Wong; they teased Spider-Man in space; they showed Loki handing over the Space Stone; Black Panther told someone to get Captain America a shield; Thanos body-slammed Spidey; Vision nearly had his stone pried out by aliens; Thanos socked Iron Man a good one; and then they ended it with a massive sprinting shot of over a half-dozen heroes that infamously did not make it into the final cut.

Now, compare that with this trailer for Endgame from December:

There is nothing there! You are looking at a bunch of filler shots, in the grand scheme of things. The same can be said about the second trailer, which is halfway stuffed with black-and-white shots of prior MCU movies, before, again, revealing absolutely zero battle sequences or major plot points. Subsequent trailers and TV spots have slowly chipped away at the outlines of the film—for instance, the survivors will be breaking up into teams at some point, Iron Man doesn’t wilt away and die in the Guardians’ ship, Ant-Man presumably does a cool pencil dive on Earth, and Valkyrie survived The Snap. But aside from that, even the most hardcore of fans that remain dutifully spoiler-free know nothing.

Thanks to their gratuitous trailers and some convenient toy reveals last year, I was able to largely lay out the first and second (and even portions of the third) acts of the film in my Infinity War preview post; I have no such illusions this year. That said, because I’m a freak who has Google and Twitter searched “Avengers” every day for the past four months—while simultaneously muting every character name and the movie title after the leaks dropped—and also because I am an unhinged but spoiler-averse lurker on r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers (bless those mods), I have a fairly reasonable guess about the general shapes of the first act of the three-hour epic that I’m currently mentally prepping for by writing far too many words.

Essentially, I expect we’ll get some cursory shots of our heroes dealing with the immediate aftermath of The Snap. This will likely be when Hawkeye sees his family get dusted in front of him. We’ll also possibly be treated to another shot of Thanos on his farm, reveling in his work and enjoying all the bountiful resources the universe now has to offer, but I don’t think we’ll see much more of the big guy alone. Then we’ll cut to Tony and Nebula on the old Guardians ship, where Tony will be Very Sad but also still Tony Stark, so he and Nebula will have a little fun and eventually resolve to fix the ship’s engine. (A screening of this scene and another back at Avengers HQ on Earth, which has since been released in full, almost assuredly confirms this.) The film will try to fool us into thinking that Tony is going to die (which is actually the root of a half-cooked fan theory, in which Tony dies in space but uploads all his memories to his Iron Man helmet, which is transported back to Earth and then downloaded into Vision.) But, ultimately, I expect the scene with Captain Marvel at HQ will come first and that she will be the one to save the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist from suffocating in a metal box in the far reaches of space. Too bad for the author of that batshit fan theory, but good for everyone else.

After Iron Man is back on Earth, I expect him and Bruce Banner to hang back on their home planet while the remaining team—Rocket, Captain America, Black Widow, Nebula, Thor, and War Machine—zip off to “go get that son of a bitch.” (Stark will be too depressed and stabbed and full of literal holes to jump right into another battle with Thanos, and Banner will still be dealing with relationship issues with Hulk, which I think they’ll wait for the second act to fully address.)

If I had to make an assortment of educated guesses (I don’t but I will), this is more or less how I see things playing out:

The makeshift Avengers go to Thanos’s planet but find him “dead,” in the sense that the Russos will likely use another Reality Stone fake-out like they did on Knowhere. Big Purp will then either beat the living shit out of them, with only a few members escaping, or will convince them that the gauntlet is ruined and that any hopes of reversing what he did are lost. Either way, at least part of the team will retreat back to Earth, at which point we’ll be treated to a time jump that covers anywhere from a couple months to a few years.
The prevailing notion is that when we pick up, Tony Stark will become the leader of nu–S.H.I.E.L.D, Steve Rogers will shave his beard and join War Machine in a little support group, and Ant-Man will pop out of the Quantum Realm (very important!) and head to HQ. Also, Bruce Banner and the Hulk will merge into Professor Hulk, which will be Good and Righteous.
Some mashup of Rocket, Professor Hulk, and Stark will smush their brains together to figure out an alternative option to save the universe and bring back their friends. At some point, Black Widow will head to Tokyo to find Hawkeye, who is now Hawkeye But Also With Swords, and recruit him to fight to complete their Big Plan.
Per a leaked toy set and some very general guessing, that plan appears to involve time travel via the Quantum Realm, a “Stark Gauntlet” that can harness the energy of the stones they find in the past, a whole bunch of visits to important scenes in past MCU movies, and one mind-bending final battle against Thanos either on Xandar or at Avengers HQ.
Past this, it’s unclear what the film holds in store, or even what the teams are for when they all split up and head into the past. This TV spot seems to reveal that Nebula and War Machine will pair off; so too will Black Widow and Hawkeye. Because Valkyrie is present in a TV spot, I imagine Thor and Rocket will be tasked with recruiting her and the remaining Asgardians (only half of them were killed by Thanos in the opening attack, and I’m guessing another half was murked by The Snap, so you’re looking at a quarter of them left?) Iron Man will head to the Battle of New York. I’m not sure where Cap will land, or who’ll be joining him.
I am fairly certain that the handshake between Cap and Iron Man featured in the “Special Look” trailer is yet another MCU fake-out and that this will actually be Tony talking to Past Cap, but, again, I have no clue.

Aside from, and likely including, all the above predictions ... I have no fucking clue! And that’s the best part of this coming Thursday—I disagreed initially with this analysis but a buddy (who is, also, a former Deadspinner and thus a piece of shit) complained that Infinity War was essentially a trailer for Endgame. I personally think that’s being a little disrespectful to Infinity War, but the larger point, that the existence of IW nullifies the need for a massive marketing rollout spelling out the film’s plot for idiots, stands. While I understand the critique as it relates to Infinity War as a standalone film, it’s also worth pointing out that these two films were initially announced by Marvel as Infinity War Pt. I and Infinity War Pt. II—the first film was always going to be stuffed to the brim, because, while the writers thought about saving The Snap for the first act of Endgame, it was very clear that once they took a step back, it made more sense to have the second film wholly focus on the fallout from Thanos’s actions.

But, really, there is only one theory that matters, and that is the theory of Thanus, which I will sum up in two photos.

You’re welcome and, also, I’m sorry.

Who’s Gonna Stay Dead-Dead or Get Killed?

This question was almost more fun to answer ahead of last year’s installment, just because in that film, there were more variables to play with. That is, the film marked the first time that the full MCU sandbox had been deployed since Age of Ultron, which I am desperately trying to forget save the one very good drunk-Avengers-tug-on-Mjolnir scene.

Like I said earlier, I think Gamora, Heimdall, Vision, and Loki will all have past versions of themselves featured in this film, but I do not think that any of them are coming back. I also think that all of the dusted characters will return for the final battle in a scene that will likely leave my brain pooling out both of my ears.

That leaves us with the original six Avengers, as well as Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, Valkyrie, Nebula, and Rocket.

For obvious reasons ($$$), Captain Marvel is safe. I think something has to happen early in the film that establishes why she isn’t able to just fly in and save the day—Thanos may get the best of her in the initial skirmish on his farm planet, or maybe she kills him easily but the Gauntlet is too damaged to use—but she will walk away from this film ready to make Marvel and Disney another boatload of money.

While Rocket doesn’t command the same kind of stardom, I don’t see him getting axed by Thanos or his minions, mainly because I’m not sure it makes narrative sense to use up your audience’s limited space for emotional death scenes on a raccoon with a very clearly stated death wish. He’ll get his wisecracks in and, per this shot of him and War Machine taking a fall, will be part of the battle against Thanos, but he’ll come out the other side. For similar reasons, I also see Ant-Man making it out alive.

Nebula, on the other hand, is looking like a prime suspect for an emotional death scene, thanks to the development of her character’s backstory being one of the sole highlights of Guardians Vol. 2. Nebula lived her life in Gamora’s shadow and devolved into a spiteful, incredibly violent android (alien robot?) in the process. Through Vol. 2 and Infinity War, we see her soften and expand her worldview, all the way to the point that she starts to direct her rage back at the titan responsible for her suffering. In the comics, Nebula steals the gauntlet off of Thanos’s hand while he’s having an out-of-body experience and trying to bang Death. But because he’s been torturing her for a while, her mind is mush and she can’t control the thing and it ends poorly for her. That’s not going to happen in Endgame, but I expect she’ll have a chance to have an emotional chat with Past Gamora before she bites the dust at Thanos’s hand.

These are all just appetizers, though. The real stakes are those tied to the original Avengers.

Starting with Hawkeye, because let’s just get this out of the way, sure, maybe he’ll die. It’s doubtful, though—I think his arc will be tied to him dealing with the loss of both his real family and his Avengers family, and will end happily back at that damn farm with him training Kate Bishop. Black Widow has a movie coming out, but it’s a prequel, so she very well could bite the dust in Endgame. Her death would wring more tears out of an audience than Hawkeye, but I think a lot the potential effectiveness of such a death depends on the circumstances.

I’m leaning toward survival for Professor Hulk and Thor, partly because of how good Ragnarok was, but also because Thor deserves a redemption arc and, as with Hawkeye, I have some doubts about how actually sad a Hulk death scene can really be given that they both, in their current iterations, have yet to helm a solo franchise. Which brings us to the Big Two.

As a million fanboys have screamed into their pillows on dark, lonely nights, Captain America should have gotten the hook in Civil War, with the mantle being passed off to Bucky or Falcon, as has happened in the comics. I was incredibly sure he was going to get his ass mashed in the Wakanda woods by Thanos in Infinity War. So, going into Endgame, I am actually going to go against the grain here and guess that Cap does NOT die, but instead retires and either jumps into the past to be with Peggy, OR becomes the sideline leader of either S.H.I.E.L.D. or the New Avengers. But Steve Rogers is definitely hanging up the vibranium shield by the time the screen cuts to black.

It pains me to say it, but Iron Man is fucking toast. The man who kick-started this whole mess, who went into the desert a billionaire arms dealer, who fought Mickey Rourke’s horribly stereotypical Russian character, who ditched his suit and hung out with a kid, who has had Thanos in his mind since he sent an army to New York (and now he’s back!), is going to 100 percent be dead as hell come Thursday. The reason I believe this has to do with the ongoing theme of sacrifice that the franchise has stressed since the very first Avengers movie. In that film, Cap gets pissed at Tony and tells him he’s not the guy “to lay down on the wire” so that the rest of his team will survive; Tony, dramatic as always, proves him wrong by flying a nuke into a space portal. In Infinity War, Cap tells Vision, “We don’t trade lives,” rejecting the romantic robot’s desire to lay down on the proverbial wire. A lot of speculation says this was foreshadowing Cap’s death, and that may well end up being true. But I think that the Russos were faking us out a bit and rather than doing the expected and having the kid from Brooklyn sacrifice himself, they will instead tap Tony, who will choose the future of the universe—over his future with Pepper, his potential future son, more mentor sessions with Peter Parker—and lay his life down so that the Avengers, and the rest of the world, can live on. It’s going to fucking suck, I’m going to cry, and so are you. I will, of course, tell myself I am ready as I wait in line for two hours on Thursday, and I will be woefully, hilariously wrong.

Some Terrible, Awful, No-Good MCU Takes That Are Also Absolutely True

• Let’s start with a good ol’ Choose Your Fighter, Best MCU Arms edition.

In this corner, New Funny Thor:

And in this corner, Goody Two Shoes Steve Rogers:

The answer is Steve Rogers, thank you for playing.

• MCU >>> Game of Thrones (TV version) and it’s not even close. We will not be taking questions at this time.

• I’ve written this before but it bears repeating: Upon rewatch (and rewatch and rewatch), Civil War is easily the Russo Brothers’ worst MCU offering; it also easily owns a spot in the film universe’s top-10. While Infinity War maybe rushes its character moments to get them in the necessary place on the chess board, it’s able to make up for any narrative shortcomings by being constantly beautiful and featuring outrageously fun action sequences. It is in every sense the most comic book-y comic-book movie that has ever existed.

Civil War, on the other hand, is too dour, too grey, and has little-to-no real stakes save for a major injury to War Machine that is literally completely fixed by the end of the movie, despite the fact that the comic books feature Captain America’s (temporary) assassination. And apologies to the X-Men and the Incredibles, but the whole government-tries-to-regulate-superheroes trope is among the most boring available plot devices to pull from in the canon. You know what I love most about over-powered comic book characters with the potential for amazing visuals? Bureaucracy! The MCU has leaned on this a number of times—Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Winter Soldier, Ant-Man and the Wasp—and while the Russos nailed it in the second Captain America solo film, the idea that one elevator-adjacent conversation would turn Tony Stark, the man that told a sitting Congressman (and, as it turns out, Hydra leader) to eat shit, into a government-loving Responsible Adult—and then have him recruit child soldiers for the fight against his old pals—is just, honestly, kind of lazy!

Of course, the fact that Cap and Iron Man hate each other’s guts is supremely important to establishing why Earth was not fully prepared to stage a response to Thanos in Infinity War, but that’s all going to be solved in probably four-to-five minutes of Endgame screen time, so even that Avengers-shattering consequence is not going to end up having too much of an effect on the wider MCU, at least not more so than, say, Thor not going for the head.

• Speaking of which, Star-Lord caught a boatload of shit for fucking it all up in the Battle on Titan and whacking Thanos in the head with his lil’ pew pew space-Nerf gun, and he clearly deserved it. But I’m not quite sold on the fact that he’s even the main one to blame.

In Infinity War, Dr. Strange has one of the best fight sequences in the entire MCU when he and Thanos go toe-to-toe on Titan. The Russos and Infinity War’s visual effects teams knew precisely the kind of reality-altering beings they were throwing at one another and somehow designed a fight scene, placed within a larger fight scene set-piece, that made the most of their abilities. That said! With the caveat that Dr. Strange went forward in time to see all possible outcomes and knows how the battle has to go to ensure an eventual victory—they are so clearly in that one-in-a-14-million reality—it really seems like he fucked it by not doing exactly what Wong does to Cull Obsidian in Manhattan and just creating one of those little orange portals and chopping off Thanos’s gauntlet arm. Or even his head. Either would work! Again, I know, this is all part of the plan. But still, one portal and poof, the Guardians/Avengers team walks away with a bloodied gauntlet and we all get to save our money and bladders this year. Oh well.

• Even though his name is no longer spoken in these circles, Edward Norton’s Incredible Hulk is still part of the larger MCU canon and is even included in Marvel’s nostalgia-grounded marketing material. While Bruce Banner has a new face and Liv Tyler is nowhere to be found, the sole constant from that movie is General Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross, who has been played wonderfully by actor William Hurt. My question: How in the actual fuck does Ross—who fails horrifically in attempting to recreate a Hulk and ends up destroying most of Harlem in doing so—fail upwards to the point that he’s the goddamn Secretary of State by Civil War?? Who signed off on this? He is objectively awful at his job! The super heroes of Earth have done nothing but own this man at every turn, and yet he keeps getting promotions.

• On the strength of a single line in Infinity War—“This is awkward,” muttered by Falcon when Bruce Banner walks in to see Black Widow and Captain America and the rest of the Edinburgh gang at HQ—and single trailer shot of Cap looking in the mirror while a Black Widow voiceover plays, I totally, one hundred percent, for-realz believe that Endgame will address the fact that Captain America and Black Widow kinda, sorta fell in love while they were out skirting the law and saving lives, in between Civil War and Infinity War. Maybe I’m wrong, sure. But maybe I’m not.

Every Journey Has An End

I’ve drafted a couple versions of this paragraph; most of them center around the idea of “This is it, the end of my MCU fandom” and I end up getting all weepy and nostalgic and gross. I kept deleting it for the same reason—I know this isn’t the end. I’ll walk into theaters in July and see Spider-Man: Far From Home. I’ll go see The Eternals and the Black Widow prequel and the Black Panther sequel and whatever the hell else they have planned for what becomes of Phase 4. I know this because I am a sucker, and also because I genuinely enjoy and relish the experience of walking into a crowded theater with a bunch of fellow nerds and oooing and ahhing at a couple of highly paid actors jumping up and down or running directly at the camera in a massive green-screen studio. It’ll be there, probably for the rest of my life. But also I understand and accept that the more Marvel Studios and its presence at the box office continue to grow, the less affection I’ll have toward what was once a plucky studio just trying to cash in on the few heroes it still retained the rights to by appealing to 15-year-old me. That’s natural. You root for the underdog and sooner or later, insert Dark Knight quote blah blah blah, they either fade back to obscurity or become the domineering, industry-steering precedent setter that are “ruining the movies” or some shit. And yet, to this Thursday, every time the Russos and Marvel Studios have put out a new film, there I am, in my Infinity Gauntlet shirt, shouldering my way to claim the spot at the front of the line, just so I can hand off $12 to the ticket booth machine and drool over a movie that should be aimed at kids but is instead pointed squarely at me. One day, I’ll move on and only watch movies on Criterion and turn my nose up at the cookie-cutter shape of the modern blockbuster. But until my imagination gets dusted and I fade fully into an Old, you know where to find me.