Avengers: Infinity War is keeping Thanos’ soldiers close to the chest for a couple different reasons. Known as the Black Order, these four characters may be the biggest surprise for casual fans of the Marvel movies. If you’re a comic book fan you already have some details that I’m sure will be revealed in the film, but moviegoers will be blindsided in the best of ways by this four-man “team” Thanos has put together. The characters, named Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Cull Obsidian, and Ebony Maw, are a motley crew, and the best-kept secret. It’s most likely they are a big reason why the Russo brothers have politely asked fans not to spoil the film.
The Black Order…and Loki for scale.
Too many villains get a bad rap in superhero movies.
It’s practically a rule at this point that if you stuff your film with villains the movie will suffer and be almost unwatchable. If the Russo brothers cut a trailer revealing each villain and their whole schtick fans would be very nervous. Just look at Spider-Man 3, Batman and Robin, and Iron Man 2. That isn’t to say they won’t nail it, but it’s a big reason why we’ve only gotten glimpses at each villain. It’s likely each villain will bring a new lesson for our heroes (and match up well in battle), but the more details we know the more nervous longtime superhero movie fans will question buying a ticket.
Learning about each villain will add freshness and surprises to the film
It remains to be seen how close these characters will be to their comic book counterparts since the trailers have only given us glimpses of them, but it’s safe to say based on their design they may be fairly accurate to their comic book versions. This is great news; the Black Order not only shares interesting dynamics with one another (two are married for instance), but it’s going to be fun to learn about who they are.
Each villain’s power leads to a means of understanding how Thanos wins
The movie trailers seem to suggest Thanos beats the Avengers all on his own. That’s the biggest misdirect Marvel has done in some time. There is a quick scene of Ebony Maw torturing Doctor Strange, but aside from that, the Black Order is almost nonexistent. What can we take from that Maw scene? Knowing from the comics he is a master manipulator and can turn heroes into villains I suspect Doctor Strange may be used against our heroes; that detail alone in the trailer gives us enough to see where the story is going. Now imagine if the trailer showed a major scene for each of the Black Order? We’d know how the Avengers lose because chances are they will lose big time.
The only way to beat the Avengers is with a supervillain team of your own
The more we know about the Black Order the more we’ll piece together how this film might end. My chips are on Thanos beating our favorite Avengers so as to make the fourth Avengers film make the name of this team mean something. You want to avenge something, make the heroes lose big time. Revealing details on these characters and how they fight together (or even if they fight together) would potentially ruin the entire climax of this film.
There will be of course non Black Order moments for our heroes to overcome which would spoil the film if revealed in the trailers. That said, I’m sticking by the fact that we don’t see much detail on these characters being proof their powers, dynamics, and importance are going to be a huge factor in the overall enjoyment of Avengers: Infinity War.
Wouldn’t it be nice to learn more about the Black Order? Read more about each of the four characters here.
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