Avengers 4:
Avengers: Infinity War saw the advent of the biggest and largest genocide ever known to man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As the fictional part of that universe suffered from the snap, the real comic book movie industry was shaken by the unprecedented storyline of Infinity War. The utter defeat of the ‘ever so virtuous’ Avengers was something that Disney does not do often. But it was a necessary evil in the grand scheme of things.
With letting the Avengers lose this battle Disney has set up a redemption plotline that will affect every movie to come during the next part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The entirety of the responsibility is now upon the shoulders of the creative head at Marvel studios vis-à-vis Kevin Feige. Although Infinity War broke every kind of expectation that the fans might have had from the movie, it still left some pressing questions unanswered.
One of the most prominent questions after the Infinity War that the fans had was “Where the hell is Hawkeye?” Although that real life explanation of this is quite simple (the fact that Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson are not on the best terms offset) but fans always try to seek fun in comic book movie plot lines; fun that could set up entirely new subplot lines for the movies to come.
Plot lines that may run very deep into comic lore, after all, we have to remember that while producing comic book movies there is never a shortage of source material to ‘take inspiration’ from. The inspired storylines make it to the big screen (or rather find their way to a script) and we eventually get to see a watered down version of the gritty comic. That is exactly what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been doing all this while.
Although there still is a possibility that we might get to see this particular iteration of Hawkeye on the big screen, now more than ever because Hawkeye is MIA from the MCU without a very concrete explanation.
This theory is a small part of the massive fan theory posted on Quora, sadly the answer is no longer available but the idea still makes a lot of sense, and it has made us question whether the actuality of it has any merit or not. You see this fan speculation (as it seemed) in the answer was more focused on a redemption arc between Clint and Black Widow.
According to the answer, the setting was post-Infinity War earth where Captain America ran a new group of Avengers with the survivors of Infinity War trying to manage the post Infinity War fallout. In this story, Captain America sends out Natasha Romanoff to locate every Avenger or ally that was unaffected by the snap. You see, Steve Rogers is regrouping, he is gathering strength to manage the disaster at hand, and the first thing that must be done is damage control.
The story continues as Romanoff is unable to locate Barton but she receives information that there is something amiss in China (more on this in the Captain Marvel theory). This wild goose chase eventually leads Romanoff to a place where something very important is kept under wraps, but someone else is there too, and who else, but Ronin, the anti-hero alter ego of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.
The theory goes that after Hawkeye witnessed his family fall victim to the snap something broke inside him and transformed into Ronin. The entire premise seems a little far-fetched, but remember true believers that this iteration of the character has already been teased in the first Avengers film.
The tease of Hawkeye going over to the dark side has been already put out in the open, so Marvel might as well finish that subplot in the finale of Infinity War. Would you say that Avengers 4 will be a paradigm shift for the entire MCU just as Infinity War was? I don’t doubt it for a second. All we have to do now is to wait and see what Marvel does next with the franchise and if they ever shift the focus from Iron Man.
Avengers 4 comes out on May 4, 2019. The cast is impeccable as some of the biggest names are part of the project including Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier), Chris Pratt (Starlord), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Dave Bautista (Drax), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Mariah Hill), Jeremy Reiner (Hawkeye), Benedict Wong (Wong), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange), Tom Holland (Spiderman), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlett Witch), Paul Bettany (Vision), Bradley Cooper (Rocket Raccoon), Vin Diesel (Groot), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Josh Brolin (Thanos).
