Now that almost 10 months have passed since the release of Avengers: Endgame, people are waiting for the film to arrive on Disney+. But apparently, we’re still getting many concept arts from the Marvel Studios artists that worked on the movie. The story of Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame was totally different from what happened in the comic book event – Infinity Gauntlet. In that, there was an instance where Nebula wore the Infinity Gauntlet. Well that didn’t happen in the theatrical cut, but certainly there was a concept art designed for the iconic comic book moment. Take a look:
This isn’t the only alternate art that has made its way online. Apparently there was an alternate sequence where the Avengers went to the Garden to confront Thanos. Take a look:
Thor surprisingly has long hair and a different kind of axe. Even Hulk is present instead of the Hulkbuster armor. It means that this concept art was designed way back in 2017 where what happens in Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War was not known to anyone. The third piece of art that we have involves Nebula once again.
This seems to be the 2023 version of Nebula who has been freed by 2014 Gamora. And now she is trying to work out Thanos’ plan of attack in order to conspire against him. Nebula had a huge role to play in Avengers: Endgame. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors Joe & Anthony Russo did use her extremely well. She became the key to bringing Thanos back in play and it was because of her that Clint could retain the Infinity Gauntlet.
Nebula had a big role to play even in the comics. In the Infinity Gauntlet storyline Thanos loses the Gauntlet because of a mistake that he himself commits. He lets Mephisto manipulate him, and his gigantic Ego doesn’t allow him to make the full use of his power. In his massive battle against Eternity, he actually ends up winning and takes the place of Eternity, leaving his physical body sitting on his chair. This is the moment where Nebula actually manages to grab the Gauntlet from Thanos’ hand since his astral form is not present in his body, leaving it lifeless.
And with this, the mistake that he commits being blinded by Ego and overconfidence, he allows someone else to have the upper hand against him when all odds were actually in his favor. Nebula wears the Gauntlet and becomes one of the main reasons for Thanos’ defeat.
This parallels in Avengers: Endgame as well as Thanos was again defeated by his own arrogance. As Thanos arrived on Earth, he met with Nebula. She tells her father that “they [Avengers] suspected nothing.” To this Thanos replies – “the Arrogant never do.” And a massive battle later, Thanos showed that very arrogance and lost.
He fought Captain Marvel, used the Power Stone to push her away; brilliant! But then Tony Stark came in to try and stop Thanos. He stole away the stones and Thanos didn’t notice. Tony did that using the magic of Nano-tech, but Thanos should really have noticed that the Stones were gone. Before snapping, he actually looks at the Gauntlet and with there’s one angle where he really should’ve been able to see that at least the Time Stone was missing from his thumb. But he was so blinded by his arrogance, he really wanted to have the last laugh saying “I am Inevitable”, that he actually missed out on the fact that the stones are gone! The result of this? Thanos lost the upper hand.
This was actually a mistake caught by the fans. The VFX artist of Endgame have admitted that it was a mistake on their part. But, this mistake works well with the “arrogant Thanos” arc we’re trying to explain here. It is just amazing how the movies have managed to parallel Thanos and his arc with the comics despite the 2 stories being vastly different.
