Long-time comic book fans will know that, in the world of superheroes, things are rarely what they
seem — and sometimes you really can't trust what you're being told. Indeed, on a number
of occasions, Marvel has pulled the rug out from under the fans, for better or for worse.
Infinity War was arguably the most hotly-anticipated instalment of the
MCU's third phase, and excitement reached a fever pitch when that first trailer was
released — which ended with a climactic shot of Cap leading the Avengers into battle. Of course,
at the time, it made perfect sense that Hulk would be among them, too.
The only problem? Hulk is nowhere to be found for most of Infinity War,
let alone the battle sequences shown in the trailer. At the start of the film,
Hulk suffers an embarrassing defeat during a head to head battle with Thanos,
and Bruce Banner is unable to revert back into his giant green form.
"Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."
"I'm sorry, I can't, or he won't."
"It's alright. Hey, stand down. Keep an eye on him, thank you."
In the end, Bruce dons the Hulkbuster suit during the final battle against
Thanos' forces, and the trailer's slo-mo ensemble shot is nowhere to be found.
So why the deception? Well, the Russo brothers have said in interviews
that they purposefully crafted the trailers of their Avengers films to
minimize spoilers and keep fans guessing. This included altering smaller details like
Thor's eyepatch and certain missing Infinity Stones on Thanos' gauntlet.
Inevitably, the Russo brothers tricked the fans again with the trailers leading up to Avengers:
Endgame — but this time around, most people kinda expected it. Considering Endgame might well have
been the most eagerly-awaited major movie release of the last few decades, you can hardly blame
the Russos for wanting to keep a tight lid on what plot developments were going to unfold.
That said, it's still impressive how little those trailers gave away about the movie.
Most of the shots featured in the Endgame trailers utilize footage from either the
very first scenes of the movie — or a few choice shots of the final battle.
The Russos' conservative use of scenes made sense, however, since using unaltered footage
from the film's latter two acts would have likely spoiled the movie's time heist premise.
One of the most noticeable misdirections in the Endgame trailer
was Black Widow sporting her Infinity War-era bob,
when in fact she'd gone back to her natural red color. There's also a shot of Thor wielding
Stormbreaker — and the fact he looks a whole lot slimmer than he does in the actual movie.
Marvel's history of Avengers-level deceit isn't exclusive to the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
though. Over the years, avid Marvel fans have been lied to countless times through countless
misleading storylines and retcons that completely flip previously established canon on its head.
One such retcon involved Captain America's tragic passing after the Civil War crossover event.
At the heart of Civil War's seven-issue conflict is the Superhero Registration Act, which requires
anyone with superhuman abilities to trust the U.S. government with their secret identities
and regulate the presence and actions of heroes. Cap is against the Superhero Registration Act,
of course, which he sees as a grave infringement on the rights of people with superhuman abilities;
one of his allies, Luke Cage, even sees the act as akin to slavery. During the
dramatic fallout of Civil War, Steve Rogers is assassinated by a brainwashed Sharon Carter.
This sets up the premise for The Death of Captain America, which spans 18 issues.
Rogers' death had wide-reaching implications for the Marvel universe, and eventually the
title of Captain America was passed down to Bucky Barnes. But these are comic books,
and apparently no one ever stays dead. Inevitably, Marvel brought Cap back by
saying he hadn't actually died — the gun he was shot with didn't kill him,
but rather suspended him in time and space. It was a nice excuse to bring back a fan-favorite, but it
also kind of drains all the emotional weight from The Death of Captain America, don't you think?
One of the more egregious retcons to plague the Avengers, The Crossing's reveal that Tony Stark
has been a traitorous sleeper agent for Kang the Conqueror for 30 years went against literally
everything readers knew about Iron Man. While retconning heroes as villains for a short
narrative arc is commonplace in the comics, this instance was especially unpopular among fans.
Unlike the other alternate-universe-evil-twin plots that comic book fans had come to expect over
the years, The Crossing saw the real Tony Stark readers knew and loved betraying his friends — and
straight-up killing people — after three decades of deception. The explanation that Kang the
Conqueror had been manipulating Tony for decades seemed a little thin, not only because of the
rich backstory that had been thoroughly explored during years of Iron Man comics, but also because
it completely disregarded any sense readers had of Tony's character development or morality.
Except… not really. Marvel quickly backpedaled on the idea that Tony Stark had been manipulated
into being an evil double agent by Kang for the entire history of the Marvel Universe.
Instead, the Avengers Forever miniseries pulled off a double-retcon that explained
that the manipulation of Tony had taken place over several months,
not years, which only served to confuse and frustrate readers even more.
"Hail Hydra"
Arguably the most controversial hero-to-villain retcon in the Marvel Universe
began with a now-infamous cliffhanger in Captain America: Steve Rogers #1,
that sees Cap pledging his allegiance to Hydra. Throughout the Secret Empire storyline,
it's revealed that Rogers was indoctrinated as a double agent for Hydra since childhood
and had been plotting against the Allied powers since the start.
The idea that Captain America, a historically anti-Nazi hero created by Jewish creators,
truly sided with Nazi-adjacent organization Hydra did not sit well with readers to say the least.
Some understandably saw it as downright offensive to Captain America's original
creators and the real-life communities that had been irreparably harmed by Nazism.
In an attempt at damage control, Marvel tried to argue that Hydra wasn't an explicitly
Nazi organization, and that Cap's "Hail Hydra" moment wouldn't be trivialized with
a bait-and-switch narrative involving alternate timeline versions of Rogers.
Critics argued, however, that while Hydra's origins might have predated Nazism in the comics,
their ideologies had since become intertwined.
Now, the truth behind Cap's secret Hydra allegiance is a little more complicated
than it first appears, with the Cosmic Cube altering both reality and Steve's memories.
Still, Secret Empire rewrites history and says that the hero Captain America readers
thought they knew was the biggest lie of all, and that HydraCap is Rogers' original form.
At the end of Secret Empire, the story climaxes in a battle between different
versions of Steve Rogers. The heroic Steve wins out, of course, but that didn't change much
of what had happened — and the whole storyline still stung for plenty of Captain America fans.
In Black Widow's first origin story, Natasha Romanoff danced as a ballerina
for the Russian Bolshoi before her time as a KGB spy-turned-Avenger. For the
earliest Black Widow storylines, readers learned that she married a Soviet agent
and carried on as a prominent ballerina, but later pledged her loyalty to the KGB
and trained as a spy after the death of her husband. Black Widow's dancer past
was even alluded to in the MCU during scenes from Avengers: Age of Ultron.
But the truth behind Black Widow's backstory was far more sinister than either the original
tragic origins or its MCU interpretation. In the comics, the reality of Black Widow's
past is that Natasha was brainwashed, trained, and bio-technically altered to
be a cold-blooded assassin from childhood by a Soviet program known as the Red Room.
Fans pointed out that being a member of an internationally recognized dance company
might make it difficult to moonlight as an assassin, but this was easily explained away
by saying that all of Natasha's memories of the ballet had never happened. Instead, the false
narrative Natasha initially believed about her past was planted by the Red Room to ensure her
loyalty to the KGB. Remember this particular deception, too, because the lies Natasha was
told about her past will likely be crucial to the plot of the upcoming Black Widow movie.
Scarlet Witch's backstory has been retconned almost too many times to count. An integral
part of Wanda's origin — one that people took for granted for decades — was that she and her brother
Quicksilver were Magneto's children, their mutant powers being inherited through birth.
As Scarlet Witch would later star as an Avenger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
this posed problems for Disney and Marvel — since, at the time, Fox owned the rights to the X-Men and
most mutant characters. When Marvel fans were introduced to Wanda in Avengers: Age of Ultron,
her powers are shown to be the result of experiments by Hydra, not mutant genes.
"There's nothing more horrifying… than a miracle."
Then, in 2014, Marvel turned Scarlet Witch's origin story on its head.
During the AXIS comics crossover event, Wanda discovers she's not actually Magneto's daughter,
rewriting the fraught birth and childhood of the twins once again. This retcon also revealed that
readers had been lied to about the origins of Scarlet Witch's powers. She had previously been
depicted as having some magical powers along with her mutant abilities, but the reveal that
her biological connection to Magneto was a lie reinforced Marvel's growing emphasis on
her sorcery. Essentially, Marvel took all the mutant out of one of its most famous mutants.
Back in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Thanos' adopted daughter Gamora
is introduced as the last member of a species called the Zehoberei. Now, many fans might not
remember that specific detail — and that's probably just what Marvel is hoping for,
because they later took her origin story in an entirely different direction.
As explained in Infinity War, Thanos was indeed responsible for the destruction of
her people — but it doesn't seem like he actually slaughtered all of them, as she
claimed in Guardians. Instead, Thanos is shown in a flashback sequence, making Gamora's planet
a stop on his long quest to bring "balance" to the universe, by wiping out half of all life there.
Of course, it's entirely possible that the rest of the Zehoberei had perished between
the events of the Infinity War flashback and Guardians of the Galaxy. If that's the case,
however, there hasn't been any explicit on-screen explanation to that effect.
Either way, Gamora's story is tragic, and she had plenty of reasons to want Thanos stopped
at all costs — but this seems like one of those rare occasions when Marvel hadn't really figured
out the specific details of its sprawling cinematic universe. It doesn't happen often,
but it appears that, in this instance, Feige and his creative team made changes on the fly,
hoping most members of the audience would be too caught up in the action to notice.
Avengers: Age of Ultron isn't generally regarded as one of the best entries in the MCU, but it has
its strong points — including the closing moments of the film, when the Hulk commandeers an Avengers
Quinjet and heads off for parts unknown. He later turns up on Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok,
as a sort of gladiatorial all-star who battles new contenders for the amusement of the Grandmaster.
It's basically the MCU's version of the classic Planet Hulk storyline from the comics,
and a turn of events that fans had long been clamoring for. It also wasn't initially supposed
to be that way. As Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige later admitted, when Ultron was made,
the MCU braintrust had no idea where Hulk would end up — but they explicitly told
Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon that he wouldn't be going to space. Feige explains:
"If you go back and look at that shot of the movie,
he's in the sky. It's blue sky. In the movie, it's,
'We lost the signal out by the Caspian Sea.' Or something like that, it was all earthbound."
Here's one case in which it seems safe to assume
that most Marvel fans can forgive the studio for a little shift in direction — after all,
their change of heart gave us Thor: Ragnarok. And who could possibly argue with that?
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