If you’re like us, the high point of last night’s Super Bowl broadcast came early in the first quarter, when the Avengers: Endgame teaser aired, showcasing a bit of new footage and some ominous voiceover: “Some people move on. Not us.”
As a teaser, it’s not much more than a reminder that, oh yeah, there’s a big Marvel movie coming in April, but for more hardcore fans, the teaser is theorized to be hiding at least one major secret about the film.
First, check it out for yourself. Here’s what you might have missed. There are two key shots in the trailer worth discussing, and some eagle-eyed analysts over at Polygon have done a lot already to break things down. Here’s the first key shot:
Alright, classic single-file slo-mo superhero walk, amiright? Wrong. There’s no consistency here. War Machine is bringing up the rear here (as he should. No shade at War Machine, he’s alright, but like, it’s him or Captain Freaking America, you know?), but what’s with the big gap between him and the Avenger in front of him? Everyone else is equally spaced out. Why is War Machine slacking off in the back?
Take a look at this other screenshot:
Pretty normal on its face, but again, there’s a weird gap. War Machine’s way over on the right, which again, throws off the balance of the shot and makes you wonder if something’s not missing …intentionally.
Here’s the leading theory: A secret Avenger, whose identity is being withheld for spoiler reasons, has been wiped from those two shots. Could it be Captain Marvel? Shuri? Those are the two frontrunners. Another possibility: somebody currently presumed to be snapped out of existence.
A third possibility is that it’s just a gap, nothing more, but there’s precedence for this kind of trickery from Marvel. In the trailer for Infinity War, Hulk was shown fighting alongside Captain America and Black Panther, but in the actual movie, it was Bruce Banner fighting in the Hulkbuster armor, since the Hulk had been pummeled by Thanos earlier in the movie and wasn’t too fond of coming out again.
Will the mysterious Avenger reveal themselves in a future trailer? Seems unlikely. Marvel Studios is keeping Endgame shrouded in the sort of secrecy that would make the Pentagon jealous, and there are reports that none of the trailer footage will show anything past the movie’s first 40 minutes. So we’ll have to wait until Avengers: Endgame lands in April to find out for sure.
