With the release of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel Studios has brought a close to a decade of long-form cinematic storytelling, while also simultaneously setting up the next decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the process. Of course, with half of the Avengers vanishing into non-existence at the end of Infinity War, the story is far from finished and fans will be spending the next year speculating over how the remaining heroes (as well as some not-yet-introduced ones, judging by that final post-credits scene) might reverse the terrible fate Thanos has wrought.
Of course, a new MCU movie also means new Easter eggs, and Infinity War has a number of great callbacks to old Marvel Comics and pop culture as a whole. Here are the 20 hidden details you may not have noticed the first time through.
20. “Perfect Balance”
Thanos is a big advocate of balancing the universal scales, as it were – so much so that he actually keeps to his word and wipes out half of all life at the end of Infinity War. Unsurprisingly, the notion of perfect balance is brought up quite a bit in Infinity War and even plays out in ways that have nothing to do with superhero genocide, such as the fact that Corvus Glave stabs Vision early on in the film and Vision returns the favor later on. But even the film’s poster reflects this theme, as we see Iron Man holding his arms out as if he’s trying to keep everything in balance and the fact that the poster has 24 characters on it. Why is this significant? Well, exactly half of these characters die, while the other half live. Thanos wills it so!
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