You’ve either been sleeping under a rock or you hate the Marvel Cinematic Universe, those could be the only reasons why you’ve not seen the trailer for the highly anticipated Avengers: Infinity War.
There could be another reason why you may not have seen it – people who have seen it before have told you some of your favourite superheroes aren’t in the trailer such as Ant-Man, the Wasp and original MCU Avenger Hawkeye.
The latter is quite a surprising omission considering Jeremy Renner is one of the founding MCU-Avengers, however his absence from the rather awesome trailer could be down to a few simple fan theories.
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When we last saw Marvel’s top marksman Hawkeye (aka Clint Barton) he was being held in an underwater prison facility after siding with Captain America and his anti-superhuman registration stance in Captain America: Civil War. At the end of the film we see that Cap has broken into the facility to free Hawkeye and the rest of his captive squad.
However just because you’ve broken out of a highly secure government jail doesn’t mean you can go waltzing down to your local supermarket in broad daylight. Which leads us to believe Barton is on the run and thanks to his skills as a highly trained SHIELD agent – and the fact he’s an Avenger – means he’s hard to capture… unless you’re Loki or you have his ‘glow stick of death’.
So where could he be? One theory is he’s hiding out in his farm with his family. As you may remember in Avengers: Age of Ultron Barton took his team to an off-the-grid safe house, which ex-SHIELD director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) helped setup.
However pro-registration opponent Iron Man – aka Tony Stark – knows the location of said farm and it’s probably one of the first places the Iron Avenger would look. So you can pretty much rule that theory out.
Throughout the trailer we see various heroes of the MCU scattered across different locations like New York, Wakanda and space, as they deal with the threat of Thanos and the Black Order. But still no sign of Hawkeye.
One popular theory is he’s not part of any of the gangs dealing with the Mad Titan and his generals – instead he’s off on his own mission to deal with the cosmic threat. And it’s possible he’s dropped his well-known alias Hawkeye and now goes by the codename Ronin.
So who the hell is Ronin you ask? Brace yourselves this is about to get quite complicated.
In the Marvel comics event Avengers Disassembled the Scarlet Witch loses control of her telekinetic powers, killing Hawkeye. This is followed by the event House Of M where her powers have gone so out of control, she’s altered reality to fit the vision of her villainous mutant father, Magneto. In the process she brings Hawkeye back to life.
After the events of Civil War Barton reveals to the world he’s still alive, taking on the moniker Ronin for a few years before returning as Hawkeye… the only character to question this absurdity is Wolverine.
For those of you wondering where the heck Ant-Man and Wasp are… we’ve got nothing for you. Maybe they were in the trailer but you just couldn’t see them – on the account of the using their shrinking technology perhaps.
Avengers: Infinity War is released in the UK on April 27, two months after Black Panther which is out February 12, 2018.
