Vesna Vulovic

            There was as much foot traffic as usual on New Years morning. While I was rehearsing my songs an old woman across the street pushed a shopping cart west along Queen. She was wearing a fairly long winter coat but her pants were at her ankles and she either didn’t know or didn’t care.

            I did a fairly thorough cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom sinks and the toilet. I don’t know why I bother though because they are just going to get dirty again.

            When I weighed myself in the evening I was 92.3 kilos, which is a drop 1.6 from the day before. I don’t understand where weight goes or comes from so fast to go up and down like that. I’m still overweight though.

            I had a slice of turkey, a potato, a carrot and the last of my gravy while watching the last of the last of the 2018 superhero movies: Avengers: Infinity War. I was expecting it to be a clumsy jumble of trying juggle so many characters but it was actually handled very well and the action scenes were so nicely paced that I had a hard time pausing it to go and make coffee. Only two things about the movie really bugged me and one was avoidable while the other was inevitable. I’ve said this before: Spiderman’s costume should not be high tech and it especially should not have spider legs coming out of it. The only tech should be that designed by the teenage scientist, Peter Parker, and that should mostly consist of his web shooters and spider tracers.

            The only other problem was the end credits being longer than War and Peace, but with a movie of this size that was unavoidable.

            Spoiler alert!

            It begins on an Asgardian ship after Thanos has already destroyed Asgard to get the second infinity stone for his gauntlet. He already got the first sometime between the second Guardians of the galaxy movie and this story form the planet Xandar where he defeated Nova Force. Thor is bound and gagged. Thanos beats the Hulk almost to death. Heimdall teleports the Hulk away but Thanos kills Heimdall. Loki tries to trick Thanos into thinking that he is pledging loyalty to him, but tries to kill him. Thanos stops Loki easily, gets the second stone from him and kills him.  As Thor says later though, Loki has been dead before.

            Thanos is gathering the six infinity stones because they will give him the power to wipe out half the life in the universe. He believes his motives are benevolent and that if he wipes out half of the population the other half will thrive without having to struggle for resources. There's a kind of twisted logic to this but the director of the movie said in an interview that Thanos wipes out all life, including plant and animal life, which serves as the main resource that everyone competes for, so it wouldn’t be a benefit. Unless they justify this in the next film, somebody goofed. The comic book Thanos just wanted to kill half the universe as a Valentine gift to the goddess of death.

            Heimdall sent Hulk to Earth and he crashes through the roof of Dr Strange’s house and turns back to Bruce Banner. He tells him about Thanos. They seek out Tony Stark. A gigantic spaceship shaped like a vertical wheel arrives in the sky over New York. Spiderman leaves his school field trip to investigate. Two of Thanos’s Black Order: the brutish Black Dwarf and the sorcerer the Ebony Maw emerge from the ship and demand the infinity stone that’s in Dr. Strange’s amulet. Bruce tries to become the Hulk but the Hulk seems too afraid to come out.  The Maw incapacitates Strange but his magic cloak flies him away. The Maw pursues and so does Spiderman. Strange and his cloak become separated and Strange gets beamed into the ship. Spiderman is dragged along. Iron Man fights the dwarf until Strange’s assistant Wong sends the dwarf into another dimension and closes the portal. Iron Man heads for the ship. Spiderman is clinging to the ship but runs out of the air, and falls but manages to catch the ship with a web and makes it inside. Banner calls Captain America.

            Meanwhile the Guardians of the Galaxy are heading towards an Asgardian distress signal. They arrive to s scene of devastation of wrecked ships and dead bodies floating in space but a barely conscious Thor hits their window. They bring him inside and everyone is impressed with Thor but Quill, who is jealous over how impressed the women are. Drax is as impressed as the women and says Thor looks like a pirate had a baby with an angel.

            Thor comes to and they talk about Thanos. Thor assumes that Rocket Raccoon (who he thinks is a rabbit) is the captain because he seems like the smartest of the crew. Thor wants to go to the Asgardian world of Nidavellir to build a battle-axe so Rocket takes him in the space pod with the now teenage Groot. It turns out that Groot is one of the many languages Thor knows. The rest of the Guardians go to Knowhere to get to the next infinity stone. Since Rocket refers to the rest of the crew as “morons”, Thor thinks that’s what they are called, so as he leaves he calls out, “I bid you farewell and good luck Morons!”

            Vision and the Scarlet Witch are in Scotland. One of the infinity stones is in Vision’s forehead. It’s what makes him more than just a robot. They are attacked by Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight. Corvus tries to pry the stone from Vision’s forehead. There is a long fight and only the Scarlet Witch is able to stand as Thanos’s children approach. Suddenly Captain America, the Falcon and the Black Widow arrive. Strangely, with no powers they seem to be able to defeat these two more easily. Corvus and Proxima escape by beaming up to their ship. The Avengers take the quinjet to New York.

            Gamora is telling Quill how Thanos adopted her after destroying her world. She asks him to kill her if she is captured by Thanos because she has knowledge that would help him complete his quest. They arrive on Knowhere and Thanos is already there torturing the Collector for it. Gamora attacks Thanos and appears to kill him. She begins to cry in grief but then she hears Thanos’s voice as the illusion of the Collector’s unravaged home and the body of Thanos is pulled aside and we see that Thanos has already devastated Knowhere. Thanos steps forward, having already acquired the third infinity stone: the Reality Stone. Drax and Mantis attack but Thanos breaks their bodies into pieces. Quill comes forward with a gun. Gamora begs him to kill her and not Thanos. He reluctantly pulls the trigger after much hesitation but Thanos makes bubbles come from the gun. He teleports away with Gamora and the bodies of Drax and Mantis reassemble.

            The quinjet arrives at Avengers mansion. Bruce and War Machine are there. The Vision says their only hope is to destroy the stone in his forehead and that only the Scarlet Witch can do it. Wanda refuses because it would kill Vision but Bruce says he thinks Visions identity is more than the stone. They have to find somewhere with the technology to do it. The Captain takes them to Wakanda.

            Meanwhile the Maw is torturing Dr. Strange with levitating needles. Meanwhile Strange is controlling his cloak to team up with Iron Man and Spiderman and they are looking down on the torture scene from an upper level. Iron Man blows a hole in the hull and the Maw is sucked through. Strange is almost pulled out as well but Spiderman catches him with a web. The ship is heading towards Thanos and Stark convinces Strange that they should go along with it and take the fight to him rather than to have him attack Earth.

            Gamora is on Thanos’s ship. She tells him, “Everything I hate about myself you taught me!” He says, “And in doing so made you the fiercest woman in the galaxy!” Thanos takes Gamora into a room where her sister Nebula is being tortured by having her components pulled apart. He increases Nebula’s pain and asks Gamora to reveal the location of the Soul Stone. Finally she gives in and tells him that it’s on Vormir. 

            On the space pod Rocket gives Thor a cybernetic eye so he’ll have full vision when he faces Thanos. Thor puts it in his socket but Rocket says, “I would’ve washed that! The only was I could sneak it off Contractia was up my …” They arrive at Nidavellir but it’s dark and the neutron star has gone out. The only dwarf left is Eitri. He says he made Thanos the gauntlet in which he is collecting the stones but after he had it he killed all the other dwarfs.

            Meanwhile on Thanos’s ship Nebula kills her guard and escapes. She sends a message for Mantis to meet her on Titan.

            Strange, Stark and Spiderman crash land on Titan. They are immediately attacked by the Guardians until they each realize that the other is not with Thanos. They begin to plan. Stark says they need to take the gauntlet away from Thanos. Quill says he can think of a better plan. Drax says, “Tell him about the dance off to save the universe!” Peter says, “You mean like in Footloose?” Quill says, “Exactly! Is it still the greatest movie ever made?” “It never was!” Quill says, “I’m half human, so the 50% of me that’s stupid is all you!” Dr. Strange comes out of meditation having explored 14, 000, 605 possible future outcomes of their fight with Thanos. They only beat him in one of them.

            Thanos and Gamora arrive on Vormir. The Soul Stone’s guardian is Captain America’s WWII enemy The Red Skull. There is no explanation as to how he got there but he tried to harness its energy in the first Captain America movie so he might have been cursed by the stone. He tells Thanos that he must sacrifice something he loves to get the stone. Gamora begins to laugh because she knows he’s never loved anything. Thanos begins to cry because the only one he’s ever loved is his adopted daughter. She tries to kill herself first but the knife turns to bubbles. He tosses her over the precipice. I wonder if she survived. All that was required I would think is Thanos thinking he was killing what he loved. Flight attendant Vesna Vulovic in 1972 fell ten kilometres from a plane and not only survived but recovered to live a functional and mobile life. But even if Gamora died, some say that because it was her soul that was sacrificed to get the soul stone then her soul must be inside of it. In the comics she is restored from the stone back into her own body. There is a protective force field dome over the main city of Wakanda but some ships land outside.

            The Avengers arrive in Wakanda and Captain America reunites with Bucky. The Black Panther’s sister, the master scientist, Princess Shuri says she can extract the stone from Vision’s forehead but it will take time. Meanwhile the ships of Thanos’s army have entered Earth’s atmosphere.

            Meanwhile Thor uses his own strength combined with that of Rocket’s ship to get the rings of Nidavellir moving again and relights the star. But the iris that focuses the light to ignite the forge has malfunctioned and so Thor holds it open, withstanding the power of a neutron star for several minutes.

            Since the Hulk still refuses to surface, Bruce uses Iron Man’s Hulk Buster armour to join the fight against Thanos’s army. All of the tribes of Wakanda are standing with the Avengers as they wait for the attack. Besides Thanos’s children that command them his army consists of thousands of horse-sized half humanoid-half lizard creatures. Many of them mindlessly kill themselves breaking through the Wakandan force field. To keep the beasts from circling around and attacking from behind as well, T’Challa opens the force field.

            Thor collapses after holding the iris open and he’s dying. Eitri says he needs the Stormbreaker axe but it needs a handle and it needs to be fit before the axe cools. Groot fits his own arm in to be the handle and then breaks it off. The axe falls to the floor. Thor moves his hand and the axe begins to stir.

            In Wakanda the battle continues but the Avengers are losing. Suddenly there is a column of light from above that hits the ground like thunder and Thor is there with his axe, his strength restored and his friends Groot and Rocket by his side. Thor charges into battle with Groot and Rocket running behind. One strike to the ground with his axe takes out a hundred of Thanos’s soldiers.

            Meanwhile Thanos arrives on Titan and he is met by Strange, Iron Man, Spiderman and the Guardians. They gang up on him and together manage make him immobile while Iron Man and Spiderman try to pull off the gauntlet. Mantis is on his shoulders and holding Thanos back psychically but Quill asks him where Gamora is. They learn that she is dead. Stark tells Quill to hold back because they’ve almost got the gauntlet off but he can’t control himself. When he begins to punch Thanos it breaks Mantis’s concentration and Thanos breaks free.

            Back in Wakanda Thanos’s war wheels begin to attack. The Scarlet witch is watching from the lab and sees that the wheels are about to crush her friends. She comes out, lifts the wheels with her hex power and brings them crashing onto Thanos’s soldiers. But with Wanda on the field the lab is unprotected and it is attacked by Corvus Glaive. The guards and Shuri are taken out and the Vision is forced to fight. Proxima Midnight is about to kill Wanda when the Black Widow and Okoye intervene and there is a nicely choreographed battle between the three. After quite a while though Proxima gets the upper hand. She knocks out Okoye and has the Black Widow on the ground but suddenly the Scarlet Witch sends Proxima flying backwards to be splattered under a passing war wheel. Natasha says, “That’s really gross!”

            Corvus has impaled the Vision but Captain America attacks him. Corvus is about to kill the Captain when he is impaled by the Vision. The Vision collapses.

            On Titan Thanos battles and defeats Dr. Strange. He rips off his amulet to take the stone but finds it’s a fake. Iron Man arrives and Thanos calls him “Stark”. Stark is surprised that he knows him. They battle but Thanos runs a sword through Stark’s gut. Thanos tells Stark he has his respect. He is about to kill him when Strange says, “Spare his life and I will give you the stone!" He gives it to him. Star Lord attacks but Thanos teleports to Earth for the final stone. Stark asks Strange why he did that. Strange just says, “We’re in the endgame now.” We find out later that Endgame is the title for the next Avengers movie.

            I assume that when Strange looked at the possible outcomes and found only one in which they beat Thanos, in that one Stark does not die.

            Thanos arrives in Wakanda. Bruce, Captain America, Black Panther, and the Falcon are knocked aside by him easily. The Vision, with great difficulty convinces Wanda to destroy the stone in his forehead. Tearfully she begins. Thanos approaches them. War Machine, Bucky, Okoye, the Black Widow and Groot all try to stop him but he dismisses them with ease. Wanda uses one hex to keep destroying the stone and another to hold Thanos back. She shatters the stone and destroys her love. She is weeping when Thanos approaches. He tells her he understands. Then Thanos uses the Time Stone to reassemble the Vision and the stone. He rips the stone from Vision’s forehead and tosses aside a lifeless robot.

            Thanos puts the final stone in his gauntlet just as Thor attacks. Thanos is impaled by Stormbreaker. It looks like Thanos is dying but Thanos just tells Thor, “You should have gone for the head!” and then he snaps his fingers. Thanos then teleports away.

            Bucky is the first one to turn to dust. Of the Avengers in Wakanda only Captain America, the Black Widow, Bruce, War Machine Thor and Rocket survive. On Titan everyone is dissolved but Iron Man and Nebula.

            In New York, Nick Fury is driving when a van goes out of control in front of him after the driver turned to dust. A helicopter smashes into a building for the same reason. Nick Fury manages to send out a distress signal even as he’s turning to dust. He says, “Mother f …” and the device falls to the sidewalk. On the screen is the symbol for Captain Marvel.

            So what if Thanos had gone to all that trouble but discovered in the end that he was one of the 32% of the population that cannot snap their fingers?