It was a fantastic morning for Marvel fans as the official trailer for Avengers: Infinity War was finally unveiled online. However, as is the case with most good things, the trailer also had a very high price.
Several popular MCU heroes could be seen fighting Thanos in the trailer, and they all appeared to be doing very badly at it. Prominent among those is Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). There seemed to be some strange spikes piercing out of his body. If you are someone familiar with only Marvel Cinematic Universe, you would know this indicates danger, but, if you are a regular Marvel Comics reader, then you know, this scene is among the deadliest parts of the movie’s storyline.
Jonathan Hickman created the Infinity comic book event in 2013, and it is among the key sources for Infinity War’s plot. In that comic series, Doctor Strange was pitted against Ebony Maw from the Black Order. Thanos had tasked Maw with the mission to use Doctor Strange and find out the location of the various Infinity Stones. Doctor Strange happened to be one of the select people who had the knowledge about the whereabouts of the Infinity Stones, and Eboy Maw had to find out from him.
In what is a misfortune for Earthlings, that’s what Ebony Maw did.
Using his mental powers, Ebony Maw twisted and turned Doctor Strange’s will, which led to not only Strange revealing the desired information, but, also becoming Thanos’ double agent. It was courtesy Maw’s mental extraction of information that Thanos could find the other Infinity Stones.
In one of the scenes, we can see Ebony Maw torturing Strange, and smiling at his ordeal. He even signals Strange to remain silent during the process by putting a finger to his own mouth. It might also be possible that the ‘keep quiet’ gesture took place at the end of their meeting, indicating that Maw warned Strange against telling anyone else about his working for Thanos.
Since he already had the Time Stone, and the prequel comic attached to Infinity War revealed that Doctor Strange knew about the location of most of the other stones, this seems to be a very bad thing for the Avengers.
It also indicates that Doctor Strange might be instrumental in Thanos’ victory, and the rest of the Avengers might see him as a villain throughout the film.
Avengers: Infinity War comes out on April 27th, and the full trailer can be seen in the video above. As of now, in case you are craving for more of MCU dose, then Black Panther is still running in theaters all over.