Avengers Infinity War / Tropes E to M

Tropes A to D | Tropes E to M | Tropes N to R | Tropes S to Z | YMMV | Trivia

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Avengers: Infinity War provides examples of the following tropes:

Spoilers for Infinity War, and all preceding Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

E

• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The Infinity Gauntlet showed up all the way back in 2011's Thor, as a Freeze-Frame Bonus in Odin's Vault (though it's not the only one in the universe, as Avengers: Age of Ultron reveals). As a double Freeze-Frame Bonus, the one seen in Thor is for the right hand, the one Thanos has is for the left, suggesting that two gauntlets exist in the setting. Come Thor: Ragnarok, Hela dismisses Asgard's Gauntlet as a fake and knocks it to the floor in disgust.
  • Likewise, Thanos made cameos in The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Avengers: Age of Ultron before establishing himself as the Big Bad of this duology.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In a very rare case, this applies to the Villain Protagonist. In order to capture all the Infinity Stones, Thanos has to face off against nearly the entire roster of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's heroes. In the process, all of his "children" are killed (except Nebula, The Unfavorite who keeps trying to kill him), including Thanos having to sacrifice his most beloved child, Gamora, in order to receive the Soul Stone. Twice he is very nearly defeated: first, when the team-up of Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy nearly get the Infinity Gauntlet off him, and second when Thor nearly kills him with the Stormbreaker. But Thanos survives both, and having complete his mission retires on a quiet piece of land.
• Easily Forgiven: Played with — The UN hasn't forgotten Captain America's refusal to sign the accords, and even in the wake of the greatest crisis Earth will suffer, Secretary Ross tries to have Cap arrested. Played straight with Rhodey, however, as not only does he openly defy Ross, he welcomes his old friends with open arms despite Falcon and Vision being partially responsible for his injuries.
• Eating the Eye Candy: The Guardians spend the entire time Thor is unconscious discussing how good-looking he is, to Star-Lord's annoyance and jealousy. Gamora even picks up Thor's arm and feels his biceps herself before being told to stop.
• Emerging from the Shadows:
  • Steve reveals himself after coming to help Wanda and Vision by walking out of the shadows that had previously been hiding his face.
  • When we meet the Red Skull, he wears a ragged black cloak that initially casts a shadow on his face.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: Many heroes allow emotions to get the better of them, and this is one of their Fatal Flaws that leads to their demise. Thanos won't let emotions get in the way of his "simple calculus" of what needs to be done and wins in the end.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: Averted, people's clothing get turned into dust with them. Even Bucky's metal arm and Strange's Cloak of Levitation crumble into dust. The only things confirmed to be left behind are Bucky's gun and Fury's pager.
• Empty Promise: Loki makes one to Thor. By the end of the film it remains unfulfilled.
  Loki: I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again.
• Ends with a Smile: The movie ends with the Mad Titan Thanos sitting down at his cabin on a remote planet, watching the sunset and smiling to himself as he rests following the success of his plan to wipe out half of all life in the universe.
• Enmity with an Object: Once again, Drax has a bone to pick with something. At least the Cloak of Levitation started the fight of its own accord.
• Epic Movie: The movie is larger in scale, in every way imaginable, than any previous Marvel movie — including the Marvel movies that were made by other studios. The Russos announced a year in advance that it would be the longest MCU movie to date, at more than two and a half hours.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Children of Thanos come from all species and creeds and are both male and female.
• Equippable Ally: Winter Soldier picks up a trigger-happy Rocket Raccoon and uses him like a second gun.
• Equivalent Exchange: The Red Skull says as much when Thanos is in pursuit of the Soul Stone; to wield the power of the soul, its owner must give up the soul of the one they cherish. As it turns out, what Thanos cherishes is his favorite daughter, Gamora.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: invoked Done on purpose. From Thanos's perspective, the ending is exactly what he wanted — he completes his Badass Fingersnap, gets to safety and despite the heavy cost of his success, he gets to sit down and relax on a peaceful, scenic planet, content that he has accomplished his long-sought goal, proved his people wrong for rejecting his plans and saved the universe from a potential Overpopulation Crisis. Everyone else, on the other hand, is left to make sense of what's happening to their friends and family who are Reduced to Dust in front of them, including the heroes. Several people fall into a Heroic BSoD and the Avengers are left standing or sitting around looking sad, signalling to the audience that this is truly their Darkest Hour.
• Establishing Character Moment: In the first scene, Thanos introduces himself and sets the tone of the movie by curbstomping the freaking Hulk and then killing Heimdall and Loki.
• Et Tu, Brute?: When Thanos feigns his death at Gamora's hand with the Reality Stone on Knowhere, his apparent last words are "Why, daughter? Why you?"
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: Zigzagged. Some of our heroes die along with half of the entire universe.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Thanos has a genuine and unconditional affection for his daughter, Gamora. When he has to sacrifice her to earn the Soul Stone, he's reduced to utter despair and rage for the rest of the film. Part of the reason why Thanos succeeded is that the heroes underestimated his resolve and his own ability to care for the lives of others, albeit in his own way.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Thanos seems to be a man of his word. He trades Thor's life for the Tesseract, and indeed Thor is the only one he leaves alive (he does leave him in a derelict spaceship, but doesn't directly kill him). Likewise he agrees to spare Tony Stark's life for the Time Stone and, again, Tony ends up being one of the survivors. When Loki tries to bluff Thanos, telling him to go ahead and kill Thor, Thanos looks up in apparent surprise that Loki'd be willing to let his brother die.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Drax admires Thor's form, and calls him "a handsome muscular man." Downplayed later: when Quill refers to Thor as "not that good-looking", Spider-Man is visibly confused and a little offended.
• Event Title: The title refers to the battle for the Infinity Stones.
• Evil Is Petty: Thanos ordinarily leaves half of his victims alive. He destroys the Asgardian ship on his way out because he's angry about Heimdall sending Hulk to Earth and Loki almost stabbing him.
• Evil Overlooker: Thanos is looming above Iron Man and pretty much everyone in the poster.
• Exact Words:
  • When Ross asks if Rhodey is still having doubts about the Sokovia Accords, Rhodey responds, "Not anymore." Of course, Rhodey means he's now convinced they were a terrible idea.
  • As Thanos is torturing Nebula to get Gamora to reveal where the Soul Stone is, she says that she never found it. It's true, she found a map to the Stone, not the Stone.
  • Thanos apparently never promised Eitri he'd spare the other dwarf workers. Eitri only thought he would, and Thanos let him think it.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When they hear how one obtains the Soul Stone, Gamora starts to laugh. She says Thanos loves no one, and thus he has no one to sacrifice. When he starts to cry, he merely scoffs. Then Red Skull says "[The tears] are not for him" and she starts to get it...
• Explosive Overclocking: The trope is subtly here for the Infinity Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is extremely powerful, but even manipulating reality on a universal scale takes its toll on it. After Thanos erases half of the universe's population, the Gauntlet is visibly burned out while Thanos's arm has also been deeply wounded, bearing electrical scarring.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • Steve sports longer hair and a Beard of Sorrow to show the effect that life as a fugitive has left on him.
  • Black Widow now has blonde hair, and Scarlet Witch has red hair.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The writers confirmed in the commentary that the movie takes place over less than two days.
• The Extremist Was Right: Thanos was right about both his homeworld dying due to overpopulation, as well as Gamora's homeworld flourishing after he halved the population.

F

• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Okoye's response when T'Challa orders the opening on the shield around Wakanda.
    M'Baku: This will be the end of Wakanda.
    Okoye: Then it will be the noblest ending in history.
  • Some of the people who are disintegrated by Thanos's fingersnap follow this trope, such as Doctor Strange, who calmly maintains that this turn of events is necessary for Thanos's eventual defeat.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • Ebony Maw attempts to be sweeping and dramatic in every scene he appears. This sets Tony up perfectly to knock him off-kilter.
    Ebony Maw: Hear me, and rejoice! You are about to die at the hands of the children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to the balance—
    Tony Stark: I'm sorry, Earth is closed today! You better pack it up and get out of here.
  • It doesn't work any better when the Maw tries to scare Tony with a Breaking Speech about how outclassed Tony is. The whole thing hearkens back to similar scenes from not just Aliens, which is where Peter got the idea, but also Raiders of the Lost Ark and the famous Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? scene.
    Ebony Maw: Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine.
    Tony Stark: Yeah, but the kid's seen more movies. [blasts the hull, sucking the Maw out into space]
  • On Nidavellir, Thor decides to risk his life by holding the forge's lens open. When Eitri protests, Thor makes a quip that just confuses Eitri due to its redundancy.
    Eitri: It will kill you.
    Thor: Only if I die.
    Eitri: Yes. That's what... killing you means.
• Failure Gambit: Having seen the only version of future out of 14 million where the heroes win, Doctor Strange gives Thanos the Time Stone and thus enables him to wipe out half the universe, including Doctor Strange himself.
• Failure Hero: The Avengers, the Guardians and their allies spend the entire movie repeatedly failing to stop Thanos from acquiring each of the Infinity Stones, carrying out his promised Badass Fingersnap, and exterminating half of the sentient life in the universe. They do, however, get a Curb Stomp Cushion in the form of defeating the Children of Thanos and the Outriders. Further, it is implied by Doctor Strange that this series of events is the only conceivable way they have any chance of ultimately defeating Thanos. This was later confirmed to be true in the followup.
• Fake Shemp: Benedict Cumberbatch was only briefly available and shot most of his scenes separately from the rest of the cast. For the off-Earth sequences where Doctor Strange is seen in the same frame as other characters, the shots were done with a body double, with Cumberbatch being digitally inserted whenever Doctor Strange's face needed to be seen.
• Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • Loki's. He gets choked until he stops moving, and his eyes, which remain open, fill with blood. All on-screen and audibly, as his struggle to breathe — and his last words — is basically the only sound during the moment. There is also a Sickening "Crunch!" as Thanos breaks his neck.
  • Vision's second death. When Thanos uses the Time Stone to reverse his first death, he simply tears the Mind Stone out of Vision's head with enough force to rip his whole forehead open, on-screen, after which he throws Vision's grey, lifeless body away, his eyes still wide open with terror.
• Fantastic Light Source: The Tesseract is the only light source in the Teaser apart from fires in the background.
• Fantastic Measurement System: The unknown Asgardian who sends the distress signal says they are 22 "jump points" out of Asgard. It was previously established in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that distance in space is measured in larger "jumps" and smaller "clicks" between them: the Guardians traveled 47 "clicks" to the nearest jumping point to make one "jump"; and later Rocket and Yondu quickly did 700 "jumps" in a row, with Yondu complaining that it is unhealthy for a mammalian body to hop more than 50 "jumps" at a time. To translate into conventional units of measure — it is unlikely that more than a day passed between the destruction of Asgard and the opening scene of the film.
• Fate Worse than Death: Ebony Maw tells Doctor Strange that the torture he is inflicting on Strange will make him wish for death.
• Faux Horrific: Drax telling Quill that he's put on weight is accompanied by sinister music.
• Feet-First Introduction: The viewers first see Ebony Maw's feet as he steps over corpses of dead Asgardians and Sakaaran gladiators. The camera then moves up to reveal his body, and finally, his face.
• Final First Hug: When Thanos's Badass Fingersnap culls half the universe's population, and Peter is one of the victims, all Tony does is hug the terrified, crying boy as he disintegrates.
• Finger-Twitching Revival: Thor seems to be dying after holding the rings of the forge at Nidavellir open. But then his fingers start to twitch and to spark and Stormbreaker starts to levitate, showing that he will live.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Tony claims that this is a sign that he and Pepper are meant for each other.
• First Blood: Iron Man manages to scratch Thanos's face during their fight on Titan. Thanos sees the blood and asks "All that for a drop of blood?"
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • After Scarlet Witch destroys Vision's Mind Stone, preventing Thanos from completing at last his Infinity Gauntlet, the Mad Titan tries to bond with her loss. After Wanda rebukes him, Thanos then uses the Time Stone to reverse time and undo Vision's sacrifice, taking the Mind Stone anyway.
    Thanos: Today I've lost more than you could know. But now is no time to mourn. Now, is no time at all.
  • The arrival of the Guardians on Maw's hijacked ship is revealed through the gas grenade Star-Lord was discussing with Gamora earlier.
• Fling a Light into the Future: As Strange fades into dust, he reminds Tony that there was only one path to success and this was it.
• Flipping the Bird: After putting a grenade on Thanos's back, Peter Quill flips him off before doing a backflip into one of Doctor Strange's portals.
• Flying Brick: In addition to Vision, Iron Man and Thor play the part much straighter than before, with Thor having fully developed flight with Stormbreaker and Iron Man displaying greater feats of power and durability in the movie than they've shown before.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: When Thanos arrives on Earth, he makes his way towards Vision and the Mind Stone, effortlessly batting away the many heroes who try to slow him down. Downplayed in that he doesn't move at any pace faster than a slow walk, despite the fact that Wanda is currently in the process of destroying the stone. Of course now that he has the Time Stone, he's in no rush.
• Food Interrogation: Thanos captures Gamora to learn the location of the Soul Stone and initially attempts to get into her good graces by offering her food. She replies with I'm Not Hungry and throws the bowl away. After a heated conversation with her Thanos realizes that playing a Good Cop doesn't work and switches to a more tried and tested approach.
• Forced Sleep: On Titan, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Stephen Strange and the Guardians try to subdue Thanos, with Mantis using her powers on him to make him sleep.
• Forced to Watch:
  • Both Loki and Gamora are forced to watch their siblings being tortured in front of them. Both cave in to Thanos's demands.
  • Thor gets restrained by Ebony Maw and helplessly has to watch Heimdall's and Loki's deaths at the hand of Thanos.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • The announcement of this movie showed Thanos will gain the Infinity Gauntlet and its powers. Sure enough, despite everything the heroes throw at him, Thanos completes the Gauntlet.
  • Marvel tried to defy this by refusing to confirm what their post-Infinity War slate was, aside from confirming that there would be a second Spider-Man movie released right after the film and a third Guardians movie (reported to focus on Gamora) to release after that. It stands to reason that Spider-Man and at least some of the Guardians of the Galaxy will make it out alive. Subverted, as most of the Guardians and Peter end up dead. Whether they'll STAY dead is another matter entirely.
• Foreshadowing:
  • This exchange foreshadows Avengers: Endgame:
    Tony Stark: last night, I dreamt, we had a kid. So real. We named him after your eccentric uncle. Uh, what was his name?
    Pepper Potts: [nodding in understanding] Right.
    Tony Stark: Morgan! Morgan.
    Pepper Potts: So you woke up, and thought that we were...
    Tony Stark: Expecting.
    Pepper Potts: Yeah.
    Tony Stark: [becoming excited] Yes?
    Pepper Potts: [shaking her head] No.
    Tony Stark: I had a dream about it. It was so real.
    Pepper Potts: If you wanted to have a kid, you wouldn't have done that.
  • Gamora outright states that, with the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos can wipe out half the universe with the snap of his fingers. He does exactly that at the very end.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor points out Loki's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and how predictable his acts of betrayals have become. Playing the traitor card and attempting to kill Thanos while offering him the Space Stone is what costs him his life.
  • In the credits of Thor: Ragnarok, Odin does not Disappear Into Light but is rather Reduced to Dust against the blazing sun that shines on Thor and Loki. Loki saying that "the sun will shine on them again" before his death and half of the heroes turning into ashes after Thanos's Snap put this frame into a completely different light.
  • When Thor mentions the Soul Stone's whereabouts are unknown to the Guardians, the camera focuses on Gamora for a few seconds. This hints to Gamora knowing where the stone is.
  • When Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis arrive at Knowhere to secure the Reality Stone from the Collector, the place is completely deserted. Thanos has already arrived there, killed the Collector, and taken the Reality Stone for himself.
  • When Thor is telling Rocket about his past and how everyone he cares about is dead, he wonders out loud what more he could lose at this point. Rocket says to himself "...I could lose a lot. Me personally, I could lose a lot." Aside from being a small comedy moment by an insensitive Rocket, it shows that he has grown and now has people he cares about and doesn't want to lose. By the time the credits roll, he is the only Guardian still alive, although he has no idea about the fate of anyone else on the team besides Groot.
  • Combined with Exact Words. Strange tells Tony before their battle that if it comes down to saving their lives or the Time Stone, he would always pick the Time Stone. He later uses the Stone to look into the future, noting that in the 14+ million possible futures he saw there was only one scenario where they win. Later during the battle he sacrifices the Time Stone to save Tony, and right before he's disintegrated by Thanos he says "There was no other way." If he's telling the truth in all these instances, it all points to a long game of that one possible future being one where he sacrifices the Time Stone first so that it will ultimately be saved later.
  • One of Drax's first scenes in the movie is a gag where he thinks he can make himself disappear.
  • Ned Leeds' one and only line in the movie is the entirely accurate "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
  • T'Challa warns Proxima Midnight that "Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood" before the battle. Tony Stark provides the blood on Titan, Thanos himself provides the dust.
  • Right before eating it in The Stinger, Nick Fury attempts to summon someone using a small transponder device (with the only thing it doing being flashing the image of a star superimposed over a red and blue field). That pays off in Endgame, heralding the arrival of Captain Marvel (although we have to get through an entire film for the full context, which actually has the payoff of Fury's action during its mid-credits scene).
• Forging Scene: An epic-scale one is seen on Nidavellir for the creation of Stormbreaker. Not only do Eitri, Thor, and Rocket have to realign the rings to restart the dwarf star, Thor also has to keep open the lens focusing the rays of the star, at great risk to his own life. He lasts long enough to allow Eitri to melt the Uru metal in the forge and pour it in the Stormbreaker mold. Then Groot provides the handle to the axe by cutting one of his own arms.
• Forgot About His Powers: Granted, while the full extent of the Infinity Gauntlet's power isn't necessarily revealed at any time (besides being able to neutralize half of the universe's sentient life in an instant), Thanos also doesn't use enough of its power to justify getting smacked around as much as he does. The Reality Stone in particular has shown to have an innumerable number of incapacitating functions such as rendering weapons harmless or reducing living creatures to ribbon. Thanos primarily uses the power of the Power Stone to do damage (indicated by the purple aura that appears on his hand). While useful, it also slows him down unnecessarily at times when another stone might be more practical.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: While the film begins with a number of (relatively) established teams, they all weave and converge around a number of particular plotlines:
  • The New Avengers (Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man) getting caught up in an attempt to seize the Time Stone.
  • The Secret Avengers (Captain America, Black Widow, the Falcon, and Scarlet Witch), the Wakanda Guardians (Black Panther, Shuri, Okoye, and White Wolf), and several other heroes (War Machine, the Hulk, and Vision) attempting to protect the Mind Stone.
  • The Guardians of the Galaxy (Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis) tracking down the Infinity Stones in space.
  • Thor, Rocket, and Groot searching for a weapon capable of killing Thanos.
  • Thanos and his hunt for the Soul Stone, the only Infinity Stone left unaccounted for.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: Thanos easily gets the first Infinity Stone off-screen.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • If you look closely, you'll notice that Loki is holding an invisible dagger in his left hand from the moment he reappears after Thanos's fight with the Hulk — his fingers are curled around its hilt.
  • When Tony looks at the phone he got at the end of Civil War, it shows Steve's number as having a 678 area code. 678 is the area code for metro Atlanta, where portions of Infinity War were filmed.
  • When the Guardians are infiltrating the Collector's... collection, you can see Tobias Fünke (painted blue and wearing his cutoff shorts) in a holding cell.
  • When Thanos uses the Reality Stone to recreate Titan when it was still thriving, none of the population look like him. In the comics, Thanos is a Mutant and according to Word of God that's carried over here, something confirmed by the small detail.
  • At the end of the movie, you can just barely see that Thanos has hung his suit of armor up outside his home as a scarecrow, which is what he did in the comics after he achieved his goal and retired to become a farmer.
  • When the film's title is shown at the end, the last letters to disintegrate are two of the Is from Infinity, causing it to resemble the Roman Numeral II, hinting at the Movie Multipack.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Since Loki once craved the power of the Tesseract, for him the choice offered by Thanos between the cube and his brother's life is this. He pretends not to care for Thor, then attempts to Take a Third Option by announcing Hulk's attack, but neither works. Loki then tosses the cube aside and rushes to shield Thor.
• From Bad to Worse: Thanos just collects one Infinity Stone after another, and the prospects only get steadily bleaker and grimmer for the heroes until they can do nothing to avert the Badass Fingersnap and the subsequent Downer Ending.
• Funny Background Event:
  • When Tony suits up with his Nanotech armor at the beginning of the attack in New York, Bruce can be seen in the background being flabbergasted by the whole thing.
  • When Quill tells the Guardians to put on their mean faces, Mantis can be seen putting on a very comical angry face.
  • After the Cloak of Levitation sneaks up on Stark (who is figuring out how to rescue Strange from Maw), Parker drops in and the resulting argument between him and Stark is watched in frustration by the cloak which is "looking back and forth" between the two and clearly getting annoyed. Once they agree to work together, Tony asks Peter to figure out a plan. When Parker takes a look, the cloak literally looks over his shoulder.
  • While Tony, Peter, Strange, Quill and Drax are discussing about how to take down Thanos on Titan, Mantis is seen in the background jumping up and down and clearly enjoying the wonky gravity of the planet.
  • When Vision and Wanda are reacting to the news broadcast in Edinburgh, a sign can be seen in the window behind them with a large Saltire and the proud statement "We'll deep-fry your kebab!"
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: Star-Lord, when he learns of Thanos sacrificing Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone, flies off into a rage and decks Thanos, undoing Mantis' hypnosis on him and scuttling the heroes' plan of restraining Thanos to remove the Infinity Gauntlet. It goes downhill from there.
• Futile Hand Reach: Gamora does this gesture during her Slow-Motion Fall from the cliffs of Vormir.

G

• The Gadfly:
  • During Thor's encounter with the Guardians of the Galaxy, he hears Rocket jokingly call the other guardians "morons." Pretending to not know what the word means (he called Hulk a moron twice in Ragnarok), he leaves them with this statement when he departs to Nidavellir:
    Thor: I bid you farewell and good luck, morons.
  • As the Avengers disembark on Wakanda, Bruce asks if he should bow upon being introduced to T'Challa, and Rhodey says yes, because he is the king. When Banner actually does it, Rhodey stays standing and asks what he's doing, and after T'Challa stops Banner with, "We don't do that here", Rhodey smirks.
• The Generation Gap: Played for Laughs.
  • Peter Quill, having grown up in the '80s, thinks Footloose is a classic film. Peter Parker, who was born almost two decades after the movie came out, doesn't share the same thoughts. To be fair, the younger Peter's assessment is very much accurate to the general reception; the movie did not receive the best reviews, so it never achieved that status since being released.
  • Parker apparently also regards Aliens as a "really old movie," to Tony's visible annoyance.
• Genocide Survivor: The films opens with Thanos killing half the Asgardian refugees aboard the Grandmaster's spaceship, including Loki and Heimdall. Thor and Valkyrie are spared, and Thor swear to get revenge for his brother and friend. It's also revealed that Thanos executed half the population of Gamora's home planet, including her family, in the name of preserving "balance" and preventing an Overpopulation Crisis. He then adopted (or more accurately, kidnapped) her and raised her to be an assassin.
• Genre Savvy: When Tony on-the-spot asks Peter to formulate a plan that will take out Ebony Maw and save Doctor Strange, Peter thinks about it for a few seconds and asks Tony if he's "ever seen this really old movie, Aliens?" Lampshaded shortly thereafter by Tony.
  Ebony Maw: Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine.
  Iron Man: Yeah, but the kid's seen more movies. [blasts hole in hull of spaceship, Ebony Maw gets blown out]
• Genre Shift: By the Battle of Wakanda, this film is no longer so much a "Superhero" movie than a full-blown War Movie that happens to have Superheroes participating in it.
• Ghostly Glide: When first seen on the planet Vormir, the Red Skull is clad in a Black Cloak and floating above the ground, giving him a very specter-like appearance.
• Ghost Planet: Titan, Thanos's homeworld, which suffered apocalyptic disaster related to their resources. All that's left is massive amounts of wrecked buildings and walkways.
• Glass Cannon: The Infinity Gauntlet itself. It can do literally anything but large scale actions seems to strain it. When Thanos manages to kill half the universe, the Infinity Gauntlet seems burnt and damaged afterwards but is still functional enough to teleport Thanos away.
• Gloved Fist of Doom: Thanos uses this pose while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Glowing Gem: The Infinity Stones have tiny galaxies inside of them, making each of the gemstones glow.
• A God Am I: Despite his impersonal goals, Thanos considers himself synonymous with Destiny. Given that in both Classical Mythology (which has Ananke and the Moirai) and Norse Mythology (which has the Norns) Destiny was the force above the gods, his boast is blasphemy of the highest order. He describes his plan for the universe as "salvation", and allows Ebony Maw to describe his slaughter as a sort of religious liberation. Thanos feels he has a right to eliminate half the lives in the universe and identifies himself with the divine name revealed to Moses, "I am." He later states that not killing everyone is him showing mercy
• Golden Path: Invoked by Doctor Strange, who uses the time stone to see millions of possible paths that may lead to Thanos's defeat... and finds only one.
  Doctor Strange: I went forward in time... to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.
  Peter Quill: How many did you see?
  Doctor Strange: Fourteen million six hundred and five.
  Tony Stark: How many did we win?
  Doctor Strange: ...One.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: According to Thor, the reason mortals can't wield the Stormbreaker.
  Thor: You simply lack the strength to wield them. Your bodies would collapse on themselves as your minds would be slowly lost to madness.
  Rocket: Is it weird that I wanna try it even more now?
  Thor: [disturbed] A little [weird], yeah.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Played straight: All of the Avengers toss whatever grudges they still feel in the aftermath of Civil War out the window and band together again because it's the only way they will have a chance in hell against Thanos.
  • Averted and in Ross' case, defied. The moment the fugitive Avengers arrive to HQ to see how they can help, Ross instantly orders War Machine to arrest them and flat-out tells Rogers that it doesn't matters the sky is literally on fire and the universe is about to see untold amounts of destruction, he and his allies are still criminals and he will not allow their actions to remain unpunished.
  • The Stinger showcases one of Nick Fury's several Threshold measures, triggered as he's disintegrating: summon Captain Marvel.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: In The Stinger, when just before Nick Fury fades out of existence, he places a call for help to an old friend.
• Good Is Dumb: From Thanos's standpoint. He ultimately wins out because the heroes aren't willing to sacrifice loved ones for the greater good of keeping the universe safe.
  • While "good" is debatable, Loki's decision to give the Tesseract to Thanos to save Thor is what gets the ball rolling that ends with Thanos succeeding as the Space Stone is what facilitates him getting to the far corners of the galaxy to acquire the others. To be fair though, Thanos would've taken it by force anyway.
  • Quill isn't willing to kill Gamora despite her insistence that he'd kill her once Thanos has captured her — he only does so when Thanos already has her in his grasp and expects him to kill her, thus being able to thwart that attempt by using the Reality Stone.
  • Gamora isn't willing to let Thanos torture Nebula to death, but instead she agrees to lead him to the Soul Stone. It's arguable whether she could have withstood him indefinitely, but her giving in so easily definitely helped undo the Avengers' efforts.
  • Gamora also screws up by heading straight to confront Thanos at Knowhere despite knowing she's an integral part to Thanos acquiring the Soul Stone. Had she joined Thor's quest, it would have at least bought the heroes more time.
  • Gamora inexplicably decided to confess to Nebula that she knows where the Soul Stone is, despite knowing that Nebula has a cybernetic eye that records everything she sees.
  • Quill (again!) needlessly attacks Thanos while he was defenseless (had he waited a few more seconds, he could have done so with impunity), thus thwarting the Avengers' attempt to steal Thanos's gauntlet. In his defense, he lost parental figures in both Guardians movies: his mother in the first, which he avoided grieving over for his whole life, and both his biological father Ego the Living Planet, whom he killed; and his adoptive father Yondu, who gave his life to save Peter's during their escape from Ego's planet. And given Peter's reaction when he learned Ego killed his mother, it's not at all surprising Peter reacted with such rage when he found out Thanos sacrificed her. Still doesn't make up for the fact that his inability to contain that anger for mere seconds cost the universe half of its population.
  • Doctor Strange hands the Time Stone over in order to save Tony, thus enabling Thanos to get the Mind Stone through some sort of Save Scumming. This is implied by Strange to be All According to Plan in his attempts to influence the future down that 1-in-14-million path that leads to their eventual success.
  • Wanda isn't willing to destroy the Mind Stone (because doing so kills Vision as well) throughout the entire film until she is forced to do so with Thanos looking dead at her... and he already has the Time Stone to undo her effort.
  • Thor gets a weapon that can destroy Thanos, and instead of going for the head or arm, which would prevent the fingersnap, he goes for center mass. This can be excused that aiming for center mass is the actual recommendation for long-distance shots (which this is). What isn't excusable is that Thor then takes time he doesn't have to torture Thanos and rub his face in Thor's supposed victory. Thanos in turn taunts Thor for this.
  • Completely inverted with Thanos in an Evil Is Smart way — when he has to decide between a beloved person — the only one in existence for him — and saving the universe (or at least what he thinks is utterly necessary to save the universe) he doesn't really hesitate to sacrifice Gamora for the greater good: he knows the stakes, and it's obvious he regrets it deeply, but he doesn't let himself be hindered by sentimentality.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • Ebony Maw's spiel to his victims at the beginning invokes this.
    Ebony Maw: Smile... for even in death, you have become Children of Thanos.
  • Vision gives Wanda a pained smile during his Senseless Sacrifice.
• Grand Finale: The first part of a two-part conclusion. Paying off a plot thread that started in 2012's The Avengers, Thanos completes the all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet and steps into the main antagonist role.
  Kevin Feige: Avengers: Infinity War is the beginning of the culmination of everything that has come before.
• Guns Akimbo: A variation; during the huge battle, with his own gun in one hand, Bucky grabs Rocket with the other and spins the two of them around, laying down a 360º hail of fire on the Outriders. Uncharacteristically, Rocket isn't offended by that, having too much fun mowing down the mooks.
• Gut Punch:
  • The R-Rated Opening. The usual Fanfare over Marvel Studios' logo is missing and we get directly thrown into the aftermath of Thanos and his Children having massacred half of the Asgardian people. Thor and the Hulk are both unable to defeat Thanos, and Loki and Heimdall get brutally killed. The scene immediately establishes that Infinity War will be darker than previous MCU movies, that Anyone Can Die and that Thanos is the most formidable enemy the Avengers have ever faced.
  • The fingersnap, which kills a number of fan-favorite characters, including Bucky, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man.

H

• Half the Man He Used to Be: A few Outriders attempt to force their way through Wakanda's defense barrier. Some ends up getting bisected along the way.
• A Handful for an Eye: Spider-Man shoots web into Thanos's face, echoing the original comic. Though it successfully blinds the Titan, Thanos still manages to fight off both Doctor Strange and Drax and then angrily rips the webbing off his face.
• Hand Signals: Star-Lord holds up a clenched fist to tell his companions to stop, but they keep going because they are likely unfamiliar with it.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • Played with. Despite (or likely because of) the ending of Captain America: Civil War — in which Steve apologizes to Tony for not telling him about a brainwashed Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) killing Tony's parents, and promises to come to his side when the world needs the Avengers the most — Infinity War starts off with Tony and Steve still not being friends, with Tony outright telling Bruce that he and Steve are not on speaking terms.
  • Played straighter for the Asgardians and Sakaaran refugees. Thor: Ragnarok implied that they could set up a new home on Earth for the Asgardians, and that perhaps Loki could have true redemption by fighting Thanos's forces to save Earth. This film opens with Thanos and his Children boarding the Asgardians' ship, taking the Tesseract, and destroying the transport after making sure to kill Loki. Thor states they also killed half of the Asgardian refugees, rendering them an even more endangered species than before. The only upswing is that Bruce is back to being Bruce.
  • Also for the first Guardians of the Galaxy. The Guardians saved Xandar and retrieved the Power Stone, only for Thanos to swoop in and undo their victory off-screen.
• Harbinger of Impending Doom: Bruce Banner lands on Doctor Strange's New York Sanctum, bringing the very bad news of Thanos's forces coming to Earth to retrieve his missing Infinity Stones.
• Hate Sink: Secretary Ross's only purpose in the film is to tie up loose ends from Captain America: Civil War by attempting to enforce the Sokovia Accords on Steve Rogers and a defiant Rhodes after Thanos's forces have already attacked New York.
• Haven't You Seen X Before?: Stan Lee as a bus driver asks the school kids if they have never seen a spaceship before when they all get agitated upon seeing Thanos's ship over New York.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: One tie-in ad for Rocket Mortgage shows the Avengers working together to save a woman who has aimlessly walked into the battle with massive headphones, checking her phone app.
• Heartbroken Badass:
  • Deconstructed; Quill becomes one after he learns Gamora was killed by Thanos. The deconstruction comes in that it's clear the grief has made him more unhinged in battle, and leads to him making a Tragic Mistake that costs the heroes a potential chance at victory.
  • Nebula fights back tears when she realizes Gamora is dead.
  • Thanos becomes one when he sacrifices Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone. He is crying immediately beforehand when he realizes what he must do, and later Mantis confirms that he is overwhelmed with sorrow and anguish. After he achieves his goal, he sees a spiritual representation of Gamora as she was as a child. Thanos truly did love his adopted daughter.
  • Played straight with Tony Stark. Hand in hand with his unresolved issues concerning his father's lack of love towards him, Stark's single greatest fear is to fail a child who admires and looks up to him; hence, his continued (and futile) refusal to return Peter Parker's friendship and affection lest he begin to love him like a son. You can therefore witness the exact moment that Stark's heart shatters and his soul is destroyed when he helplessly watches Peter Parker, who is crying in fear and begging him for help, crumble into ash in his arms.
  • Steve Rogers, who was willing to start a literal civil war between heroes for Bucky Barnes, his final tenuous link to his happy past life in the 1940s, gazes on in horror as he too fades into the wind to join Peggy in the literal dust of time.
  • Thor, ever so much. He's still reeling from the catastrophic losses suffered in Thor: Ragnarok, and this film begins with him losing not only half his remaining people, but also his good friend and brother. Thor breaks down and cries relating his troubles to Rocket later. But he still rises to the occasion.
• Heist Episode: In interviews, the movie has oftentimes been described by the directors and screenwriters as a "heist-movie with Thanos as the protagonist."
• Hellish Copter: At the end when half of humanity is Reduced to Dust, we see a pilot-less helicopter crashing into a building.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment: When Thor arrives at the battle in Wakanda, Bruce happily crows "Ha ha! You guys are so screwed!" at the opposing army. He's right.
• Henchmen Race: In final battle of the film, Thanos deploys the Outriders to overrun Wakanda, who had deployed the warriors of several tribes against them.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Loki — who the film reminds us was the villain in the first Avengers movie, completes his Heel–Face Turn by at first appearing to go the other way and joining forces with Thanos again, which is actually an attempt to kill him.
  • Gamora asks Peter Quill to kill her, and later attempts to kill herself, all to prevent Thanos from getting the Soul Stone and wiping half of life in the universe. Her death is also the direct result of her revealing the location of the Stone to stop the torture of her sister, and thus a sacrifice for Nebula.
  • Foreseeing one (and only one) possible future in which Thanos is beaten, Doctor Strange allows Thanos to obtain all the Stones at the end of the movie, and gets erased. It's all part of his plan, meaning he's decided to be erased to beat Thanos eventually.
  • As the holder of the Mind Stone, Vision wishes that Wanda kills him by destroying the Stone, stopping Thanos from taking all the Infinity Stones. With great anguish, Wanda does kill him, but then Thanos undoes Vision's sacrifice with the Time Stone.
• Heroic Second Wind: After getting cooked by a neutron star, Thor is dying of his burns when Groot successfully finishes the Stormbreaker. The Stormbreaker floats off the ground and starts charging Thor with revitalizing lightning. After that, Thor is strong enough to warpjump to Earth and decimate Thanos's forces.
• Heroic Suicide: Subverted twice:
  • Gamora attempts to kill herself once she realizes that Thanos is crying for her to prevent him from completing the ritual for the Soul Stone, but Thanos turns the dagger she uses into bubbles with the Reality Stone.
  • Vision tells Wanda to shatter the Mind Stone embedded in his forehead so Thanos can't get to it, knowing full well that this would destroy him in the process. It ends up being All for Nothing, as Thanos uses the Time Stone to reverse Vision's death, then kills him again by ripping the Mind Stone out of his skull.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: Before Bruce Banner crashes through their roof at the New York Sanctum, Stephen and Wong are debating about going out and picking up sandwiches from the deli despite not having any disposable capital. Wong points out that they do their work for the good of the universe and not for capital gain.
• Hero Killer: Thanos is the page image for a very good reason. He is personally responsible for the deaths of Heimdall, Loki, Gamora and Vision, while his iconic Badass Fingersnap erases the Scarlet Witch, Bucky Barnes, the Falcon, Black Panther, Groot, Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and even Maria Hill and Nick Fury.
• Hidden Depths: Thor can speak "Groot", and jokingly says that he took an elective course on the subject in his youth. It's never clarified how he really learned it, or if he learned it at all and can simply understand it because of Allspeak.
• History Repeats: One scene has the Guardians of the Galaxy once again finding themselves in Knowhere, and Drax attempts to confront the nigh-invulnerable Big Bad. This time though, they have someone to stop him from being reckless. And just like last time, they don't stand a chance against the villain.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Corvus Glaive is killed by his own spear by the android he has been accosting throughout the movie.
  • Proxima Midnight summons a horde of spinning spiked wheels during the climax. Wanda telekinetically puts her in the path of one, splattering her across the battlefield.
• Hoist Hero over Head: As a display of how overwhelming his strength is, Thanos hoists the Hulk and brings him down on his back.
• Hold the Line: A large chunk of the finale consists of the Secret Avengers and their allies fighting off the Outriders until Shuri can safely detach the Mind Stone from Vision without damaging his character. It almost works until Corvus Glaive slips through their ranks.
  Black Panther: Yibambe!^note It roughly translate to "Hold Fast"
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: You might think the Time Stone could be useful in fighting Thanos, like maybe by freezing him in time or turning him into a baby or something. Doctor Strange assures us that it isn't.
• Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: Star-Lord mocks the question "Who is your master?" by asking Iron Man if he's supposed to answer by saying "Jesus," characterizing Iron Man as an inter-galactic evangelical going door-to-door for his Lord and Savior. Although played for laughs, it's also plot-relevant: this is what makes Iron Man and Doctor Strange realize that Star-Lord is from Earth, meaning they're all on the same side.
• Hollywood Tactics: Played With throughout the whole battle of Wakanda.
  • Played Straight: Both armies concentrate on one open field location, with little to no support whatsoever. Despite the last movie showing that Wakanda had aerial military vehicles, they're not used to full effectiveness, only showing up once Thanos's forces deploy their support. There's no artillery either, just infantry on both sides. Only once do the Children of Thanos deploy "support", but they are giant buzzsaws roaming the battlefield, and while the Outriders can be considered expendable, giant buzzsaws prove to be a hazard for the Children of Thanos too when Proxima Midnight is thrown into the path of one of them. There is a Freeze-Frame Bonus later in the battle, though, showing that once the Wakandans deploy their planes, they're used for strafing creatures who have no means of getting them, so they're eventually used more effectively.
  • Played Straight: Despite having advanced warning that Thanos's forces are coming, the Wakanda defenders do absolutely nothing to prepare the battlefield for better defense (like adding defensive embankments, minefields, or anything else that could have given them an advantage) and instead rely completely on their force field.
  • Averted: The Wakandan forces start the battle by forming orderly battle lines, taking cover behind their energy shields, and shooting the enemy as they approach. However, the forcefield around the battlefield allows the Outriders to attempt a flanking maneuver.
  • Invoked and Played Straight: Knowing that they can't fight an army (and more importantly protect Vision from an army) approaching from all directions, T'Challa orders a small portion of the forcefield disabled to allow the enemy through in a bottleneck. Knowing that the Outriders aren't a disciplined fighting force but a mindless horde, he then orders the army to break formation, but doesn't properly exploit the choke point the bottleneck gives them (by, for example, forming battle lines like they did earlier and surrounding the chokepoint, allowing the Wakandans to pick off the Outriders and use their shields once they close to melee). After the shield is opened, War Machine is the only one whose firepower can whittle down the stream of Outriders and he's not covered by anyone, so once Cull Obsidian downs him in one shot, the aliens pretty much overwhelm the heroes who are only saved thanks to Thor's lucky timing.
  • Averted and Played Straight: It's then revealed that The Children of Thanos used the battle as a big distraction while Corvus Glaive infiltrated Wakanda to reach Vision. That said, the distraction costs at the very least the lives of half of Thanos's generals, because said generals exposed themselves to harm while there wasn't any need to.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Out of all the Guardians, Drax is especially enamored with Thor's physique.
• Honor Before Reason: Steve's unwillingness to sacrifice Vision (who was willing to be sacrificed) because they "don't trade lives" has disastrous results. They ultimately run out of time to find a way to extract the mind stone without killing him and Thanos is able to rewind his destruction to get it.
• Hope Crusher: With his Badass Fingersnap, Thanos unintentionally inflicted a Heroic BSoD on several people and filled their hearts with terrified, hopeless resignation.
• Hope Spot: Several times it seems the heroes are going to beat Thanos, but something spoils it.
  • As Thanos has Loki cornered, he manages an awesome Call-Back in the form of "We have a Hulk." Cue Hulk slamming into Thanos and a merciless beatdown... then Thanos overpowering the Hulk.
  • Gamora manages to easily kill Thanos when they run into him on Knowhere. Unfortunately, Thanos was just showing off an illusion, and is still very much alive. He then easily takes her hostage, and even tempts Quill into shooting her before teleporting away.
  • Gamora taunts Thanos when he's told that he has to sacrifice the one thing he loves most to claim the Soul Stone. She says that he loves nothing but himself and so can't claim the Stone. He starts tearing up as he hears her words, and she quickly finds out he does in fact care for her, and was reluctant to kill her. But he throws her off the ledge so he could get the Stone by sacrificing her.
  • During the battle on Titan, the heroes subdue Thanos through an excellent show of teamwork and are about to remove the Infinity Gauntlet. Then an enraged Quill screws things up.
  • Wanda successfully destroys the Mind Stone before Thanos can claim it, killing Vision to do so. But Thanos just uses the Time Stone to reverse what she's done.
  • Thor hurls Stormbreaker into Thanos's chest, visibly wounding him and even making him fall to his knees. But the hit isn't a killing strike, so Thanos does his iconic Badass Finger Snap and then teleports to safety.
  • After Thanos does aforementioned Badass Finger Snap, the Gauntlet appears heavily damaged before Thanos warps away, suggesting his plan didn't pan out. Then Bucky fades away...
• Hope Springs Eternal: The Stinger sticks a band-aid on the Downer Ending in this regard. Nick Fury's distress call goes unanswered as he and Maria are condemned to oblivion. The camera lingers on the pager sending the call out, but one Carol Danvers answers at the last second.
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • Hulk is shown to be visibly afraid when Thanos grabs his hands and removes them from around his neck, thus demonstrating that he is actually stronger than him. Thanos's jab to his jaw also causes him to gasp in shock.
  • Thor, armed with Stormbreaker, is so powerful that he makes Thanos's Outriders, a race of genetically engineered Berserkers, flee in terror.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Thanos gets three out of six Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlet by exchanging them for people that their current holders care about. He keeps his word by letting three hostages live, and none of them get erased by him either. The dwarves, however, are not so lucky.
  • Thanos gets Eitri to forge him the Infinity Gauntlet if he let those working at the forge live. He then kills all of the dwarves except for Eitri, whom he cripples.
  • Thanos makes Loki reveal the Space Stone by torturing Thor. He spares Thor.
  • Thanos gets Gamora to tell him the location of the Soul Stone after threatening to kill Nebula. He spares Nebula.
  • Thanos gets the Time Stone from Doctor Strange if he lets Tony live. He spares Tony.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Red Skull is reduced to being the lowly guardian of the Soul Stone, a far cry from his time as the leader of Hydra in The First Avenger.
• Human Sacrifice: Thanos sacrifices his daughter Gamora for the Soul Stone by throwing her off the cliff in a predetermined location on Vormir that resembles an altar.
• Hypocrite: Thanos plans to retire to a farm after he kills half the universe. Despite his claim that his demicide would be random, he clearly doesn't consider including himself in that.
• Hypocritical Humor: Tony orders Peter to stop making pop-culture references. This is the Tony Stark who spent previous movies and this one (even after saying this to Peter) happily comparing his life and acquaintances to various things, including The Lord of the Rings, The Manchurian Candidate, Point Break, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Flash Gordon. (And later, The Big Lebowski.)

I

• I Am Not Weasel: Subverted with Rocket, who, despite hating it whenever people refer to him as anything other than his name, is just fine with Thor referring to him as a rabbit throughout the film (the franchise is ambiguous on whether or not he's an uplifted earth raccoon or an alien that looks like one). Of course, given his crack about Thor's lack of perceptiveness, he seems too confused by Thor mistaking him for a rabbit to be offended.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: The dramatic moment where Vision asks Scarlet Witch to destroy the Mind Stone and kill him in the process.
• Idiot Ball: Basically every single Avenger that gets a chance to talk with Thanos firmly grabs hold of this, as none of them ever try to reason with Thanos about the many logistical problems in his goal to eliminate half of life in the universe and only ever argue with him on moral grounds, not practical.
• I Don't Want to Die: Sobbed out by Peter Parker ("I don't want to go!"), desperately begging Tony to protect him as the Infinity Gauntlet reduces him into ash; all the more horrifyingly sad because he is no hardened warrior, but a mere terrified teenager.
• I Have a Family: Lampshaded by the distress call; the families on the Statesman at the beginning of the movie are held hostage by Thanos and his children and half of them are killed.
• I Kiss Your Hand: Vision seems fond of kissing Wanda's hand when showing her affection.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment: An angry version. One of Stark's snarky dismissals of Quill is "Flash Gordon". Quill knows that Stark is needling him, but as his whole schtick is being a grade-schooler's vision of Captain Space, Defender of Earth!, he's quick to insist that being compared to Flash is an honor despite the antagonistic delivery.
• Immediate Sequel: The opening scene picks up where The Stinger of Thor: Ragnarok left off, at most a few hours later.
• I'm Not Hungry: When Thanos offers Gamora a bowl of food after taking her to his base, she angrily throws the bowl across the room.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: There's plenty of these happening in the movie, including Thor impaling Thanos with the axe Stormbreaker. Having sunk a good chunk of the blade into Thanos's chest, an angry Thor walks up to Thanos and shoves the axe in even further. Unfortunately, getting his sternum split in half by a lightning-infused axe wasn't enough to stop him from snapping his fingers.
• Inconvenient Parachute Deployment: Tony Stark inflicts this on Peter Parker to get him out of danger as the Q-ship is leaving Earth's atmosphere. Peter is less than thrilled, and he's able to sneak onboard anyway.
• Inexplicably Speaks Fluent Alien: Thor reveals that he can understand Groot, much to Rocket's surprise. Thor claims it was taught as an elective on Asgard, but James Gunn has said this was just a joke.
• I Never Told You My Name: Iron Man is unnerved when Thanos casually calls him "Stark" on Titan.
• Infinity +1 Sword: To even stand a chance against Thanos, Thor needs to acquire the Stormbreaker, the only weapon that has a chance to combat the Infinity Gauntlet. That said, after Thanos's devastation of Nidavellir and the entire star having been exhausted, lighting up and opening the forge to create the weapon ends up being a nigh impossibility. Thor manages to rekindle the star with Rocket's help, but without the mechanisms to power the facility, Thor is forced to hold the forge open by himself which means exposing himself and being blasted by the laser-targeted rays of a dwarf star. Even with his godlike powers, he barely survives and is unconscious during the forging of the Stormbreaker, requiring Groot's help to quickly make a handle so Thor is able to wield it. It then proves capable of deflecting a blast from a fully powered Infinity Gauntlet, and wounding Thanos afterwards; making it a literal Infinity Plus One Axe.
• Instant Armor:
  • Tony's latest suit is seen forming around him, much like T'Challa's nanotech costume. The nanomachines are contained in a holder stuck on his chest (on the same spot as his old arc reactor) when he's in civilian clothes.
  • The new Iron Spider suit works in a similar way. In fact, Tony throws the suit at Peter, and we see it instantly materialize around his body.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • Tony Stark promises Pepper that there would be no more surprises... moments before Doctor Strange teleports in to recruit Tony in a fight against Thanos.
  • Drax's statement "I'm sure I'm invisible" is followed by Mantis coming in and saying hello to him.
• Intangibility: During the battle in Wakanda, Thanos uses the Space Stone to turn the Hulkbuster intangible just before the latter attacks the former. Suddenly no longer able to hit Thanos, the Hulkbuster goes flying through him and ends up embedded in a rock wall.
• Internal Reveal:
  • The Avengers find out that Thanos has been The Man Behind the Man during the alien invasion of New York.
  • Having been off Earth for a few years, Bruce Banner is only now finding out about Spider-Man and Ant-Man (the latter of whom, along with Hawkeye, does not appear), and of how the Avengers have divided and collapsed as a team.
  • Likewise, having been off Earth his whole adult life, Star-Lord is only now finding out that the Avengers exist.
  • Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange heroes only now discover who the Guardians of the Galaxy are. Downplayed with the rest of the Earth heroes as they only meet Rocket and Groot.
• Interrupted Suicide: Twice with Gamora. The first time is when she demands Peter to shoot her after Thanos has taken her hostage, but Thanos prevents this by turning his shots into bubbles. The second is when she realizes that Thanos is going to sacrifice her to obtain the Soul Stone; she grabs his knife to stab herself, but he uses the Reality Stone to transform the knife into bubbles.
• In the Back: Corvus Glaive makes his entrance by impaling the Vision from behind. Vision returns the favor later on.
• Inverse Dialogue/Death Rule: The disintegration caused by Thanos's snap takes place over the course of a few seconds for most characters, with the exception of Spider-Man, whose disintegration takes a full minute. Why? No reason, except he's Marvel's most famous character and the third most famous superhero.
• Invincible Villain: Thanos is essentially indestructible even when he doesn't have all of the Infinity Stones, outclasses any of the heroic characters individually (even the Hulk), and deals plenty of curbstompings and beatdowns to the heroes by himself. It's even remarked on when Tony goes on an all out assault on Thanos, but only manages to give him a small cut on the cheek.
  Thanos: All that, for a drop of blood.
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: On a universal scale. The perceived problem Thanos is trying to solve is that life will inevitably grow beyond the ability to sustain itself with the available resources, then destroy itself. His "solution" is to kill half of living beings before that happens.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Loki repeats Tony Stark's line from The Avengers: "We have a Hulk." Back then Tony as a hero said it to Loki (the villain), while now Loki as an Anti-Hero says it to Thanos (the Big Bad).
  • "We don't trade lives". First said by Captain America to Vision when saying that they wouldn't sacrifice him. Then it is said by Vision to Captain America after saving him in battle instead of running away.
• Ironic Last Words: T'Challa's last words before getting snapped while helping Okoye up were "This is no place to die," just before turning to dust himself.
• Irony:
  • In The Avengers, Loki chides Black Widow for "bargaining for one man" while her world is "in the balance," but here, Loki ends up in the same situation and eventually gives Thanos the Tesseract, because he can't bear watching his brother getting tortured to death. This helps Thanos getting closer to his goal of killing half the life in the universe.
  • Shortly after Thor jokingly says "get help, my brother is dying", Loki actually dies.
  • After years of trying to avoid becoming the Hulk unless absolutely necessary, Banner cannot turn when he needs to. It's especially apparent after he spent much of Thor: Ragnarok wondering whether or not he will ever revert to his human self if he turns into the Hulk again. For that matter, since he can't turn into the Hulk, Banner instead uses a Powered Armor built to fight the Hulk in order to fight like the Hulk.
  • Rocket once joked that he doesn't have "that long of a lifespan anyway". By the end of the film, with Gamora dead at Thanos's hands and Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis, and Groot disintegrated in the aftermath of the Badass Fingersnap, he's the only original member of the Guardians left alive.
  • Gamora swears to Thanos on her life that she never found the Soul Stone. While this is technically true, she did find its location. Thanos kills her later in the movie, although for different reasons.
  • When Red Skull tells Thanos that he must sacrifice "the thing he loves most" in order to receive the Soul Stone, Gamora laughs at him, because she doesn't believe Thanos loves anyone (or anything). She doesn't realize that she is the one person Thanos loves, meaning she will be his sacrifice.
  • In Age of Ultron, Tony's biggest fear is revealed to be his friends dying at Thanos's hands, as shown in the vision Wanda makes him see, in which the other five original members of the Avengers dead. At the end of this movie, all of these original Avengers are actually still alive^note even Hawkeye, who does not appear in the movie; instead, it's many of their other friends they've made since then (including most of the new Avengers, most of their close allies, and most of the Guardians of the Galaxy) who are dead.
  • Doctor Strange outright tells Tony and Parker that protecting the Time Stone is his first priority and he'd gladly leave them to die if it's between them and the stone. After the failed battle against Thanos, Strange hands over the Time Stone in exchange for Tony's life.
  • At the beginning of the movie, Thor snarks at Thanos's speech, telling him "You Talk Too Much!". In the climax, Thor decides to take his time killing Thanos so that he can gloat and remind him of his vow of vengeance, which gives Thanos enough time to snap his fingers.
  • For many years before the events of both Guardians of the Galaxy films and this movie, Nebula was treated as The Unfavorite by Thanos, seen as nothing more than a living weapon to further his goals. She's also the only one amongst his adopted children who is still alive after the events of this film. Not just because she wasn't killed in combat or thrown to her death, but because she was spared from the Badass Fingersnap.
  • Tony bluntly tells Peter Parker to not hug him in Spider-Man: Homecoming because as far as he's concerned they're not even really friends ("We're not there yet")... and in the Downer Ending he lovingly hugs a terrified, weeping Peter like a father to comfort him as he crumbles into ash.
  • Right before she's about to kill Wanda, Proxima Midnight taunts to her that she will die alone separated from her lover Vision. Not only do Proxima and her husband Corvus Glaive die separated from each other (Proxima out on the battlefield, Corvus in a forest), Vision and Wanda are together when they die.
• It's Personal: Half the characters have personal reasons to want Thanos dead:
  • Both Nebula and Gamora want to kill him for the life time of abuse he put them through. While Drax wishes to see him die for the part his played in Ronan the Accuser killing his family. Star-Lord gets a reason to hate him after he kidnaps and later kills Gamora.
  • It becomes this for Tony after realizing Thanos was the one behind Loki's attack on New York, which caused him to suffer from PTSD.
  • Thor wants him dead for slaughtering half of what was left of his people including Heimdall and Loki.
  • After Vision and Scarlet Witch are attacked, the rest of the Avengers swear to stop him, no matter what.
• It's the Only Way: Thanos is convinced that the only way to solve the problem of limited resources is to kill half of all life. Other solutions such as doubling the resources don't occur to him, even as he acquires literally omnipotent means. Word of God says he could have found another way and gotten it done easily, but he has a point to prove and is blind to other possibilities.
• It Works Better with Bullets: Star-Lord prepares to execute Gamora's Mercy Kill Arrangement, but Thanos uses the Reality Stone to turn the blaster fire into bubbles.

J-K

• Jerkass: Gen. Ross's statement to Rhodes when Rogers, Romanoff, Maximoff, Vision and Wilson come to Avengers HQ and says they're there to fight to save the world? "Arrest them." And, bear in mind, this is after Thanos's Co-Dragons, the Children of Thanos, have already arrived on Earth and started wreaking destruction and havoc.
• Joker Immunity: Thanos lampshades Loki's tendency to escape death, then defies this trope when he kills the latter and then Double Taps — he mentions that there'll be no more resurrections this time. Thor later notes that he, too, thinks Loki might actually stay dead this time.
• Jump Scare:
  • Thor is drifting in space, unconscious, after the destruction of the Statesman at the hands of Thanos, and he hits the Guardians' ship. They assume he's dead, and the camera cuts to a close shot of Thor, who makes a sudden motion that startles the Guardians.
  • Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight appear out of nowhere and ambush Vision and Wanda in Scotland. There is no warning at all except the ominous news about the attack on New York that Vision and Wanda were watching. The next thing they know, Corvus stabs a spear through Vision's back, while Proxima attacks Wanda from behind when she tries to defend Vision.
• Karma Houdini: With most of the film being an unmitigated Trauma Conga Line for the heroes at the hands of an Invincible Villain en route to the Downer Ending, resident Big Bad Thanos ultimately gets to kick back and enjoy a job well done on an idyllic world. Yet, Avengers: Endgame brings up the Karma Houdini Warranty on Thanos.
• Kick the Dog:
  • There is no reason why Thanos forcibly makes Thor, whom he just met, watch his brother die other than malice. He then twists the knife further by dumping Loki's body right at Thor's feet and telling him that his death is irreversible.
  • Also, goading Quill into trying to shoot Gamora had little purpose beyond psychologically torturing both of them.
  • Thanos treats Nebula horribly, replacing most of her body with cybernetics when she proves unable to best Gamora in sparring matches, openly calling Gamora his "favourite daughter" right in front of her, cruelly tortures her to compel Gamora to do as Thanos wants, and outright says that the only reason he didn't kill her is because he would have considered it a "waste of parts".
• Kid Has a Point: As Tony and Peter argue inside the Q-ship, the latter comes up with the line that the former can't rebuff:
  Peter Parker: You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Nick Fury is cut off by disintegration while saying, "Motherfu—..."
• Killed Off for Real: Lampshaded when Thanos kills Loki:
  Thanos: No resurrections this time.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • The movie starts with half of the Asgardian refugees already having been massacred.
  • Half of Xandar's population, as their forces stood in between Thanos and the Power Stone. Also, this is presumably the fate of the Collector and the population of Knowhere, after Thanos is revealed to have utterly sacked the mining colony to get the Reality Stone.
  • According to the directors, the offscreen casualties of Thanos's snap include Betty Ross, Lady Sif, the actor who played Loki in The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard, and the Galaga Guy in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier. Conversely, they confirmed that Howard the Duck and May Parker survived. Jane Foster, Ned, Korg and Miek, as well as Shuri and Nakia are all Ambiguous Situations with the given reasons that revealing their fates would spoil Avengers: Endgame.
• Kill the Cutie: Just to twist the knife, the teenager Peter Parker is the final casualty of Thanos's Badass Fingersnap.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Three characters attempt to do it:
  • Peter unsuccessfully tries to kill Gamora, but it turns out that the reality has been distorted by the Reality Stone.
  • Thanos himself sacrifices the only person he loves, his daughter, in order to get the Soul Stone.
  • Wanda does it to Vision, though this is immediately undone by Thanos with the Time Stone.
• Knighting: After two films of Peter Parker trying to convince Tony Stark to let him become an Avenger, Peter tags along when Tony jumps onto a spaceship leaving Earth. Since Tony has no way of sending him home, he rolls his eyes and taps Peter on his shoulders in turn like he's knighting him, saying "All right, kid, you're an Avenger now." It takes Peter a second to realize what happened.
• Kubrick Stare: Tony Stark's pose in the official theatrical poster exhibits one.

L

• Lampshade Hanging:
  • When Wanda joins the fray, she's very effective at dispatching enemies left and right, causing Okoye to wonder aloud, "Why was she up there this whole time?" Answer Cut to a now-unprotected Vision and Shuri being attacked by Corvus Glaive.
  • The "Will Return" Caption after the credits says "Thanos will return" instead of "The Avengers will return", lampshading this film's The Bad Guy Wins ending.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In the Battle of Wakanda, Proxima Midnight taunts to Wanda that she and Vision will die alone separated from each other. Which is exactly how Proxima and her husband Corvus Glaive end up dying; Wanda kills Proxima out on the battlefield while Vision kills Corvus in a forest.
• Last of Their Kind: Instead of leaving half the population alive to enjoy a post-scarcity world, Thanos has all the dwarves except for Eitri killed. That also initially seems to be the fate of the Asgardians as their ship got blown up after the initial massacre, with Thor being the only one tough enough to withstand that blast, although Word of God stated that Valkyrie led half the others to safety in escape pods.
• Last Stand: Captain America and his team arrange for Vision to be sheltered in Wakanda, a move that has been described as Earth's last stand to keep the Mind Stone safe from Thanos. They fail.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The last scene of the trailer shows that Thor lost his eye during his last movie, as well as the fact that Mantis joined the Guardians of the Galaxy after their last movie.
• Late to the Realization: Red Skull really shouldn't have needed to explain to Gamora why Thanos was crying.
• Late to the Tragedy: The Guardians arrive to witness the aftermath of the explosion of the Statesman, with pieces of the ship and dead bodies floating in space. Their trip to Knowhere also turns out to be this; what they initially see (Thanos interrogating the Collector) turns out to be an illusion created by the Reality Stone. The last scene shows the real Knowhere ablaze and devoid of life.
• Leaning on the Furniture: Tony Stark leans on the furniture in the New York Sanctum.
  Strange: Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?
• Lens Flare:
  • In an homage to the cover of The Infinity Gauntlet #1, the scene in the teaser of Thanos holding the assembled Infinity Gauntlet has each of the Infinity Stones produce a slight lens-flare effect to help visually illustrate their power.
  • There are several lens flares in the scene where Thor meets the Guardians, with a bright light shining through the Benatar's windows.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: After spending most of the film absorbed in his video games, Groot starts taking the situation seriously again, starting with using his own limbs to make a makeshift handle for Thor's new weapon, Stormbreaker.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: After meeting Thor the Guardians go different ways: Rocket and Groot venture with Thor to Nidavellir to forge a new weapon for him, while the rest fly to Knowhere to check on the Collector and the Reality Stone in his possession.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Iron Man's and Star-Lord's teams first meet up on Titan and start fighting because they think the other group is aligned with Thanos.
• Levitating Lotus Position: On Titan, Doctor Strange is seen floating in the lotus position while he's using the Eye of Agamotto to peer into the different possible futures.
• Limited Wardrobe: As a result of the events of Captain America: Civil War, Steve Rogers no longer has access to Tony or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources to supply him a new Captain America costume. Hence, his costume for Infinity War is the one from Civil War (though missing the helmet piece, the silver chest star, and it is significantly darkened).
• Literally Shattered Lives: Drax is turned into a statue that breaks into cubes when Thanos uses the Reality Stone on him. He recovers after Thanos leaves with Gamora.
• Little "No":
  • A completely devastated Thor lets out one at the beginning while he drags himself over to his brother's dead body after Thanos and his children teleport away off the Statesman.
  • Rocket gives a few when he sees Groot disintegrating after the snap.
• Little Stowaway: Tony Stark refers to 16-year-old Peter Parker as this (being the youngest and least experienced member of our heroes) on finding he's also hidden on the spacecraft taking them to Thanos, after Tony supposedly sent him back to Earth because he thought it was a Suicide Mission.
• Living MacGuffin: Vision holds the Mind Stone, which contains his mind. Thanos wants it to complete the Infinity Gauntlet and part of the plot is the heroes figuring out what to do with it. The directors even refer to the trope name as such.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Bruce, due to being away from Earth for roughly three years after Age of Ultron, has no knowledge of what happened after their victory over Ultron, leaving other characters to explain the current state of the MCU to him.
  Tony: God, we haven't caught up in a spell, have we?
• Logical Weakness:
  • During the fight on Titan, the heroes note that Thanos needs to clench his gauntlet fist to use the Infinity Stones, so most of their attacks focus on stopping that, eventually simply trying to pull the Gauntlet off.
  • The Reality Stone requires Thanos to actively concentrate on the illusion he's maintaining. When his attention is disrupted, the effects immediately stop.
• Logo Joke: The Marvel Studios logo at the start of the film has the number 10 appear inside it. It's shown as "Marvel Stud10s", indicating how the MCU has existed for 10 years.
• Lonely Piano Piece: Right before the credits, notes of the Avengers theme are played on a piano as the title card turns into ashes.
• Long Bus Trip: It's been fourteen movies and seven real-life years since the Red Skull's last appearance.
• Love Confession: After Gamora makes Quill promise to kill her rather than allow Thanos to take her, the two confess their mutual love for each other for the first time on-screen.
• Love-Obstructing Parents: Played with. Thanos comes to like Peter whom his daughter Gamora is dating, because he'd actually go through with his promise to give her a Mercy Kill in case she'd be captured by Thanos. He still takes Gamora away from Peter but for something totally unrelated to them being a couple.
• Ludicrous Gibs: During the final battle, Wanda joins Okoye and Black Widow against Proxima Midnight, and with some good timing, she's able to hurl Proxima Midnight into the path of one of the rolling wheeled things that the Children of Thanos brought. The audience isn't shown the actual gore, though after, the camera cuts to Black Widow spattered with blue blood, muttering, "Gross."
• Ludicrous Precision: After meditating with the Time Stone, Strange informs Stark that he saw 14,000,605 futures, and only in one of them, Thanos doesn't win.

M

• Malaproper: Played for laughs. When Peter Parker asks what Drax and Mantis do [on the team], Mantis proudly replies "Kick names, take ass." Cue a several-seconds-long shot of Tony's "FML" face.
• Mangst:
  • Thor doesn't take the deaths of Heimdall and Loki well, at all. He channels his grief into hatred and thirst for revenge, using them as motivations for his quest.
  • Thanos is not immune to this either. When he returns to the remains of Titan, he is shown standing amidst the rubble and looking down with an expression of sad contemplation, thinking about everything and everyone he lost.
• Marquee Alter Ego:
  • The first trailers and adverts include multiple shots of Tony and Peter unmasked during a mission.
  • In the big triptych poster, Iron Man and War Machine go without their masks and helmets. However, Spider-Man and Black Panther maintain the total concealment of their suits, and surprisingly, Star-Lord is completely masked as well, despite his actor being a main draw and the mask not being worn that often in the films.
  • Taken to extremes in the final poster, in which none of the characters with masks are shown wearing them. The same goes for the big theatre standee.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The surviving characters can only watch in shock and despair as they see their allies disintegrate after Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet. Drax, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, and Nick Fury react in horror before they themselves crumble into ash.
• Match Cut: During the fight on Wakanda, the shockwave created by Thor smashing his lightning-boosted axe on the ground transforms into the portal that Thanos steps out of on Titan.
• Meaningful Background Event: While most of the group on Titan are discussing the plan to fight Thanos, behind them you can already see Doctor Strange using the Time Stone in a Levitating Lotus Position.
• Meaningful Echo: In the beginning of the film when Vision asks what Wanda feels from the Mind Gem that is acting up, Wanda responds that she only feels him. Vision later says this back to her when convincing her to destroy the stone, assuring her that she can't hurt him.
  Vision: It's alright. You could never hurt me. I just feel you.
• Meaningful Look: When Loki calls himself Odinson before Thanos, he turns to look at Thor, and his eyes say it all — it's an expression of brotherly love, an apology and a good-bye. He dies shortly after.
• Meet the In-Laws: When Thanos meets Peter Quill while capturing Gamora, he initially treats it as an ordinary "meeting his daughter's paramour" scenario.
  Thanos: Ah. The boyfriend.
• Mercy Kill Arrangement: Gamora has Star-Lord promise to kill her if Thanos ever captures her. Star-Lord tries to keep his promise, but Thanos stops him.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: When the heroes come close to removing Thanos' source of power, he retaliates by fracturing the surface of a nearby moon and teleporting the fragments to the planet's atmosphere as a hailstorm of meteors.
• Mexican Standoff: On Titan, the Let's You and Him Fight between the Guardians and Avengers concludes in one, both groups thinking the other is on Thanos's side. Star-Lord is choking Spider-Man and pointing his gun at him while Iron Man points a repulsor toward Drax, lying on the ground.
• Mid-Season Upgrade:
  • After surrendering his traditional shield two years ago, Steve Rogers is given a pair of retractable vibranium shields by the Wakandans.
  • As per tradition in every movie, Tony has a new armor; this one utilizes nanotech.
  • Similarly, Rhodey has a new War Machine armor that can help him to walk properly.
  • With the help of Rocket, Groot, and Eitri, Thor forges a new weapon named Stormbreaker that is capable of killing Thanos.
  • Falcon now has more than one Redwing drone at his disposal.
  • Peter Parker now wears the Iron Spider suit that he had earlier refused to wear after rejecting membership to the Avengers. Like Stark's current armor this suit is composed of self-generating nanites, and it has retractable spider legs for better maneuverability.
  • Natasha's batons can now join to form a combat staff.
  • Bucky has a new vibranium arm to replace the one Tony destroyed.
  • The Guardians now have a new ship after the destruction of the Milano.
• Million to One Chance: Doctor Strange uses the Time Stone to view over fourteen million possible futures, declaring that there is only one in which the heroes win. His line before disintegrating into ash implies that all this is necessary for that one future to come to pass.
• Mind over Matter:
  • Ebony Maw has some impressive telekinetic powers at his disposal, which he uses to disassemble objects, dodge projectiles, and fly, among others.
  • On Titan, Thanos uses the power of the Stones to break a moon into chunks and then hurl them at his opponents.
  • Scarlet Witch still has her usual powers, and uses them to cause some severe pain to the Children of Thanos, ultimately dealing the killing blow to Proxima Midnight. Her telekinesis is also used to destroy the Mind Stone (and Vision with it) as a last-ditch effort to stop Thanos.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The stones Thanos collects for his Gauntlet.
• Misery Poker: Thor had it rough: his brother Loki just died, after his secret evil sister Hela tried to kill them and slashed his eye, after his father Odin died, and after his mother Frigga died killed by an elf, after Loki tried to kill him and usurped their father's throne. Quill, unhappy to see Thor bond with Gamora over their Dark and Troubled Past, steps in, and also tells how he had it rough too since his mother Meredith died because his father Ego killed her and he had to kill him; but he got away with both his eyes at least.
• Missed Him by That Much:
  • After the Snap occurs, Rhodes calls out for Sam, who disintegrates behind a bush that was right in front of him.
  • Bruce Banner enters the Avengers compound and makes his presence known mere seconds after Rhodey ends the video chat between him and Thunderbolt Ross, the man who had tried to capture him over eight years ago.
• Moment Killer:
  • After Gamora makes Star-Lord promise to kill her if Thanos captures her and they kiss passionately, they are interrupted by the sound of Drax eating some alien snacks. Drax then says he has been watching them for an hour and he has "mastered" the art of stealth, moving so slow it is like he is invisible.
  • Downplayed, but Stark and Pepper were discussing dreams becoming real, then promising "no more surprises" to each other when Doctor Strange surprises them during The Big Damn Kiss.
• Monster Threat Expiration: Upon finding the Reality Stone, Thanos shows he can effortlessly neutralize anyone by transforming them — turning Drax into rocks and Mantis into a ribbon before they can do more than take a few steps. He never uses this ability for the rest of the movie, even as many heroes start wailing on him, favoring to use the Stones to fire projectiles. Of course, doing that would mean no cool fight scene.
• Mood Whiplash: The movie constantly ping-pongs between trademark MCU humor and Darkest Hour sequences. Warren Ellis perhaps said it best in an April 2018 newsletter:
  Warren Ellis: The writers and the directors worked very, very hard to make something that did not feel beholden to rules. They'll stop the thing dead for sixty seconds to do a gag.
  • The Disney D23/San Diego Comic Con trailer starts off with a goofy scene of Thor landing on the windshield of the Benatar before having an awkward encounter with the Guardians of the Galaxy. This is followed by a completely serious sequence of events that emphasize how screwed all the heroes are.
  • Shortly after Heimdall's and Loki's deaths, Doctor Strange jokes with Wong about metaphysical sandwiches.
  • It takes less than a minute from Thanos killing Gamora and gaining the Soul Stone to jumping to Wakanda, where Okoye jokes about how she thought Wakanda joining the world would mean more like "The Olympics, maybe even a Starbucks" rather than universe-spanning war, and Rhodes pranking Banner into bowing before T'Challa.
  • In the final battle in Wakanda, Rocket asks Bucky for his arm as a Continuity Nod to Rocket's obsession with stealing artificial limbs. It's a surprisingly light moment in an otherwise serious scene, and it gets worse from there.
• Mook Horror Show: Thor unleashes such phenomenal devastation upon the Outriders when he arrives to Wakanda with the Stormbreaker that they all begin to flee from him.
• Mooks: The Outriders serve as Thanos's foot soldiers this time around.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Falcon comments on the teeth of the Outriders after his first up-close encounter.
• Morph Weapon: Iron Man's armor, now that it is constituted of Nanomachines like Black Panther's, has become even more versatile than the previous models. Tony can make it transform in a blink to acquire Wakanda-style blasters, a booster, a shield, a sword blade, etc. However, the armor is less and less effective as nanomachines are lost, and towards the end of the fight on Titan, Tony has to move particles from one section of his suit to another. Spider-Man's armor is similar, but is only shown producing spider legs on demand.
• Motive Rant: Thanos has his moment on Titan in the last quarter of the film. He explains to Doctor Strange how overpopulation left his home world in ruins and he took it upon himself to wipe out half the universe to prevent such developments in the future. Thanos also states that with all six Infinity Stones he could kill everybody with a "snap", so indiscriminately killing only a half is something he considers mercy.
• Multiple-Choice Future: Doctor Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to peer into the future to find an outcome where they come out winning against Thanos, sifting through over fourteen million probable futures and only finding one with such an outcome. It is even implied that him willingly giving Thanos the stone after their battle against him and Thanos succeeding in his near-omnicidal goal was all a part of that probable future.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Downplayed. Thanos is very muscular but Hulk is twice as bulky. When Hulk puts him in a chokehold, he's able to escape by almost casually grabbing Hulk's wrists and prying them off of his neck - without using the Power Stone.
• Musical Nod: When Tony is on board of the Q-ship and the connection to Pepper starts to break off, the music from the scene in Captain America: The First Avenger when Steve is in radio contact with Peggy and makes the decision to crash the plane to save New York is playing in the background.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Mantis has this moment after Drax collapses and gets the attention of Thanos after he makes a less than soft sounding crash sound upon collapsing on the floor.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
  • Throughout the movie, Vision feels through the Mind stone a sense of dread and can sense when another Stone is approaching his position, which means he can sense Thanos coming for him.
  • When people begin to disintegrate due to Thanos's fingersnap, Empath Mantis feels it and utters, "Something... is happening..." before she disintegrates.
  • Peter's Spider-Sense activates three times during the movie. First when he is alerted to the spaceship hovering over Manhattan. The second time is when he, Tony, and Stephen are about to be attacked by the remaining Guardians on Titan. Thirdly, Peter starts panicking way before he begins turning into dust due to his spider sense going into overdrive.
• My Suit Is Also Super: Thor being able to withstand the raw energy of a star, OK, we can buy that, he's a god. Him coming out of it with his costume little more than mildly charred? We'd like to meet his tailor.
• Myth Arc: The conclusion of the Infinity Stone story arc that's been building since the first appearance of the Tesseract in The Stinger of Thor.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own huge page.

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