Depending on your feelings towards the Black Widow and Hulk relationship, this Avengers: Infinity War tease might be great or terrible.
Avengers: Age of Ultron had Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff share some moments. Not just the kind of moments you’d expect on a team of superheroes who work together to save the planet, but moments of the more … feelings-based kind. So, the news that Avengers: Infinity War has more of that little relationship shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Nor should it surprise that the scenes are likely not for the faint of heart. io9 found this clip from Inside the Actors’ Studio where Scarlett Johansson gets to talk about her experiences with Infinity War.
Part of io9’s transcript is as follows:
"“My character has this ongoing relationship with Mark Ruffalo’s character. I had such devastation that day. […] It was something about this character that Mark plays, and this is something that should feel so solid and suddenly doesn’t […]”"
The easy interpretation is that she’s talking about a scene where they realize that maybe their similar experiences don’t constitute the best foundation for a relationship. That would explain the discussion of solidity and a lack thereof.
But perhaps it’s more literal. The word is that someone’s going to become a casualty of the Infinity War in the first film. Johansson also carefully specified that she finished her work on the former Infinity War Part I. Would killing either Black Widow or the Incredible Hulk provide an emotional gut punch strong enough for what Marvel’s probably looking for? That’s a question. However, the Widow, especially, has had some excellent moments in movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Then again, after Age of Ultron led to some criticism, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, who wrote all three of the Captain America flicks and now have Avengers duties, might want to tread lightly with killing off a female character. That leaves the Hulk. Is Thor: Ragnarok really going to build him up enough to make an Infinity War death worth it?
Of course, both could easily survive or end up in danger by the end of the first movie. That would also count as something causing “devastation,” right?
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At this point, the best bet is to keep a close eye on Thor: Ragnarok, since it precedes Infinity War.