Why the 'Avengers 4' Title Might Be 'Avengers: Forever'

As the title of Avengers 4 is being labeled a spoiler, the possibility of it being Avengers: Forever seems likely after the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War follow! Major spoilers!

With the conclusion of Avengers: Infinity War seeing Thanos reign victoriously into the credits, half of the universe was wiped away by the snap of his fingers. This means half of the Marvel heroes were taken away, including Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, Groot, Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and more. While many suspect these characters will be brought back to life in one way or another, they might only return in a past form, which is where the Avengers: Forever title comes in.

As we stated in our breakdown of possible Avengers 4 titles, a comic miniseries by the same title, "Avengers Forever", saw the heroes plucked from various timelines in an effort to unite against a common threat. The threat is not Thanos, but the Marvel Studios movies tend to combine the best elements of different comic book stories, meaning such a story can be combined with those remaining elements of the Infinity Gauntlet saga many are expecting.

How the Avengers heroes will come across a device or Time Stone which will enable them to travel to the past or future to round up heroes in a final stand against Thanos remains to be seen. However, Avengers: Forever's comic book story not only lends itself to possible upcoming story, but Avengers: Forever sounds like the appropriate movie title in itself for a follow up to Infinity War.

"You can't chase bigger because you get yourself into trouble," Avengers: Infinity War director Joe Russo told ComicBook.com of his approach to Avengers 4. "What you can chase is story telling. So, everything for us is based on the story. Obviously, this is larger in scale than Civil War because we have more than double the amount of characters in it, and it's Thanos, and it's cosmic. The stakes are the universe. You can't get much bigger than that."

In a later interview (not seen in the video above), the directors went into further detail about what they expect the year between Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel to feel like for fans.

"I think the reaction is that in Winter Soldier and Civil War, we like complicated stories," Joe Russo said. "We like stories that are in bounds. And Thanos is the toughest villain they've ever faced, and it's going to cost these heroes a lot if they're going to beat him. We like robust concepts, and so I think that when people are done with the movie, that hopefully it's a cathartic experience for them and they feel it was a worthy finale to 10 years of film-making."

As far as storytelling goes, they wanted to be sure the sprawling epic concluded a journey with Infinity War, while also planting seeds for what's to come later. "It was important for us, because we wanted, the experience we wanted to have at the end of this story was the sense of emotional completion. In terms of what the narrative was in the film," Anthony Russo said. "And hopefully they'll have that similar feeling...It's serialized story-telling. The mission was to not make one long movie and get out the scissors and cut it in half. Because that's never been the most fulfilling cinematic expression. So for us, the commitment was to try and put a beginning, middle, and end to this, and a beginning, middle, and end to that."

Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are now playing in theaters. Ant-Man and The Wasp is set for release on July 6, 2018. Captain Marvel will follow it on March 6, 2019, with the untitled Avengers 4 set to tie everything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a bow on May 3, 2019. Leave your Marvel questions and thoughts in the comment section below or send them to @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!