Ever since the opening weekend of Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, it has been presumed that the next time the various heroes of Marvel’s various superhero franchises unite to fight against a common enemy that that enemy would be Thanos, the villain glimpsed in the film’s closing moments.
But what if he’s not? Word is coming from Roger Wardell that the Avengers may be facing off against some more Earth-bound adversaries.
https://twitter.com/RogerWardell/status/267022820213669889
However, in a post from earlier in the fall, Wardell states Thanos will still be a presence in the studio’s upcoming cycle of films that will lead up to Avengers 2.
Inside News: Thanos will be the mastermind of Marvel's Phase II, so don't just expect to see him in The Avengers 2.
— Roger Wardell (@RogerWardell) September 19, 2012
So who is this Roger Wardell? That’s a good question. He is someone who has shown up earlier this year on Twitter with a supposed source within Marvel Studios who is leaking him info on the studio’s upcoming films. Many of his supposed scoops have been about the Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and with those a ways off they are hard to verify.
However, there are two posts of his that do seem to check out.
The first was in reference to Sebastian Stan returning for the Captain America sequel to reprise his role of Bucky Barnes, who becomes the titular Winter Soldier.
Inside news: Sebastian Stan is talking with Marvel about Captain America 2……
— Roger Wardell (@RogerWardell) June 6, 2012
But if you note the date, it is from five weeks before Stan’s involvement was officially announced.
The second concerns something a bit more spoilerish for Iron Man 3, so if you don’t want to know, turn back now.
Consider the following two tweets from August and September.
Inside News: Marvel is seriously considering having Pepper Potts armour up in Iron Man 3, an idea that scrapped from the previous film
— Roger Wardell (@RogerWardell) August 1, 2012
Inside News: Pepper Potts's role in Iron Man 3 is gonna be full of suprises and unexpected turns.
— Roger Wardell (@RogerWardell) September 5, 2012
And it appears as if this was borne out last week with this report.
Time will tell if Wardell is a bona fide source of news or if he’s just been a lucky guesser so far.
In the meantime, here’s a quick primer on the Masters Of Evil. The group has a long history of squaring off against the Avengers and has a rotating membership consisting of a number of individual Avengers’ nemeses. Among past members of the group include Radioactive Man, aka a Chinese agent named Chen Lu, who is set to appear in Iron Man 3 and be played by actor Wang Xueqi. Another comics villain with a Masters of Evil connection is Crossbones, who is supposed to be appearing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier being played by Frank Grillo. Crossbones often worked for the villainous Baron Zemo, who was also leader of, you guessed it, the Masters of Evil. Zemo’s involvement in the Captain America sequel has been rumored but not yet officially confirmed or debunked.
For now, I would classify this story as probable, but not necessarily possible. We’ll continue to keep an eye on Mr. Wardell’s twitter account and see how well his other alleged scoops turn out before we start moving things into the “possible” column.
