With Avengers: Infinity War arriving on digital and Blu-ray, there's a ton of new information to be gleaned from arguably the most ambitious and largest movie in film history. The Russo Brothers had quite the task with its large ensemble cast and behemoth action sequences, while also servicing the myriad stories at play during Infinity War's runtime. The directors also had to introduce a handful of new characters, namely Thanos' loyal underlings The Black Order. Comic fans might have noticed that The Order wasn't quite as all powerful as the original source material, but it was all part of The Russos' larger plan. Joe Russo discussed this on the director's commentary for Infinity War's Blu-ray, after explaining how Ebony Maw was actually inspired by the Marvel villain Mephisto. As Joe tells it,
The Black Order, in particular, we worked hard to adjust them to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Hickman run, I thought the characters were too powerful. And nobody wants the sub-villain to outshine the villain. And we adjusted their power sets so that they lined up in a way that was more interesting with our heroes. Which is why Maw is a wizard... he can control things on a molecular level.
Touche. While comic book fans often look over movie adaptations with a microscope to address any inconsistencies, The Russo Brothers had their own job to do. And that included crafting Thanos' cronies, and deciding their various levels of power.
Joe Russo's comments make a great deal of sense, considering just how much action was in Avengers: Infinity War. While Thanos slowly accrued the Infinity Stones and gained new abilities, the Black Order sparred with various members of The Avengers in locations like New York and Edinburgh. If the Black Order's powers were accurate to their comic book counterparts, Scarlet Witch never would have been able to fight two of them off, before being rescued by Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon.
In the Marvel comics, the Black Order are even more powerful than we saw in the events of Avengers: Infinity War. While comic fans pine for accurate adaptations on the silver screen, their near invulnerability would have ruined some of the film's narrative moments. The villains are one by one taken out by Marvel's heroes, with Spider-Man and Iron Man killing Ebony Maw while Okoye, Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch were able to overpower Proxima Midnight. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as two of those characters don't have super powers, and Proxima Midnight is basically indestructible in the comics.
With Thanos now without his Black Order (and having succeeded in his mission), it should be interesting to see how Josh Brolin's Thanos functions in Avengers 4. He has no one left, so what's the point of "saving" the galaxy?
Avengers: Infinity War is available digitally and for Blu-ray, you can order your copy here. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
