Josh Brolin hints at a return for the Great Titan, Thanos, which hopefully means they are going to do Nova right in the MCU (cross your fingers).
Before we get to what Brolin has to say, Jim Starlin previously revealed Marvel had filmed an additional 45 minute scene for The Avengers: Infinity War featuring the destruction of Xandar:
“A month before the movie game out, I got an e-mail from Joe [Russo] saying ‘the forty five minutes of Thanos we had at the beginning of Infinity War, we had to cut.’ There’s a whole sequence of him getting the first gem, and they had to cut that out. They shot it but they never wanted to spend any of the money on the effects and they didn’t want the movie to be as long as the second one was. They didn’t realize it was going to be quite the hit it was… They had planned on doing some of that for the DVD and then they didn’t.”
Saving the scene for a Nova movie?
The scene, unfortunately, never made its way into the movie, but just maybe they are saving the scene for another movie.
Xandar was the home of the Nova Corps and protected the Power Stone. Thanos showed up with his Black Order and destroyed the planet and took the Infinity Stone. Infinity War started from there.
In the comics, Xander has been destroyed a time or two. Back in the awesome 2005/6 Annihilation event series, Xander was destroyed which led to Richard Rider becoming Nova Prime, so obviously the MCU could in part adapt that storyline.
Thanos returning to the MCU?
Getting back to Josh Brolin and his potential Thanos return, you want it done right and you don’t want it to take away from anything featured in Infinity War or Endgame, so why not a flashback scene?
Maybe the Nova movie will feature the destruction of Xandar and Richard Rider becoming Nova (the 2007 Nova series is excellent)?
“You know, I hear kind of like through the grapevine, that they’re gonna bring him back,” Brolin told CB.com while promoting Dune Part II. “And there’s the What If…? series and that’s a different kind of Thanos and all that. But I don’t know in the Marvel world whether they’re going to bring him back, but I didn’t know that he was the most killed-off Marvel villain … You learn something new every day.”
If not a Nova movie, Thanos could always return as a Variant in Avengers: Secret Wars and Thanos is also rumored for What If…? Season 3, but that old adage holds true as there ain’t nothing like the real thing.
