Although over the weekend Marvel’s official announcements about The Avengers didn’t amount to much more than lining the cast up on stage (read more about that here), a couple of other titbits emerged from Comic-Con, that suggest who the villain(s) might be in the film – even if currently it’s all informed speculation.
One of the problems some have seen with a potential Avengers movies, is about mixing the traditional type of movie superhero (Hulk, Captain America), with the magical kind (Thor). Well it appears they may have found a way, and it could involve having Thor’s nemesis Loki returning as the main villain for The Avengers, and possible a whole team of bad guys. Although Hiddleston didn’t come out and say he’d be back for the suphero mash-up, while speaking to CinemaBlend at Comic-Con his “I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you,” certainly suggests he won’t be done with the Marvel world once Thor’s finished.
The other thing to suggest he’ll be at least one of the major Avengers bad guys, was that for about five minutes, Marvel mysteriously wheeled out a golden gauntlet onto the Comic-Con floor, before whisking it away (you can see a pic here). The glove was the Infinity Gauntlet, a device which in conjuction with the infinity gems, gives the wearer complete mastery over the universe. It was previously thought the gauntlet may somehow be involved in Thor, but now the possibility seems it may also trip over into The Avengers.
The reason for this is that in the brief Captain Ameria teaser shown at Comic-Con, there was footage of the Cosmic Cube, an incredibly powerful device with reality-warping energies. It makes sense to have that in Captain America, as in the comics Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to try and destroy the superhero. However the interesting thing about the Gauntlet and the Cosmic Cube is that they were both created (or in the case of the cube, reformed) by Thanos, a mutant member of the Titanian-born Eternals. So does that suggest he’ll be in The Avengers too? Perhaps. He’d certainly make sense, as he’s a villain who almost perfectly mixes the science and magic sides that the film will need to meld. He’d also be ridiculously powerful if he wielded the Infinity Gauntlet (hence the need for a superhero team), and in the comics has been the leader of group of super-villains, which would seem to make sense to have in opposition to The Avengers. And if they do have a bad guy team, it would appear Loki is part of it.
My guess is that in Thor, the gauntlet has no gems in, is owned by Odin and coveted by Loki for its powers, then in The Avengers, they’ll have to stop Thanos and his team from gathering all the Infinity Gems, which would allow them to take control of the universe.
At the moment this is all pure speculation, but if Thanos is eventually revealed as the main villain in The Avengers, as well as being the leader of a team of super-villain, which includes Loki, just remember you read it here first. And of course all the tiny facts we do have to all be configured in a way no one’s thought of yet.