Next year is when everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building up to will reach a critical mass. We’ll finally get to see the franchise big bad Thanos in action. However, fans of the comic know that Thanos does not act for no reason.

In the Infinity Gauntlet comic, while Thanos may indeed be hungry on power, he is also working for the affections of Death. In securing the Infinity Gauntlet, he had inadvertently betrayed her trust, and his actions to wipe out half the universe, and everything else that follows are his attempts to get back in her good graces.

Of course, as we know, there currently is no Death in the Marvel Cinematic Universe…yet. As we’ve seen in the trailer, Cate Blanchett will be portraying Hela, the goddess of death. While this isn’t exactly a one-to-one similarity with the comics (Death wears a Grim Reaper-ish cloak), it’s pretty darn close.

This makes us wonder whether or not she will meet an untimely end in Thor: Ragnarok or will be showing up in Avengers: Infinity War. The folks at ComicBook.com also wondered that, and when asking producer Brad Winderbaum, he dodged the question, saying:

“Obviously we always think about the movies as standalones, even if they do set up a movie down the road or pay off something from a previous film. What we hope, if we do our jobs right, is that Hela is one of the best villains we’ve had – maybe the best, hopefully.

Cate has been delivering an incredible performance. She’s really scary and really charming. She’s very easy to watch, very fun to be around. But very murderous and horrible at the same time. You’re right that those are things that Thanos values. But when and how she plays into the future of the universe is uncertain now.”

That’s quite the dodge there, for sure. Of course, if we were to take that at face value, we’d gain nothing from it, as he only talks about making the villain as good as it can be for each individual film. Were she not to get involved in the MCU later on down the line, we have a sneaking suspicion that Winderbaum would have stated that more clearly that no, she would not be in the film.

At least that’s how we see it. Is this a confirmation that she’ll be in Infinity War? Definitely not. That being said, it does seem like Marvel is starting to learn their lesson when it comes to killing off their greatest villains too soon. So she may not be in Infinity War, but she has a real potential to come back down the line. Or so we hope.

Would you like to see Hela take on the role of Death in Avengers: Infinity War? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: ComicBook.com