Avengers Infinity War Trailer: Not Hawkeye or Ant-Man, This Important Character's Absence is the Most Baffling - Guess Who?

By now, we have had one teaser trailer, one Super Bowl spot and one official trailer of Avengers: Infinity War. And there is one question that is on everyone's lips - where are Ant-Man aka Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)? They were last seen in Captain America: Civil War, having escaped from the superhero prison Raft with the help of a rogue Captain America. While the trailers of the upcoming Infinity War accounted for the rest of their fellow escapees like Falcon and Scarlet Witch, there is no sign of these two even in the promotional art. That begs us to ask this - are they even in the movie?

We know that Ant-Man will appear in the next Marvel movie after Avengers: Infinity War, titled Ant-Man & The Wasp. We have also seen pictures of Hawkeye in a new look while shooting for Avengers 4, that is scheduled to release next year. So at least, they are alive and we will see them in a movie soon, if not in Infinity War.

But there is one very important character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who is the very reason why Avengers is even a team, that has been missing from the trailers. In fact, it has been some time since we have seen on screen ever since his last outing in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Yes, you guessed it right. We are talking about the SHIELD chief Nick Fury.

Played by Samuel L Jackson, Nick Fury is the driving force behind the formation of the Avengers, having recruited the main members like Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, the Hulk, Thor in the Avengers Initiative. He had first appeared in the post-credits scene of Iron Man where he introduced to Tony Stark (and us) about the Avengers Initiative. From thereon, Fury was seen in important roles in Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers. Ever since it was discovered the Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fury had faked his death and gone underground. He later made a comeback in Age of Ultron in two crucial scenes, and then he disappeared!  Even the superheroes fighting with each other in Civil War couldn't bring him back from his self-imposed exile.

So where is he and moreover, will he be coming back for Infinity War? No one, including the directors Russo Bros. are clear on this, while Samuel L Jackson is adamant that he is not in the movie. In a recent event, when asked about his presence in the movie, Jackson had this to say, "IMDB says I am? You believe them? No, don't believe IMDB. I haven't heard from them. I don't know what's going on yet."

It is not that Marvel has forgotten Nick Fury, as a younger version of the character (also played by Jackson) is set to appear in next year's Captain Marvel, that is reportedly set in the '90s.

But it still bugs us that Nick Fury won't be making an appearance in battle against Thanos. After all, outside threats like these is the very reason why Fury experimented with Tesseract and brought in the Avengers.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 19, 2018 10:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).