Final trailer for The Marvels really wants you to think The Avengers are going to show up

Last week, a story came out about some drama going on behind the scenes at Marvel Studios, and one aspect of it was that some people inside have raised the idea of bringing back characters like Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark to try and get fans as excited as they were back in the Endgame days. Tonight, as if to highlight that pitch and then underline it over and over again, Marvel Studios released the final trailer for The Marvels—coming to theaters this Friday—and it really, really, really wants you to remember how much fun Endgame was… so much so that it seems to be implying that some of the Avengers from that movie will be stopping by.

The trailer opens with odd flashbacks to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers in their younger days (as in, from older movies) before cutting to a key Endgame scene and some new(?) tweaked dialogue from Thanos about how his ideas are “inevitable,” not just him, clearly putting the The Marvels’ villain Dar-Benn on par with The Mad Titan. Then there’s a reference to another universe crossing over with the one that they’re in, and the trailer ends with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury suggesting that some kind of backup has arrived… followed by a split-second shot of what appears to be someone in one of the Avengers’ time heist uniforms.

The music even does some little homages to the main Avengers theme. And Valkyrie is there, since here and Captain Marvel apparently met at some point? They were in the Endgame battle together, at least. A lot of it comes across as very desperate in light of the report last week, plus the new behind-the-scenes drama today (though, timing-wise, that can’t be any more than a coincidence), but we’d be lying if we didn’t admit that it’s also a little intriguing. Marvel was really special when everything was clicking, and a Marvel that’s on its back foot could be really interesting to watch. We’ll see how it goes on Friday.