For months now, we’ve been gathering plenty of evidence from the Avengers cast and Marvel execs that proves the dead Infinity War heroes will be resurrected in Avengers 4. We have no idea how it’ll happen, but there are plenty of fan theories floating around, as well as teasers that say it’ll involve traveling through time. While we usually talk about dead Avengers who are suddenly confirmed to be reappearing in Avengers 4, this time is a little different.
An Avengers star has started teasing the return of his character in the upcoming Infinity War sequel. But he never died on or off the screen in the first movie. When Thanos snapped his fingers, most people wondered what happened to the characters who didn’t appear in the film, including Ant-Man, The Wasp, Valkyrie, and Hawkeye, to name just a few.
Hawkeye was an unexpected surprise in Infinity War. As in, he didn’t appear in the movie at all in spite of being one of the original Avengers. But we soon learned that Jeremy Renner would be back in Avengers 4. And a few days ago, the actor teased his return, dropping a few interesting other hashtags along the way.
Here’s that message in full:
Day is done! It’s Friday … enjoy your weekend everyone @marvel@avengers #purplebadguy🖕🏻 #hawkeye#widow? #avengers? #A6 ? #sendinglove #🏹 #cawcawmfs#isanyonegonnashowup??? #whoISstillALIVE?
What’s interesting is that he posted a bunch of hashtags that seems to indicate Hawkeye might team up with Black Widow again. We already know they were partners before.
Also, the #A6 hashtag is a reference to the original Avengers team: Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Marvel already told us that leaving the original Avengers alive at the end of Infinity War was intentional. For some of them, this might be the last fight, with Captain America and Iron Man being two of the most likely to die by the end of the next film.
And a bunch of the original Avengers went for an A6 tattoo not too long ago, including Robert Downey Jr. and Renner:
So what will happen to Hawkeye next? We have no idea but that #purplebadguy hashtag is an indication that he’s suiting up for battle. Also, we might see him in other Marvel movies down the road. I’d venture a guess that Hawkeye will also appear in the Black Widow film that’s supposedly in the works.
Marvel hinted earlier this year that Renner isn’t quite done with the MCU when the studio acknowledged Hawkeye’s absence from Infinity War (via ComicBook):
We [at Marvel] love Hawkeye. There are big, big story things coming up for Hawkeye and Jeremy Renner is as strong an actor as anyone in the MCU and awesome as this character. But ‘The guy with the bow and arrow jokes,’ right? There are a lot of ‘Guy with bow and arrow jokes.’ He even makes ‘Guy with a bow and arrow’ jokes in some of the movies. So I love that people go from ‘Oh, Hawkeye is just lucky to be there,’ to ‘Oh, where is he? He’s not there? What’s going to happen? We need Hawkeye. We want more Hawkeye.’ I love it. It’s the best.
And Renner seems to be pretty excited to be back because he posted a second photo on Instagram acknowledging his return:
Avengers 4 hits theaters on May 3rd in most markets, although Europeans will get to see it a few days earlier.
