Originally published April 1, 2017. This article preserves One Sixth Society’s original reporting and images; product availability, pricing, and opinions reflect the original publication period.
In April 2017, Avengers: Infinity War was still more than a year away, with a planned May 4, 2018 release. Filming had begun in January 2017. Here are the Hot Toys figures we thought might follow the film; these were predictions, not a confirmed product list.
Hot Toys had produced large character lineups for Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. With Infinity War bringing more of the MCU cast together, collectors had plenty of possible figures to discuss.
Which Avengers Did We Expect?
We expected new versions of Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor and Hulk because Hot Toys had made the core team for earlier Avengers films. That history made them likely candidates, but it did not guarantee any of these releases.
Ant-Man, Nick Fury, Scarlet Witch, Vision and War Machine were other possibilities. Their film appearances and any costume changes would help determine whether Hot Toys had a reason to revisit them.
Hot Toys Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2 Figures
The Guardians of the Galaxy were also due to appear in Infinity War, after their own 2017 sequel. That raised a question for collectors already buying the Vol. 2 figures.
Would Hot Toys make another Guardians lineup for Infinity War, or would the Vol. 2 releases cover much of the same ground? At the time, we did not know how much the characters’ costumes would change. New outfits or accessories could justify another version; an unchanged look might not.
Could There Be a Hot Toys Infinity War Doctor Strange Figure Too?
Hot Toys had already announced a figure from the 2016 Doctor Strange film. We thought his expected involvement in Infinity War could lead to another version, although no Infinity War figure had been confirmed when this article was written.
Those were our expectations in April 2017. The large cast gave Hot Toys many possible characters to choose from, and we were waiting to see which would become figures.
How to Compare Another Version of the Same Avenger
A new film appearance creates several separate questions for a collector. Has the costume changed? Is the new portrait meaningfully different? Do the accessories recreate a scene the earlier figure cannot? Those questions explain the uncertainty around the Guardians in this article: a large cast did not necessarily mean that every character needed to be bought again.
Doctor Strange presents the same decision in a more focused way. An owner of the solo-film figure would want to compare the face, layered clothing and spell accessories of a later release, rather than treating the Infinity War name as an automatic upgrade. The same approach applies to armored characters: identify the actual suit and equipment before counting another announcement as a distinct addition.
The predictions above were made before those comparisons could be completed. They record the questions collectors had in April 2017, not a retrospective claim that the writer knew the final film costumes or Hot Toys’ production schedule.
