Because Thanos, in all his planet-flinging glory, clearly wasn't enough of a threat to take on the rest of the assembled MCU(!), the powerful alien threat will not be alone. Along with showing early footage from Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel used the D23 exhibition floor to reveal his comrades in destruction: the Black Order.
Thanos (played in the movie by Josh Brolin) has been bringing doom and destruction to Marvel Comics since the 1970s, but the Black Order was an invention for 2013's New Avengers run, created by artists Jerome Opena and Jim Cheung.
And just who are these alien terrors? They include the likes of Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Thanos, Ebony Maw, Black Dwarf, as seen in the image above taken from the D23 floor shortly after the shrouds keeping them covered were whipped away. True, some sound like movie titles dreamt up by Alan Partridge or The Office's Michael Scott, but they should prove to be a nasty challenge for the likes of Cap, Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Groot to tackle. We don't yet know who is playing (and in the case of any CG crafted characters, performance capturing and/or voicing) them, but Marvel will release that information in due course. The company is bringing its usual presentation to the San Diego Comic-Con next weekend.
Also present for the unveiling was Brolin, who you'd think would take better care of the Infinity Gauntlet which can hold and wield all the Infinity Stones, but he'd left it on display for anyone to admire/make off with.
Avengers: Infinity War will be out on 27 April next year.
Avengers: Infinity War: Behind The Scenes Video And Transcript