There are many characters that have appeared and disappeared in Marvel Studios movies, sometimes without knowing what happened to them. Now James Gunn reveals to us that he belonged to the Benicio del Toro collector
The last time we saw the Benicio del Toro collector was in Avengers: Infinity War. When our band of beloved misfits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Guardians of the Galaxy, traveled to Wisdom to retrieve the reality stone guarded by him. Thanos got ahead of them thanks to the space gem. The team encountered the Mad Titan torturing Taneleer Tivan to obtain the gem. However, the Guardians will soon discover that it was an illusion and that Tivan was no longer there, with the place really on fire.
You can remember the scene below
Many of us thought that the Collector’s fate had suffered the same fate as all those who faced Thanos before. However, not everything is as it seems in the famous scene from Infinity War.
While a server was preparing the article in which I showed you what Nebula could have looked like in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. I have been reviewing the production notes that Marvel Studios prepared for the film’s premiere and I have been able to appreciate a important detail in them. Where it is explained that the Guardians bought Wisdom from the Collector. So I wanted to ask James Gunn himself if that was correct and if so, if the character survived Thanos’s attack, and we were lucky that he answered us with a brief YES.
Yes
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 24, 2023
So several things that we have learned, that Wisdom was owned by the Collector and that he survived Thanos’s attack, although we do not know what happened next, since the director has not given us more details about what happened after his encounter with Crazy Titan .
Will we see the Collector again?
Taneleer Tivan / The Collector first appeared in one of the post-credits scenes in Thor: A Dark World (2013). Lady Sif and Volstagg (played by the sadly deceased Ray Stevenson) give the Collector the Aether for safekeeping, claiming that having the Tesseract already in Asgard, they don’t want to keep two Infinity Stones close to each other. As the two Asgardians leave, the Collector comments, “One down, five to go.”
In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the Collector contacts Gamora with an offer to buy an orb containing a third Infinity Stone. However, when she receives it, her slave Carina attempts to use it, causing a reaction that disintegrates her and destroys her lair on Wisdom. In a post-credits scene, the collector has a drink with Howard the Duck and Cosmo the Space Dog, both of whom we’ll meet again later.
In the movie Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the Collector appeared as an illusion that Thanos created using the Aether after turning it into the Reality Stone. The final destination of the former was not displayed on the screen. Already then Benicio Del Toro believed that the character had survived the events of the film. And it is now that we receive an official confirmation from the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy films himself. You have to remember that Gunn was responsible for writing the team lines in that movie.
Later in the MCU we saw Tivan again as an alternate version of the timeline in the Disney+ animated series What If…? (2021), in the episode What would happen if… T’Challa became a Star-Lord?, voiced by Benicio del Toro. This version became the “most ruthless kingpin of the intergalactic underworld” after filling a power vacuum after Thanos reformed and abandoned his genocidal plans.
As to whether we will see Tivan again. With the confirmation that he survived his encounter with Thanos, anything is possible, let’s remember that he is one of the originals of the Universe and is the brother of Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster who is also still around at the UCM (in the comics he has had some encounter with Kang the Conqueror). So why not think that we can see them together in the fifth installment of The Avengers, what do you think?
You can watch all the Marvel movies and series the character has appeared in with your Disney+ subscription.
