Remember that moment in Avengers: Endgame when every single Avenger and their allies appeared before the final battle against Thanos and his army? Of course you do. It was one of Marvel’s biggest moments during the Infinity Saga. But what if I told you that there was a Marvel character that was meant to be there but was unfortunately removed? Because that’s what happened to this one Guardians of the Galaxy character who played a massive supporting role in Vol. 3.
Reddit user u/NickRomanovf noticed on r/marvelstudios that Sean Gunn‘s character, Kraglin, was meant to appear during the final confrontation. Unfortunately, the character was digitally removed during the final product. It’s currently unknown when he was going to appear as each of the characters walk through the portals one by one. But he was supposed to be near Wasp and the rest of the Guardians before seeing Captain America grab Thor’s hammer and telling the Avengers to assemble.
Many assumed that the reason for his removal was to easily include Groot in the shot. Groot vanished during the events of Infinity War in Wakanda and reappeared during the final battle. So seeing him walk in during the final shot might have been much better compared to using a supporting character like Kraglin.
Meanwhile, others believed that Kraglin was supposed to be on set, but James Gunn decided that him learning how to use Yondu’s arrow should be a side plot for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, rather than have it be a skill learned off-camera. After all, there were plenty of things that happened in between Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 & 3 that happened off-screen. Still, it’s pretty funny to learn that James Gunn would bring his brother in multiple Marvel projects just so he’d have some screen time.
Interestingly, the reason for Kraglin’s disappearance was “somewhat” explained in an old 2019 interview made by Marvel Studios. Marvel spoke with Avengers: Endgame‘s Visual Effects Supervisor about the breakdown when producing this huge iconic battle scene. While he didn’t specifically give a reason for Kraglin’s removal, he did mention that they had to decide “what got cg’ed and what wouldn’t be,” based on the whole master shot of all the characters on set.
Personally, I think Kraglin’s removal from the final shot was probably a good choice. While many would argue that there were one-off characters in other Marvel titles that made it to the final battle, like Valkyrie, who only appeared in Thor: Ragnarok before the final battle, it would have probably been too crowded to include more side characters alongside our main heroes.
Hopefully we’ll see more of Kraglin in the future, especially since he’s now part of the new Guardians lineup after everyone in the original lineup went their own separate ways. Perhaps we’ll see him appear in the new heroic face-off in Avengers: Secret Wars.