Of all the questions that remain unanswered in the MCU, one of the biggest revolves around the fate of Taneleer Tivan, aka the Collector (Benicio Del Toro). While he appears in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” the scene proves to be an illusion.
Thanos sets his collection on Knowhere ablaze, leading us to believe Tivan’s corpse could be among the flames, but it also might not. In a superhero movie narrative that sees heroes and villains resurrected all the time, it’s foolish to assume a character is dead even when you see the body; to assume they’re dead when you don’t is just silly.
It seems one of two things will happen with the Collector in “Guardians 3”: either audience will finally get confirmation that Thanos killed the Collector in “Infinity War,” or he will make an appearance as one of the villains of “Guardians 3” and will die by the end.
It is, after all, long past time the Collector took more of an active villainous role in the MCU. While he’s clearly portrayed as someone with few moral scruples, in spite of appearing in three Marvel movies, he’s never actually come into conflict with any of Marvel’s heroes. It’s kind of ironic, really, that the most active we’ve seen the Collector was in Episode 2 of “What If…?”