By now, theorizing about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is as integral to the experience of being a fan as watching the actual movies is.
It’s unsurprising: Marvel Studios actively encourages speculation, with obscure Easter egg references, background cameos and post-credit sequences built into every film. With just days before the release of Avengers: Endgame, the culmination of 21 films spanning 11 years, there’s no shortage of theories for how the three-hour movie will wrap up the franchise – and blow the doors wide open for a new set of characters.
The directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, have stayed consistently vague about the validity of the fan theories. Speaking with Heroic Hollywood, they’ve simply said there have been some that “can kind of get a little close” to the truth, while others have been “wildly” off. Go figure: there’s an endless amount of guesswork going around, so it makes sense that people have correctly nailed some, but not all, aspects of the plot. There are just too many variables: the gauntlet is fried after the events of Infinity War, but there’s still six Infinity Stones that can alter all aspects of existence, meaning literally anything is possible. Who will die, and when, and how? How will time travel and the quantum realm be used, and to what degree of success? Is half the universe trapped in the Soul Stone, or residing in an alternate universe entirely? How will Thanos die, and who will kill him? What other variables must we consider, like Valkyrie still being alive and Pepper Potts putting on a suit to become Rescue? Somewhere on the internet lives the correct answer, if one is able to fit the correct jigsaw puzzle pieces together.
Here we’ve compiled a list of the most common and popular theories, if you’re so inclined to guess the plot ahead of the film’s release.
First, there are some theories that are pretty much givens: none of the dusted characters are permanently dead. Captain America will die or be retired, as Chris Evans’ contract is over and he has formally said goodbye. It’s likely the same goes for Iron Man, especially as this is a closing out of a series of films that he kickstarted back in 2008. (One theory even suggests Hawkeye and Black Widow as well, based on their prominence in the trailers, the fact that Widow’s film is a prequel, and Hawkeye’s show about him passing on the mantle to a young Kate Bishop.) The Avengers will make use of the Quantum Realm – a place where time and space are mere suggestions – because the team is wearing suits in the trailer similar to the one Hank Pym wore in Ant-Man and the Wasp. This will probably involve traveling across time or dimensions because leaked set photos show they’re at the Battle of New York, and footage from the trailer shows that Ant-Man eventually emerges from the realm and sends a message to the Avengers, but dated back from 1983. It’s obvious that Captain Marvel is a key player in defeating Thanos, as is the fact that Doctor Strange foresaw the snap (called the Decimation in-universe) happening and will probably play a hand in undoing it (or Wong will, at least).
As for the deaths that happened outside the snap, we know there’s a reasonably good chance Vision and Loki return, as both have spin-off shows announced for Disney’s streaming platform. Rewinding time would do it, but there’s also theories that Shuri succeeded in downloading Vision, and Loki is disguised as Ant-Man or Hulk. The most mysterious death is not quite a death at all, as the Russos confirmed that Gamora is still alive inside the Soul Stone. It’s a good thing too; if there’s anyone who deserves to deliver the final blow to Thanos, it’s Gamora and her sister Nebula (which would be in keeping with comics canon). What isn’t known is how the Avengers would get her out of there; one idea is she figures it out herself, since the sacrifice was corrupted from the beginning as Thanos clearly just loves himself. Another heartbreaking theory suggests it’s Iron Man who will ultimately sacrifice himself for everyone, in a closing out of his arc.
Another variable is how defeating Thanos will actually bring back their friends. Several theories suggest it won’t, and while they’ll get their revenge early on in the film because they have Captain Marvel and Thanos is now weakened, it will literally be months to years before Ant-Man reappears and gives them a glimmer of hope about reversing the destruction. Having a time gap holds water, as it would explain when Hawkeye adopted his moody alter ego Ronin, when they all had time to adopt new hairdos, and why they all look so sad and haunted in the trailers.
But when it comes to the rescue, the theories get dicey once we consider the intricacies of time travel. Do changes they make in the past ripple forward in a linear fashion, meaning that what we’ve seen in past films is already a result of past interference, or does it fracture the timeline and create multiple universes? In that case, are the photos from the Battle of New York not from the immediate past but from one of many lateral universes existing alongside this one? (One does not even want to consider that time tampering may erase the past films entirely, as Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past did to incredibly frustrating results.)
Benedict Cumberbatch has let slip that a multiverse is coming, and creating separate universes would be a way for them to eventually introduce the newly reacquired Fantastic Four and X-Men characters, as well as alternative versions to longstanding heroes such as She-Hulk, Miles Morales and Miss America. A popular theory suggests that other parallel universes already exist, and the snapped characters were not killed but simply put into a new reality; the Avengers never successfully merge the worlds, and all future films take place in an alternate reality. Another theory posits the two universes again, but it’s Ant-Man and Doctor Strange who work with Iron Man’s tech to hop back and forth between the two worlds, ultimately realizing that only one can remain. (These are both intricate theories, though a bit undone by none other than Happy Hogan: the posters show he, unlike Spider-Man, survived the Decimation, yet in the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailers they’re both clearly in the same universe.) A somewhat light-hearted version of this is that the two worlds just coexist, and Ant-Man creates a quantum tunnel that allows them to communicate with each other.
Mind you, this is all just a brief dip in the ocean. There’s an endless amount of theories not covered here, and these just seem to be the most probable. Or this could all be wildly off the mark, and the true solution is that someone in the past just convinces Goose to never barf up the Tessaract. We will, as we’ve done for the past 11 years, just have to wait and see.
Avengers: Endgame is out on 26 April
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