Before we begin, I want to mention that I did not expect as dramatic of an ending to Avengers: Infinity War as what we received. My emotion in that theater chair the first time I watched the film was indescribable. I wasn’t experiencing just one emotion, but rather an entire spectrum of emotion: happiness, despair, anger, confusion, and more. Just to let you know, I’m about to spoil the ending of Infinity War, so skip this article if you haven’t seen it and don’t want it to be spoiled.
To summarize Infinity War’s ending, Thanos’s quest to find the six Infinity Stones and fix the “overpopulation” problem in the universe finally pays off with the snap of his fingers as half of all life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) vanishes into dust, including a majority of the MCU’s heroes. The remnants of a broken team are left behind, including all of the original Avengers from Marvel's The Avengers, excluding Hawkeye because it’s not confirmed whether he died or not, though his death is doubtful. Among the confirmed deaths are White Wolf, Groot, Drax, Doctor Strange, Mantis, Star Lord, Falcon, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Nick Fury. Loki and Gamora, meanwhile, both died at earlier points in the movie when Thanos obtained the Space and Soul Stones respectively.
My main theory for why the directors and writers chose to have the original Avengers survive is so the team can remember why they need to work together again. It will most likely take an entire spiritual and physical journey throughout Avengers 4 for them to realize that. The Avengers will not just use the Quantum Realm, where Ant-Man is currently trapped, to time travel with time vortexes, but also to travel across parallel realities and dimensions. Hank Pym briefly mentions in Ant-Man and the Wasp that Ghost is stuck between parallel dimensions because of an explosion involving the Quantum Realm, which hints at the possibility of using the Quantum Realm to manipulate space and time.
The Avengers will travel between Earths to see alternate situations that other Avengers teams are in on other Earths. Some Earths will have disbanded teams where the members are fighting or dead, and other Earths will have scenarios where the teams are inseparable and at their individual and collective peaks. Seeing all of this will be a wake up call to the surviving members of the main universe’s Avengers, causing them to reunite as a team once again. This will give them enough ground to take down Thanos and reverse what he has done.
Anthony Walker, a manager of Bowling Greens Regal 12 and an avid Marvel fan, said, “I think the Avengers will convince Thanos that what he did was wrong, causing him to feel guilty. He will bring them back to life, but will tell them that it comes at a cost, as he already knows that given that he sacrificed Gamora for the Soul Stone.”
He added, “The main Avengers team from the movie The Avengers will sacrifice themselves to bring back the new Avengers.”
A detail within this theory worth noting is that the main reason the main MCU Avengers are going between Earths and times is because they want to either get duplicates of the Infinity stones, destroy them, or change history entirely to ensure that the damage Thanos has caused would have never happened. This is an interesting thought because if Thanos already has six stones and the Avengers get their own, will we see a battle of Infinity Gauntlets as seen in the comics? Who will wield the duplicate gauntlet? Black Panther, as he did in Secret Wars? Tony Stark with his god buster suit? We’ve seen that it’s possible to destroy the stones when Scarlet Witch destroyed the Mind Stone, but one more question remains with that possibility: is it worth it to change history?
By Daman Cusick
To summarize Infinity War’s ending, Thanos’s quest to find the six Infinity Stones and fix the “overpopulation” problem in the universe finally pays off with the snap of his fingers as half of all life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) vanishes into dust, including a majority of the MCU’s heroes. The remnants of a broken team are left behind, including all of the original Avengers from Marvel's The Avengers, excluding Hawkeye because it’s not confirmed whether he died or not, though his death is doubtful. Among the confirmed deaths are White Wolf, Groot, Drax, Doctor Strange, Mantis, Star Lord, Falcon, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Nick Fury. Loki and Gamora, meanwhile, both died at earlier points in the movie when Thanos obtained the Space and Soul Stones respectively.
My main theory for why the directors and writers chose to have the original Avengers survive is so the team can remember why they need to work together again. It will most likely take an entire spiritual and physical journey throughout Avengers 4 for them to realize that. The Avengers will not just use the Quantum Realm, where Ant-Man is currently trapped, to time travel with time vortexes, but also to travel across parallel realities and dimensions. Hank Pym briefly mentions in Ant-Man and the Wasp that Ghost is stuck between parallel dimensions because of an explosion involving the Quantum Realm, which hints at the possibility of using the Quantum Realm to manipulate space and time.
The Avengers will travel between Earths to see alternate situations that other Avengers teams are in on other Earths. Some Earths will have disbanded teams where the members are fighting or dead, and other Earths will have scenarios where the teams are inseparable and at their individual and collective peaks. Seeing all of this will be a wake up call to the surviving members of the main universe’s Avengers, causing them to reunite as a team once again. This will give them enough ground to take down Thanos and reverse what he has done.
Anthony Walker, a manager of Bowling Greens Regal 12 and an avid Marvel fan, said, “I think the Avengers will convince Thanos that what he did was wrong, causing him to feel guilty. He will bring them back to life, but will tell them that it comes at a cost, as he already knows that given that he sacrificed Gamora for the Soul Stone.”
He added, “The main Avengers team from the movie The Avengers will sacrifice themselves to bring back the new Avengers.”
A detail within this theory worth noting is that the main reason the main MCU Avengers are going between Earths and times is because they want to either get duplicates of the Infinity stones, destroy them, or change history entirely to ensure that the damage Thanos has caused would have never happened. This is an interesting thought because if Thanos already has six stones and the Avengers get their own, will we see a battle of Infinity Gauntlets as seen in the comics? Who will wield the duplicate gauntlet? Black Panther, as he did in Secret Wars? Tony Stark with his god buster suit? We’ve seen that it’s possible to destroy the stones when Scarlet Witch destroyed the Mind Stone, but one more question remains with that possibility: is it worth it to change history?
By Daman Cusick