Fans have been speculating for almost a year now about how those who turned to ash at the end of Avengers: Infinity War can come back to life in the sequel. Time travel has been the primary component of most theories, but is that too convoluted a concept to convincingly play out on screen? That’s what one Reddit user thinks – and they suggest the fatalities aren’t so much “dead” as in a different dimension.
In a post that has been 87% Upvoted, user Enervata said: “Everyone is obsessed with ‘undo-ing’ the snap. What if they don’t?
“What if instead Thanos didn’t actually wipe out half the universe’s inhabitants with the snap, but instead created an alternate universe and tossed half the occupants into this other universe via the ‘dusting’? And this alternate universe is the one that Marvel moves forward with in the future.
“What if the people who lived at the end of Infinity War are actually the ones who get left behind?”
They elaborated: “Everyone who got ‘dusted’ is strongly implied to still be alive moving forward in the Marvel franchise (Spider-man, Nick Fury, Dr Strange, Black Panther, Wasp, Most of the Guardians, Bucky, etc).
“Everyone who is still alive at the end of Infinity War, have very uncertain futures in the movies moving forward (Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Nebula, etc).
“Looking at the list of ‘survivors’, while it would be sad to no longer see them on the screen, they’ve kind of had their run already. All the new guys got snapped, all the veterans were left behind.
“If the snap gets undone, we still have headlining superheroes (Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, etc) all waiting to launch into action to save the day again. That’s a problem based on the future planned movie schedule.
“That means you’d have to kill off or explain why every major surviving character becomes retired after End Game’s credits roll. That’s difficult to achieve. Almost impossible to achieve even with 3 hours.
“What if the explanation is much simpler? What if (at the finale of End Game) one of two things happen: 1) the survivors sacrifice their universe to save the other one, or 2) the survivors defeat the villain / scenario only to insure that the stones can never be used again, but the universes remain split.”
The Quantum Realm, the theorist reckons, could bridge the gap between the two universes, so the door for future crossovers could be left open.
Interestingly it also means the X-Men and Fantastic Four can be added to MCU, courtesy of the whole new universe.
Read the theory in full here.
Avengers: Endgame is out on April 25 in the UK.