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‘Avengers: Endgame’ might not need time travel to undo the ‘Infinity War’ deaths

Published Dec 13th, 2018 11:44AM EST
Avengers: Endgame Theory
Image: Marvel

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The first trailer for Avengers 4 is out, and we know that Marvel settled on Avengers: Endgame as the official title of the fourth film in the Avengers series. Of course, we still have no idea how our favorite heroes will ultimately defeat Thanos. That said, Endgame is likely going to show us the one future that Doctor Strange saw, the one in which the Avengers prevailed over the titan. The fallen heroes, or at least most of them, will be resurrected. But what if “resurrected” isn’t the right word to use? What if nobody actually died in Infinity War when Thanos snapped his fingers?

That’s what a fresh fan theory proposes over on Reddit. Instead of Thanos wiping out half the population of the known universe, he may have just sent all those souls into a different dimension. Bridging the two universes would be Ant-Man, who was in the Quantum Realm when the snap occurred:

What if the snap killed none of them. Its possible. We have all been making fun of Thanos by saying that death wasn’t necessary with the near infinite power of the gauntlet,What if it simply split the reality in two taking half of everyone into each version missing the other half but retaining the same resources. The two parallel realities could be joined by a sort of bridge in the quantum realm. Since Scott was in the quantum realm at the time of the split he was unaffected by the snap and not bound to either reality leaving him free to travel from one to the other over this bridge. Maybe this leaves him free to travel through to the parallel dimensions created by Thanos splitting the time stream. He would be the only way for them to communicate with the other. Maybe he exists in both realities and gains knowledge from both due to some strange form of quantum entanglement.

Redditor joethehamface said that such a scenario would fit a Marvel mobile game in which two universes are colliding and one must be destroyed to save the other. Also, he said that the theory would allow the MCU to transfer to a Secret Wars storyline in the next phase.

This theory would allow Marvel to fix things without reverting to time travel, although we’ve covered plenty of evidence that seems to indicate time travel will indeed be used to fight Thanos.

The first trailer doesn’t reveal anything about how the Avengers will fix things. It does tell us that Ant-Man will escape the Quantum Realm, to the bewilderment of Captain America and Black Widow. Also, the trailer tells us that the remaining Avengers have a plan that must work. It’s unclear at this time what the plan entails and who’s behind it. After all, Marvel trailers are meant to be somewhat puzzling and deceitful. If you want proof of that, just check out the trailers for Infinity War that showed Hulk fighting in Wakanda, something that never happened in the Infinity War release we all saw earlier this year.

This fan theory and time travel theories have a few important things in common. First of all, in both scenarios Ant-Man will be a key player. Secondly, both these theories suggest the Avengers will want to grab their own set of Infinity Stones and create another Infinity Gauntlet to defeat Thanos. Also, this new theory is a variation of a different fan theory that says everyone who died has actually gone to either the Quantum Realm or the Soul Stone.

With all that in mind, we don’t really expect anyone to leak the plot of Avengers: Endgame before it launches next year, which means we’ve got more than four months ahead for more speculation, fresh fan theories, and more clips from Marvel.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.