As upsetting as the ending to Avengers: Infinity War was, there's a good chance that a lot
of the most devastating losses of the film will be reversed when the fourth Avengers
movie comes along.
If you haven't seen Infinity War yet, avert your eyes now!
Considering the fact that sequels for Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-Man:
Homecoming have all been confirmed, the very future of the MCU depends on a lot of Infinity
War being undone.
What we don't know yet is how the Russo brothers will make that happen.
They could do the obvious and draw directly from the source material, but there are also
other clues in Infinity War that their plan might go in another direction.
We won't know until May of 2019 exactly how they do it, but here are a few of the ways
Infinity War's ending could be reversed.
Daughter of mine
The most obvious answer to how Infinity War's ending could be reversed is to follow the
comics and leave it all up to Nebula.
Infinity War is partly based on the 1991 comic book mini-series Infinity Gauntlet, in which
Thanos collects the six Infinity Stones and erases half the life in the universe with
his infamous snap.
In the comics, however, that all takes place in the beginning of the story.
Near the end, though, Nebula uses Thanos' momentary distraction to take the gauntlet
from him, and one of her first actions is to undo Thanos' actions.
So, all the people Thanos got rid of with his genocidal "snap", and everyone who didn't
survive trying to take the gauntlet from him, are suddenly revived.
Conveniently, Nebula has survived the battle in Infinity War, so that option is still certainly
on the table.
At the same time, though, that might seem a little too obvious an approach for the Russos,
who clearly made a point of diverging from the source material in other ways for Infinity
War, so let's consider some other options as well.
They've got soul
There are a lot of theorists who believe we're going to see a pretty serious soul trade go
down in Infinity War.
In the comics, the Soul Stone contains an entire world full of lost spirits, so some
fans suspect the victims of Infinity War's conclusion didn't really perish but were instead
absorbed into the Soul Stone.
That could include Gamora, given her proximity to the Stone at the moment of her demise.
It's probably no coincidence that most of Infinity War's survivors are core members
of the Avengers whose actor counterparts plan to make this their final Marvel movie.
Just as Thanos had to pay the price of Gamora's life to get the Stone, if the Stone contains
the souls of Thanos' victims, then it may mean some horrible price will have to be paid
to free those victims, and who better to do that than the team that first assembled to
save the universe in the first place.
Vision of the future
Seconds before Corvus Glaive breaks through to the lab in Wakanda, Shuri stops her work
on Vision to very quickly type something into the display before throwing on her gloves
and attacking Corvus.
And since she didn't separate Vision from the Mind Stone, one has to assume that whatever
she was doing, it wasn't finishing that job.
One idea is that Shuri was actually backing up Vision's consciousness just in case the
inevitable happened.
If he's not trapped in the Soul Stone with the rest, due to the fact that he might not
have a soul in the traditional sense, well, he might still be with us in another form
or fashion.
If that's the case, then the Avengers might have an ace up their sleeve they don't know
about.
By preserving Vision's digital consciousness, the team may learn some secrets about the
Stones that even Thanos doesn't know.
After all, Vision did mention feeling like the Stone was talking to him, so perhaps after
being freed from its intensity, his backed-up mind will be clearer and able to give the
Avengers the information they need to reverse Thanos' work.
Here she comes
Captain Marvel is coming, and she may be the key to everything.
The Carol Danvers of the MCU will be different from the comics' version of the character.
Marvel boss Kevin Feige has said Captain Marvel is easily the strongest all the MCU heroes,
whereas in the comics, tons of heroes would technically beat her in that department.
We also know Josh Brolin has confirmed he's filmed scenes with Brie Larson for Avengers
4, so if the post-credits scene wasn't enough of a confirmation, we know for sure that she'll
be in the movie and fighting Thanos.
When Nick Fury saw what was happening, Captain Marvel wasn't one of his calls.
It was his only call, which suggests that Fury knew she was the one for the job.
We won't know the full of extent of her abilities until Avengers 4, or whether they have anything
to do with the reversal, but however Thanos bites the dust, she'll be giving him one of
his biggest bites.
His own worst enemy
In the end, the one who reverses his "victory" may be Thanos itself.
It's been often commented in the comics that Thanos is the cause of his many defeats.
Time and again, the Mad Titan has grasped limitless power that should have allowed him
to brush aside all challengers, but still he failed.
But saying Thanos is his own worst enemy may prove to be more than cliché or metaphor.
Right before he sacrifices Gamora, he tells her that he ignored his destiny once and that
he can't do it again.
Of course, we didn't get to see whatever missed moment he was talking about before, but perhaps
his daughter Nebula did.
Time travel is expected to play a big role in Avengers 4, so if there was a time when
Thanos "ignored" his insane crusade to slaughter half the universe, perhaps Nebula can lead
everyone to it and figure out how to recruit that version of him to join the war against
himself?
Crazier things have happened.
Dream a little dream
It might seem cheap at first, but the idea that everything in the Infinity War was some
kind of sick dream isn't completely unsupported.
Think back when Thanos acquired the Soul Stone.
After Thanos throws Gamora from the edge of the cliff as the ultimate sacrifice of someone
he loves, a bright light issues from the sky above Thanos and envelopes everything.
Then Thanos blacks out and awakens somewhere else with the Soul Stone in hand.
Perhaps that exact moment is when his plan has gone awry.
What if Gamora was right and Thanos didn't actually love anything enough to earn the
stone?
If so, Thanos waking up in a different place may have indicated that he failed the test
and was instead in the interior of the Soul Stone, dreaming out his supposed fate as the
master of the universe.
It's pretty unlikely, but we'll have to wait to find out for sure next year when Avengers
4 hits theaters.
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