It seems like everyone has a theory about what will happen in the highly anticipated
Avengers: Infinity War follow-up... and they're all varying degrees of plausibly implausible.
But no matter how possible or impossible these theories seem to be when held up to the light
of scrutiny, that doesn't stop us from checking to see if each one is fresh or a real stinker.
As such, the latest Avengers 4 theory to gain traction on Reddit where else? has us checking
our back-issues to see what's what.
User PhobeterWorse posted a theory that claims that characters like the Fantastic Four and
mutants like the characters from the X-Men franchise have always existed in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, but that they'll be introduced in Avengers 4 following a reversal of Thanos'
snap that killed half of all living beings.
The details of the theory are very, very complicated.
In order to work, it relies on a few different ideas.
For the Fantastic Four's introduction, the theory relies on supergenius Reed Richards
and the rest of the FF having been off exploring the Negative Zone, unbeknownst to the rest
of the world.
When the snap is undone, they'll be ripped back into our Earth, at which point an already-established
Fantastic Four can rejoin the MCU that they've secretly always been a part of.
The mutants of the MCU, meanwhile, have an even more complicated set-up.
In the theory's telling of the MCU's hidden history, SHIELD of the 1950s and '60s created
some kind of bomb to give people superpowers, but it didn't seem to work.
Then, as the people hit with the bomb's energy passed their slightly altered genes to their
kids, the wave of energy released by the reversed snap makes the MCU's mutants.
"NO!
I'M A MUTANT!"
Or at least, that's what it all seems to suggest.
The ins and outs of Reddit theories can be tough to decipher, and we won't pretend to
know if we're getting the thing exactly right.
"What?
Huh?"
But there's at least a few kernels of possibility here.
For starters, as PhobeterWorse points out, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has hinted
that future Avengers films will be more space-centric...if the Avengers survive, that is.
That gives us a clear path for the Fantastic Four's arrival from some kind of extra-terrestrial
setting.
Then again, this theory is just that: a theory.
Introducing characters like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four would definitely change
the MCU in a major way.
And fans are driving themselves crazy trying to figure out how Marvel Studios will work
them in, now that Marvel's parent company, Walt Disney Studios, is finally closing in
on acquiring Fox and all the movie rights to Marvel characters that it owns.
It's really only a matter of time until the X-Men and the Fantastic Four enter the MCU
and fans definitely expect them to make an appearance.
After all, Feige once discussed the importance of featuring new and different characters
in Marvel movies in the future:
"[Evolving Marvel movies is] the most important thing, and that's what you've seen happen
over the past 20 films, different genres, different heroes, heroes maybe you've heard
of if you'd read comics, heroes you might not have ever heard of even if you did read
comics."
But considering Avengers 4 wrapped principal photography ages ago since directors Joe and
Anthony Russo shot Infinity War and Avengers 4 back to back fans probably won't see hide
nor hair of the X-Men or the Fantastic Four when the film drops in May 2019.
Even still, there stands a chance that the Avengers 4 story could set up the possibility
of that happening somewhere down the line.
And it has happened before.
Don't forget, the aftermath of the first Avengers film with all the dead aliens and leftover
tech led to the events that created the Vulture and his crew in Spider-Man: Homecoming…
despite writer-director Joss Whedon having no idea that Sony and Marvel would ever work
out their differences to bring Spidey into the MCU.
It worked then, so it can probably work now.
So how will the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the rest of Marvel's mutants make their
way to the MCU?
Well, we've got a big purple dude who can snap his hot dog fingers and change the very
fabric of reality in an instant.
So it doesn't really need to any more complicated than that...if you think about it with your
brain, that is.
"The brain is a muscle and this is a muscle and they are all muscles so I'm covered in
brains so I've got more brains than you."