Avengers: Endgame countdown hits 100 days, so here are some wild theories
After Infinity War was released, we made some guesses about what might happen next.
There are just 100 days to go until the biggest movie event of the year (for some of us, that is): Avengers: Endgame arrives April 26, as the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes on the heels of last year's record-breaking Avengers: Infinity War. And fans have a lot of opinions about what's going to go down, from time travel to Quantum Realms to some mysterious way out of the Soul Stone. Even though we just got our first trailer for at Spider-Man: Far From Home and the suspicious case of Mysterio therein, a lot of questions remain about what to expect from the fourth Avengers outing.
That includes those of us at CNET! After Infinity War, some staff members shared their predictions for the sequel. Warning: They're not all brilliant and they're not all entirely truthful. But they're all definitely very fun to read. It's also important to note that they were written in a simpler time, before Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was officially put on hold, before Avengers 4 had an actual name and before the Fox-Disney deal had been approved. Enjoy this snapshot in time. (And it should go without saying but there are spoilers ahead!)
Iron Man and the remaining Avengers will concoct an elaborate plan to steal back the Time Stone and beat Thanos at his own game. But how will the mere humans among them ever plan such a clever scheme without Peter Quill/Star Lord's help?!?! (Since his 50 percent alien DNA makes him that much better at scheming, he said.)
All of the dead Avengers will remain dead (the franchises will continue with replacement heroes), and Iron Man will die in a last-ditch attempt to defeat Thanos. -- Ty Pendlebury
Thanos is a big baddie but he reports to a bigger baddie. A bargain will need to be struck with that individual to get our beloved Spider-Man and others back. Evidently Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) fits in somewhere. -- Tristan Rinehart
What's going to happen to the MCU post-Avengers 4? After a climactic passing of the guard with everyone with expiring contracts and no more MCU interest departing, the cosmic universe and Earth folks will split up. The cosmic heroes will become more ridiculous and expansive while the Earth heroes become more grounded, with a shift in focus toward a younger generation of heroes (Spider-Man, the informally but totally actually announced Kamala Khan, etc.) with Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange taking the roles as the older, experienced heroes.
It's hard to do another world-or-universe threatening event after half the universe has been killed, so things will be dialed back before the Fox deal is done and the X-Men and Fantastic Four ramp things back up. -- Morgan Little
Thor says no mortal can wield dwarven-forged items like the Infinity Gauntlet and Stormbreaker. My money's on Captain America making the ultimate sacrifice to make things right again. Gamora will probably be brought back to life, negating any character development opportunities for Star Lord in GOTG3 and annoying me immensely for pressing "DELETE" on the immense stakes in Infinity War (unless she comes back and murders Quill for being such a stupid idiot in Infinity War, in which case I am here for it).
Tony Stark will get his happy ending with Pepper and their baby, but get out of the action hero business. He'll still make cameos in future MCU phases as a tech genius/mentor to the Avengers though. (RDJ would be insane to turn down the paycheck Marvel will offer him for fan service cameos and smaller roles, like his turn in Spider-Man: Homecoming.) Shuri will take over as the main mad scientist of the universe. And rightly so, she's smarter than Bruce Banner, Tony and Vision!
We'll start seeing new heroes and focus on their origins, with a new threat getting bread-crumbed across the Phase 4 movies. I'm guessing if the Fox deal goes through, Silver Surfer will be the main villain. If not? Galactus. Oh, and Okoye will finally get that Starbucks in Wakanda.
P.S. Captain Marvel, please be cool and kick-ass. I'm begging you. -- Ashley Esqueda
We have to understand that Infinity War is an anagram for "Warn If I Tiny."
Now, think about it. Who, in the Marvel universe, is "Tiny"? Someone with the ability to change their size to small and also has a successful franchise for Disney to ride on?
That's right, Mister Robert "Iron Man" DeNiro Junior himself, Tiny Stork. So in the first Disney Presents Marvel's Avengers: Assemble Team United We Fight War, we see Iron Man leave a small clue that the average moviegoer might have missed.
Now, I might be making a mountain out of an ant hill, but mountains have always been more impressive than ant hills. (Who cares about ants anyway?) You don't see people bragging about climbing ant hills, dude, they don't even make awards for that.
So, in this scene from Captain America: The First Avenger, Howard Stark, a thinly veiled reference to Howard the Duck, he reveals he's Tiny's dad.
Using the Time Rock, we fast forward to 300 years later, and it's Infinity War -- Iron Man was rescued by Steven Strange, M.D., who tells Stork that it was the only way. Remember, he had seen 14 million ways for this to play out.
So, with those kinds of odds, it's most likely that the Avengers actually fail. But as an accomplished statistician, you should realize that those odds actually increased once Tano wipes out half of the universe -- INCLUDING HALF OF THE ODDS!
Which means that the Avengers actually now have a 2 in 7 million chance of winning -- doubling their chances of overthrowing the Titan Man Tano.
I think Tano knows this too -- he also has the Time Rock and most likely also viewed all the possible futures. Knowing that he actually increased their odds of winning, Tano is smart -- he will actually undo all of it HIMSELF so that it's back down to a 1 in 14 million chance.
But he's new to the Time Rock, remember, that only Steven Strange, M.D., was able to properly harness it. So Tano overshoots the time reverse, and he actually goes all the way back to Captain America: First Avenger, before he was born.
This also restarts the MCU cycle, which moves Marvel onto Phase 2, bringing in beloved characters like Kingdom Heart from Disney and Bowser from Wreck-It Ralph 2. -- Alfred Ng
The lines between Captain America and Vision will be called back in the most Captain America way possible, with Steve sacrificing himself to save one of his friends. Since Chris Evans' contract is over at the end of Avengers 4 and Cap's partners, Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, are waiting in the wings, it'll be a significant, meaningful send off for Cap and Evans. -- Donovan Farnham
They've gotta be setting up a last ride of the original Avengers. All of the heroes from the first movie are still alive. I'd love to see them take on a suicide mission together to bring back the rest. Maybe an Ocean's 11 heist combined with Dirty Dozen desperation?
Biggest deal to me: I really want some of the consequences from Infinity War to stick. I think they'll bring back Gamora since her soul is technically still alive in the soul stone. And obviously they'll reverse the whole erasure of half of the universe, so the only truly dead folks will be the ones who died in that opening scene. Accepting that, I really want Avengers 4 to force consequences for hitting undo. If they have to trade lives to any extent, I'm game. If they just hit undo then get to spend the second half of the movie in another big battle where it's clear the stakes don't matter, I'll be really angry. I'd also like a surprise death; I'll be disappointed if it's just Cap. -- Andrew Gebhart
Since sequels to Black Panther and Spider-Man are absolutely happening, I think Avengers 4 will see the remaining heroes fighting to save everyone who disintegrated. We'll learn that Thanos didn't destroy half the universe, but instead he imprisoned them all inside of the Soul Stone. Then, instead of reversing things so everyone leaves the Soul Stone, the surviving Avengers will actually make the rest of the universe fit inside of the stone with the half that are already in there, turning the MCU as we know it into a pocket universe (sort of like the ending to Men in Black that revealed their galaxy was inside of a marble).
Finally, a few remaining Avengers -- likely Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and any other character played by an actor who isn't going to continue making Marvel movies -- will stay on the original Earth and guard the Soul Stone, protecting it from any other villainous threats that wish to harm it. That way, those heroes are removed from the field gracefully, while still being considered a vital part of the timeline. -- Mike Sorrentino
As you can see, we don't know much more than you do about what's to come. Plus, Spidey has thrown many of these entirely off the track now! So what do you think is about to come for the heroes in Endgame?
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