Marvel Studios is known for planning ahead in their MCU storytelling, but this new Reddit theory goes as far as to argue that a major clue for how things will play out in next year’s Avengers 4 may have been buried way back in 2012’s The Avengers, when Earth’s Mightiest heroes first foiled the plans of Thanos.
A fan going by the username ch671 offers an elaborate suggestion of how Tony Stark will undo the events of Avengers: Infinity War, and as with so many Marvel theories that came before it, this one involves a little time travel. Specifically, the new post builds on the popular prediction that Iron Man will be traveling back in time to retrieve all of the Infinity Stones, and since the Battle of New York is all but confirmed to feature again in the upcoming release, ch671 speculates that not only will Stark journey back to this time, but he’ll performing a dark little switcheroo at the moment where his past self appeared to cheat death:
“Tony Stark actually died when he went through the portal and the future Tony Stark replaced him and made it back through time at that exact moment! Remember this was the only chance Tony from the future had to switch places with the Tony from the past. The portal closed on him as he was about to fall through so he was actually left stranded in space. Or he was somewhere in between. Could those two seconds of yellow lightning have anything to do with the quantum realm/time travel. We know from Ant Man and the Wasp that Quantum realm is yellowish in color, exactly like those two seconds.”
It’s perhaps worth noting that earlier this year, Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon admitted he didn’t really have a good idea of what to do with Thanos, suggesting that he probably wasn’t planning ahead to the Mad Titan’s two big movies. But if we play along with this suggestion that the yellow flash was the sign of a time travel twist, the Redditor elaborates on the theory further:
“How can there be a Tony from the future if Tony died in the portal? This one is obvious. The original Tony was supposed to come back but Tony from the future realized it’s better to switch suits and let the old Tony die. Maybe everything that happened after Avengers 1 happened because Tony Stark from future made it back. In an alternate universe where the old Tony died and the future Tony didn’t make it back, things go a lot worse for Avengers without Tony. Maybe that’s why he sees a vision of them dead in Avengers 2 and decides to build Ultron. Maybe Dr. Strange knows Tony from Infinity war HAS to make the trip back in time to ensure things go as they do, and that’s the only one in 14 million chance that they have. Obviously this is time-paradoxical and very hypothetical but since when has something like that stopped sci-fi movies from imagining.”
It’s a knotty theory that arguably collapses under its own logic. But while this paradoxical plan is just one of many suggestions for how next year’s release could play out – and probably not the most plausible prediction, either – it’s still a fun and imaginative idea that suggests the kind of twists that the Russo Brothers could be bringing if they’re really intending to take the time travel route.
In any case, we’ll see if Tony Stark is as doomed as so many fans seem to think when Avengers 4 hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.
