Avengers 4 won’t hit theaters until May 2019, but that hasn’t stopped fans from spinning up their own potential spoilers for the movie pretty much non-stop since the credits rolled on Infinity War (rewatch one of the movie’s best moments in the video above). It’s become such a popular pastime that Reddit’s Fan Theories community relegated all Marvel posts to Monday just to contain them, turning everyone’s least favorite day of the week into a sort of Battle Royale for Avengers 4 theories and rumors.
With that in mind, we thought it might be fun to run through some of the biggest Avengers 4 fan theories shared this week, ranked from best to worst based on both entertainment value and the likelihood that they’ll actually happen.
Marvel's Thanos
The Snap Created Two Alternate Realities
This is a pretty great post from redditor u/m2cool2go that wonders if instead of simply killing half the universe, Thanos seperated life into two parallel dimensions.
“I have a theory that the snap did not kill half of life in the universe,” u/m2cool2go writes, “but rather it created two alternate realities of the same universe. Each reality therefore exists with half of all life in it. The dissolving that is seen at the end of infinity war is as seen from a single reality but the equal and opposite could be seen from the other reality”
Not only does that mean your favorite heroes aren’t really dead, it also means that the end of Infinity Way might not have payed out the way we think.
“This also gives them the flexibility that though the closing scenes show some very dramatic deaths,” u/m2cool2go continues. “There is no way to know which scenes are tied to which version of reality. This means that Tony Stark and Nick Fury could be in the same reality even though the viewer saw Tony ‘live’ and fury dissolve.”
As for Avengers, if this awesome theory is correct than the Avengers will presumably find a way to travel between realities (probably using the Quantum Realm) so they can reunite and defeat Thanos.
It might not be the most likely scenario (time travel seems all but guaranteed by now) but it’s not totally impossible either, and it would make for a pretty awesome twist.
BARF is Better Than Time Travel
Here’s another anti-time travel theory that instead leans heavily on BARF (Tony Stark’s Binary Augmented Retro Framing technology from Civil War that makes it possible to implant false memories in people’s minds).
According to redditor u/Autarkous, Ant-Man and Iron Man could use the Quantum Realm to send fake memories into past versions of key characters. So it’s not exactly time travel, even if it sort of still is.
BARF allows Tony to experience memories as if he were there. Could they use that in 'Avengers 4'?
“The Russo aren’t the type to use cheap time Travel for Retcon purposes,” u/Autarkous writes. “They love to narratively put themselves in a corner, BARF is a perfect Device to do that.”
This Avengers 4 theory feels a little more believable than the last one, though it’s still a pretty big stretch. It might also make for a pretty boring movie if the entire thing is just Tony Stark and Scott Lang messing with people’s memories.
Scarlet Witch = The Reality Stone?
“Has anyone noticed how similar Scarlet Witch and the reality Stone are?” asks redditor u/11_Apollo_22. “Could this potentially be a ruse to manipulate Thanos?”
Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in 'Avengers: Infinity War.'
The argument here is that the Scarlet Witch might be able to warp Thanos’s perception of reality in the same way she did to the Avengers in Age of Ultron. That would mean the end of Infinity War didn’t actually happen, putting the entire plot of Avengers 4 up for debate.
As the commenters pointed out, it’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t really hold up when you consider the plot.
Why Thor Missed
There’s been a lot of speculation over why Thor’s hammer didn’t kill Thanos on impact at the end of Infinity War. Did the God of Thunder misjudge his enemy’s strength or was he just trying to land the final blow from closer so he could really enjoy it?
The new poster 'Thor: Ragnarok'gives off some serious 'Gladiator' vibes.
Redditor u/ironjozef offers another, simpler theory, writing, “Thor has bad aim because he only has one eye.”
Sorry, they can’t all be winners.
Avengers 4 hits theaters on May 3, 2019.*
