It’s generally believed that next year’s Avengers 4 will be some sort of time travel adventure, with Earth’s surviving heroes traveling back to the MCU’s past. But how does big villain Thanos fit into all of that?

Avengers 4 will follow on directly from last year’s Avengers: Infinity War; in fact, Infinity War’s cliffhanger was almost the sequel’s opening scene. That means the movie will explore the impact the “snap” that killed half the universe has had on the world, an event that will understandably have given the surviving heroes a “harder edge.” We’re likely to see a lot of tragedy and pain, particularly from Hawkeye; set photos have teased that he’ll adopt the identity of Ronin, one he took in the comics after the deaths of his family. Ultimately, though, leaked art has confirmed that the Avengers will unite with Captain Marvel and Ant-Man in a cosmic adventure that will bring an end to the MCU’s Phase 3.

That leaked also featured Thanos, and despite him being the cause for billions of deaths, there’s not been too much thought put on how the Mad Titan fits into Avengers 4. Of course, that may be because Avengers 4 is a very mysterious, and very complicated film.

  • This Page: Avengers 4 is Still Thanos’s Story Page 2: How Thanos Could Factor Into Avengers 4

Time Travel Has To Be About Undoing The Snap

There’s abundant evidence that Avengers 4 will see Earth’s surviving heroes step back in time, revisiting a number of key movies. Set photos have shown several heroes in older costumes, while Paul Rudd was spotted on the set of a scene evoking the Battle of New York. Of course, we don’t yet know what approach the MCU will take to time-travel; can the past even be changed? Will the heroes instead unwittingly create myriad alternate timelines? Or is it instead the case that the future is fixed, and that the heroes’ best efforts are doomed to failure? Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5 explored some ideas of temporal mechanics within the context of the MCU, but the movies won’t be bound by the TV shows.

It’s generally believed that the key to time travel in the MCU is found in the Quantum Realm. This mysterious plane of reality was introduced in 2015’s Ant-Man, and represents Marvel’s toying with theories of quantum mechanics. Scientists theorize that, should you shrink beyond subatomic size, the normal laws of time and space would cease to apply. In theory, then, access to the Quantum Realm would allow heroes to revisit the past, and thus reshape the present. Significantly, Ant-Man & the Wasp’s mid-credits scene included a tantalizing reference to “time vortexes” that exist inside the Quantum Realm, providing an accessible way to travel through time.

But why are the Avengers traveling through time in the first place? So far, set photos and costumes have suggested they’ll revisit a selection of previous films, including The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Those are films that featured Infinity Stones, so it looks as though the heroes are either attempting to acquire them in order to undo the “snap,” or else remove them from the timeline so Thanos never gets his hands on them. But, of course, it’s possible the Avengers will launch side-quests as well; one of those could easily be an attempt to kill Thanos, defeating him before he ever gets the chance to acquire an Infinity Stone.

Thanos Is Still The Villain Of Avengers 4

Avengers 4 may no longer be a “Part 2,” but it clearly follows on from the events of Avengers: Infinity War - and, as such, it’s the continuation of Thanos’s story. Indeed, Marvel promised this to viewers at the end of the credits with a “Thanos will return” text card. That’s supported by details from the production of Avengers 4. Although there are no set photos teasing Thanos’s actions - the character is CGI, after all - we do know that Josh Brolin was on set from July 2017 through to November. That’s longer than he spent filming the part of Cable for Deadpool 2, giving a sense of Thanos’s importance to Avengers 4. When production wrapped, the Russo brothers shared an image of an Avengers 4 wrap cake on social media, one featuring Thanos at its center.

All this means that, ultimately, Thanos will remain as big a threat in Avengers 4 as he was in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s true that his role will probably be different; he was essentially the star of Avengers: Infinity War, right down to his own twisted version of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. In contrast, Avengers 4 is expected to focus more on the classic Avengers, all of whom survived the “snap,” meaning Thanos will be a more traditional form of antagonist. But that still doesn’t come close to explaining how he could factor into a time-travel adventure.

Page 2 of 2: All the Possible Ways Thanos Could Factor Into Avengers 4

Possibility 1: Thanos Travels in Time Using the Time Stone

The most likely possibility is that Thanos somehow learns what the Avengers are doing and attempts to stop them. In the comics, the bearer of the Infinity Gauntlet traditionally has a high degree of cosmic awareness, so it’s certainly not difficult to imagine Thanos realizing that reality is fluctuating slightly due to changes being made in the past. Naturally, he’d want to do everything he could to prevent the Avengers from rewriting history so the “snap” never happened, and given Thanos has possession of the Time Stone, he can get involved without the Quantum Realm.

The Avengers seem to be visiting multiple time-periods, so it’s reasonable to assume they split up. That would explain why only an older Tony Stark and Scott Lang have been seen on sets from the Battle of New York, for example. Some of these teams would be able to fight back against the Mad Titan if he arrived on the scene; Thanos would no doubt find any team featuring an older Thor, armed with Stormbreaker, to be a real threat. But others, like Stark and Lang, would be seriously outclassed. In Avengers: Infinity War, Stark struggled to do any more than draw a single drop of blood - in spite of wearing his most powerful armor to date.

Further, if Thanos does step into other time-periods, it’s possible there will be a fearsome cost. For example, if Thanos were to target Stark and Lang in 2012, he’d probably find himself confronted with the Avengers of that time. There’s no reason he wouldn’t kill them, potentially causing untold damage to the time-space continuum and even creating all-new timelines. Depending on the MCU’s model of time-travel, this could get pretty confusing.

Possibility 2: The Avengers Fight Thanos in the Present

A second possibility, though, is that Thanos battles the Avengers in the present day. We don’t know much about the MCU’s version of time-travel; it’s quite possible that the Avengers could need a sort of “base of operations” in the present, one from which they coordinate their exploits through time. If that is the case, and if Thanos were to discover that, then no doubt he’d launch a devastating attack upon it. That could be another explanation for why we’ve only seen evidence that some of the Avengers travel in time; perhaps the rest stay to act as guards. Thor, armed with Stormbreaker, would be a particularly potent defender. Captain Marvel, who’s been teased as Marvel’s most powerful hero yet, could also serve in this capacity.

This would fit with a comment made by Brolin, in which he jokingly noted that the CGI process “starts messing with your head.” As he observed, “I’m Josh, who’s got dots on him, and a onesie, and a helmet can, and I’ve got Scarlett right there, and I’ve got Brie, and Don Cheadle, and Hemsworth, and Chris Evans, and Downey…” Most viewers assume he’s referencing a single scene in which Thanos battles Black Widow, Captain Marvel, War Machine, Captain America, and even Iron Man himself. This setup would be a logical way to get to that point.

The Avengers Fight Thanos in the Past

This is the third, and perhaps the most interesting, possibility; that the Avengers could actually encounter past versions of Thanos. There are two ways this could happen; the first is intentional; if the Avengers decided to target him and try to take him out before he ever acquired an Infinity Stone. The second, though, would be accidental; if the heroes really are traveling through time in pursuit of Infinity Stones, it stands to reason they’d cross paths with Thanos and his agents. That would explain why both Karen Gillan and Zoe Saldana have been spotted in costumes they wore during Guardians of the Galaxy, back when both characters (ostensibly) worked for Thanos. If the Avengers interfered with their pursuit of the Orb (containing the Power Stone), there’s a chance Thanos would learn of it, and thus head out to confront these mysterious interlopers personally.

This theory may explain how Thanos recognized Tony Stark in Avengers: Infinity War; he’s met him before, albeit out-of-sequence. Thanos’s dialogue in that scene was oddly specific, drawing an explicit parallel between the two in the acknowledgment that both are somehow “cursed with knowledge.” It’s true that the screenwriters have claimed that Thanos researched Stark due to his important role in the Battle of New York, but that doesn’t rule out a prior encounter (after all, Marvel insiders are currently attempting to persuade viewers that the deaths in Avengers: Infinity War will last, in spite of the fact the film killed characters we know will return).

There’s something really disturbing about this last suggestion, though. If Thanos really had already met Stark, then it suggests the Avengers won’t be able to rewrite history at all; their attempt to do so was already an established part of the timeline. That means the final battle will take place against the Thanos of the present day, with the Avengers undoing the “snap” somehow rather than erasing it from history altogether.

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Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the time travel theory is that any one of these ideas could work in a totally satisfying manner. It’s true that some demand a certain degree of flexibility in the MCU when it comes to the shared universe’s “laws” of time-travel, but the MCU - just like the comics - has never really handled its pseudo-science in a consistent manner. Just look at the Pym Particles: does a person retain their mass when they shrink, or not? The MCU is scientifically consistent, right up until the moment it isn’t. That principle will probably apply to time-travel as well.

Right now, only one thing is truly certain; Thanos is still the main villain of Avengers 4. There’s no way he’ll ignore the Avengers’ attempt to rewrite history, and - given he’s still armed with the Infinity Gauntlet - the heroes are in for their toughest challenge yet.

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