Marvel fans were devastated last April after the much anticipated release of Avengers: Infinity War revealed that Thanos had succeeded in collecting all of the Infinity Stones and erased half of all life from the universe. The last moments of the film showed that many of the heroes were among that number, with Black Panther, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, the Winter Soldier, Wanda Maximoff, Falcon, and all the Guardians of the Galaxy crew, bar Rocket, being dusted.
Then come the end credits scene, showing Nick Fury and Agent Maria Hill also disappearing with a final expletive from Fury as he went. And while that scene set up a potential save from another as-yet-unseen hero in the Marvel Universe — Captain Marvel — it also led one fan to believe the entire snap was actually a clever ploy from the Avengers themselves.
According to Comic Book , a Redditor feels that “Thanos’ snap was nothing more than a red herring.”
After watching that end credits scene, the Redditor feels that there is somewhat of a time discrepancy in that scene. As it starts, Maria Hill says she has just received information that Thanos’ warriors had just entered Earth’s atmosphere over the hidden African nation of Wakanda.
But as they point out, it’s no more than a minute later that a car veers off course seemingly without anyone driving it and a helicopter crashes into a nearby building. Seconds later, Hill and Fury also start turning to dust.
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Realistically, there is no way that painful battle on the soil of Wakanda took less than a minute.
Remember, Thanos wasn’t even on that fleet of ships, only arriving after they had decided to drop the barrier to the city and let his army through. Then there was a battle with Captain America, Wanda having to kill Vision to destroy the Soul Stone, Thanos undoing that and taking it anyway, and Thor jumping in with his new weapon, Stormbreaker, and not quite hitting the right mark. And that’s just the shortened version.
Instead, the Reddit user proposes a very different theory that seems to be a bit of a stretch. The Redditor believe that instead of it being a result of Thanos accomplishing his goal, the sudden disappearance of half the world’s population is a result of the Avengers themselves sending millions of people to another dimension.
What the purpose of such a move would be was not quite explained, except to say that it is to protect them from Thanos and the Decimation, since he had a fully-intact Infinity Gauntlet.
The Redditor argues that the post-credits scene with Fury and Hill actually takes place in Endgame , where an explanation for these actions will hopefully then also be offered.
Luckily fans won’t have to wait very long to find out if there is any way this theory holds water. After the release of Captain Marvel in the upcoming week, Avengers: Endgame is being released in theaters on April 26, hopefully with the undoing of the snap and the return of our heroes.
