How I would conclude the next Avengers movie

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

I’m going to be discussing major spoilers for the end of “Infinity War,” so be warned (although I don’t know why. Chances are huge you’ve seen it already.)

So basically Thanos won. He wiped out almost every superhero that was introduced post the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and almost all of the Guardians as well. Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Doc Strange, every Guardian but Rocket…it’s a bloodbath except no blood. That would certainly explain why Marvel has been coy about its slate of upcoming movies. Common sense would seem to indicate that they’re not going to leave newcomers like Doc Strange or the Black Panther, who set worldwide box office records before “Infinity War” shattered them, on the dust heap of the Mad Titan’s answer to overpopulation. If they do, then that’s a pretty gutsy move and everything from here on is moot. But if they don’t, they must have a plan to bring them back.

Here’s what I would do.

I would have Captain Marvel meet up with Adam Warlock, whose presence was first hinted at in the closing credits of “Guardians 2.” She convinces him to aid her in her battle against Thanos. Along for the ride is the ectoplasmic form of Doctor Strange, who bailed out right before his body disappeared. Marv, Doc, Warlock and whoever else is still alive square off against Thanos. Warlock manages to pry the Soul stone from the Gauntlet. Gamora emerges from it and zaps the ever-loving crap out of Thanos. Perhaps even stabs him with that knife of hers. Warlock removes the Gauntlet, puts it on, and uses the power to undo everything that the Gauntlet was responsible for, which would bring back everyone except Loki and Heimdall who were killed without the Infinity Gauntlet.

That’s what I would do.

PAD

51 comments on “How I would conclude the next Avengers movie”

  2. I’m wondering if they’re going to do a fake out for Homecoming 2 and imply that Miles is the new Spider-Man and Shuri for Black Panther

  3. I like it. My only suggestion to plot would be to jump forward a year. iron Man and Rocket have built a new Guardians of the Galaxy to locate Thanos, The Avengers have been working damage control on earth. Cap Marvel is the bridge to connect both groups.

    I would also like to explore the idea that maybe earth is better off without half its population. Obviously people are grieving the loss of loved ones, but there is no housing crisis anymore. No lines, no clogged roads full of cars, more than enough jobs to employ everyone, teacher student ratio is vastly approved and taxes are down due to less need for a huge military and overburdened social services. Let’s not forget the reduced carbon footprint.

    The Avengers want to undo all that, to take Utopia and undo it and return us to the status quo.

    3. THE flaw to Thanos’s plan is that it’s, at the very best, a brief stopgap. It won’t take that long for populations to get back to where they were. Current human population: 7.4 billion. We were at half that in 1970. So is Thanos planning to snap his finger again just 48 years from now?
      .
      And if half the people did just vanish the remaining people wouldn’t just smile and enjoy plentiful jobs and uncrowded highways. They’d go bûgfûçk crazy. Millions would decide the Rapture happened and left them behind, so since they’re already dámņëd they might as well act like it. Millions other wouldn’t need a religious motive to decide society is over and rules don’t count any more.
      .
      I’m short, lots of bad times ahead.

      1. That’s Earth, not every other civilization. The growth rates may be different, even vastly slower, with other species on other worlds.
        .
        The likelihood is he knows it’s a stopgap measure at best, but he may also presume that the worlds he “saves” will look at what he’s done, see the results, and come around to his way of thinking; especially those like the ones he referenced in the film that went from starvation to sustainability.
        .
        He also likely has no issue with doing it again in 50 to 100 years.

      2. @Jerry Chandler: “That’s Earth, not every other civilization. The growth rates may be different, even vastly slower, with other species on other worlds.”
        .
        Sure. But Chris was writing about Earth, hence my Earth-centric response. And even there I was aware that different species here reproduce at different rates, many much faster than humans as may also be the case on other worlds.
        .
        So my point remains true. Thanos’s plan to bring “balance” by removing half the life in the universe will be completely undone is a VERY short time span, especially if we’re talking about things on universal scales.

      3. Uhm… Okay. I specified that we were talking Earth because I knew you were talking Earth. But we’re also talking Thanos and his plan.
        .
        Of course, after emphasizing you were talking about Earth, you posted this.
        .
        “So my point remains true. Thanos’s plan to bring “balance” by removing half the life in the universe will be completely undone is a VERY short time span, especially if we’re talking about things on universal scales.”
        .
        So we’re back to talking the universe as a whole and that brings us back to my point. You can’t judge the plan for the universe based on Earth centric knowledge.
        .
        Other species may have longer lives, lower birth rates, different gestational periods, and even “seasons” for mating. They won’t repopulate at the same rate.
        .
        His plan for his world was removing half the world’s population. We have no idea how the stones would work, but half the population of the universe may not mean 50% gone from every planet.
        .
        The power in the stones may have allowed some adjustments on the broader stage. Beings that repopulate slower may have kept slightly more than half while faster breeding species may have lost slightly more than half.
        .
        But even if we stay at 50/50 for every creature on every planet, we can’t use the past century as a guide on Earth. We’ve seen a decrease in birthrates in several countries. That will factor in.
        .
        But there is also the issue of his plan having a flaw. His assumption is that intelligent species will likely see the wisdom in his act once it happens and more carefully monitor population growth once they see his utopia. Some may, some certainly won’t.
        .
        Also, for worlds like the Earth of the MCU, you have to factor in technology. Did the stones account for that?
        .
        We know that Earth is ahead of ours when it comes to tech to provide energy and likely where food production is concerned. It also has tech that’s way closer to space travel. Does all that qualify as “resources” when the stones are at work? Would we keep more while less advanced civilizations lose more because we can feed more with the same amount of land and are closer to being able to mine resources from outside the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere? Does “cleaner” energy factor into balancing a world and its resources?
        .
        I mean, we may not enact population control but I doubt we dump advances we’ve made with hybridization of food crops or technological advancements geared towards making more out of less. We certainly won’t stop striving for advancements in those things.
        .
        If the stones carried out the desire of Thanos based on the reasoning of Thanos, then other things factored into it and 50% of life in the universe, a “true” attempt at balance, might not mean 50% per planet.

      4. Let me explain that in a simpler way.
        .
        Thanos without the stones carried out his plan on a few worlds in the only limited way he could. He would seek out the worlds trembling on the brink due to the population outstripping the resources and randomly slaughter 50% of the population.
        .
        Okay.
        .
        But, you know what? I think we can safely assume he passed up visiting a few worlds here and there. Why would he feel the need to “save” worlds that were closer to where we were 10,000 to 15,000 years ago? If he saw a world with almost no significant population on it living like the North American Indian tribes did thousands of years before the Europeans came to the land; where’s the need to save a civilization from overpopulation and outstripping resources?
        .
        Now, he has the stones. The stones will carry out his desire for the universe, and they’re likely guided by more than just a flat 50% per world removal of life. Why, because of the rationale of why he wants to do what he wants the stones for.
        .
        Use this as an example.
        .
        There are three worlds we’re looking at. One is Earth, and the other two are very much like Earth in almost every way. They’re nearly identical in size, abundance of resources, etc.
        .
        We’re the planet in the middle. We’re based on our reality and not MCU reality, so dealing with everything as it actually is.
        .
        To our left is a world where the dominant civilizations are one hundred thousand years older than ours. But, for whatever reason, they missed out on crucial technological advances. As far as technology goes, they’re only two hundred years ahead of us at best.
        .
        They’re really good with medical advances, though, and their people have had a history of living longer and healthier lives. As such, they have reached a point where they have four to five times the population we have, and they’ve been a world of industrialized nations for far longer than us. They’ve gone well past the critical saturation point where population is outstripping resources, and they’ve in fact used so many of their natural resources up. They’ve used up so much of their resources that 50% of the population might not bring them down to safe levels where resources are again “abundant” or where some resources (like land bled of nutrients from over farming) may take too long to recover with 50% of the population remaining.
        .
        To our right is a world that’s barely populated and the highest form of dominant life is about on par with Cro-Magnon 45,000 to 50,000 years ago. There’s no technology, there’s no industrialization. Natural resources are abundant and largely untouched.
        .
        There’s no need to “save” this civilization. As a matter of fact, removing 50% of the population at random could endanger it. You may remove the best hunters and protectors. You could remove 50% of the population and bring the numbers so low that an upcoming natural disaster causing a famine, a plague, or a once in a generation super winter that’s far colder and a little longer than the average could endanger their survival by killing off a quarter to a third of the population. Sure, that percentage may have died before, but you’re now removing even more from their depleted numbers. You could see multiple tribes wiped out by the chain of events.
        .
        So you have one world where wiping out 50% of the population wouldn’t solve the problems that Thanos sees the need to address, one world where wiping out 50% of the population might achieve the effect he wants, and a third world where there is no realistic need to wipe out anyone, let alone 50% of the population. If the stones are guided by the desire behind his actions, they’re not hitting 50% of the population on each of the three worlds. It simply wouldn’t achieve the balance he wants. To do what he wants done, it may be more of a 75% deal on the one world, 50% to 55% on Earth, and 5% if anything at all on the third world.
        .
        While our heroes kept talking about it like it was half the population of every world, I’m not sure you can apply that to the goal of bringing balance to the universe. To carry out Thanos’s will, some worlds would need more of their population removed, some less, and probably only a relative few an exact 50%.
        .
        The Earth of the MCU is probably at that 50% point given its population vs resources and tech. Our Earth would probably be a 60% to 65% solution.

    4. Hold on a minute. Look at this a bit more closely. Teacher-student ratios? But half of all the teachers died as well as half of all the students! Abundant food? But half of all the farmers died. Selecting purely at random, how many children have been orphaned? Consider, too, the secondary wave of deaths: planes, trains and cars crashing, folks dying in hospitals as key medical personnel vanish. What happened in the first crucial minutes when military personnel assume that this is an attack by and the bombs start flying in retaliation? I don’t see any utopia here.

      1. His plan to his people was have it totally random, but, while still along those lines, the stones likely allowed some level of intelligence to guide it. Some of those actions may have been more controlled.
        .
        Also, this is a world with superheroes and a history of alien visitation and invasion. I seriously doubt the military is launching missiles and dropping bombs randomly once people start turning to dust. Their first response would be to gather Intel on the attack, and within moments they would discover this is a worldwide event.
        .
        As for everything else that would go wrong…
        .
        Countries have seen wars that did more damage and bounced back.

    5. No, more like new greedy people taking more than they’ll ever use much less need and profiteering, continuing the suffering….

  4. I’d have someone the audience hadn’t seen before appear in front of Bruce Banner and say “heya, Doc”

    “And you are…?”

    “Doc, it’s me! Rick Jones!”

  5. That makes a lot of sense. Note that the survivors are Thor, Cap, Iron Man, Banner, Black Widow (plus War Machine and Rocket): the original Avengers. I’m assuming Hawkeye will return (esp. if part of his family was dusted), as will Ant-Man and the Wasp. There are hints that people killed by the Gauntlet may end up in the Soul Realm, which might connect to the Panther’s ancestors and/or the Quantum Realm, so there might be a Pym connection there. The Gauntlet could conceivably bring back more than those who were dusted – after all, Gamora died in her fall, not by the Gauntlet. In which case…Loki, Heimdall and the Asgardians might be brought back. Ditto the Xandarians, who got trashed by Thanos off camera. Heck, if they REALLY wanted to play the “make it didn’t happen” card, Wanda would have them bring Quicksilver back!

    Which brings us to the searchlight in the room: Will the Disney/Fox deal be concluded by the time of Avengers 4? It’s too late, I would assume, for any appearances in the body of the movie…but post-credits?? Might Quicksilver return…with a new face (and attitude?) Might Deadpool show up to break the fourth wall and say, “We’re HEEERRREEE!”

  6. This makes sense but I don’t see it. Marvel has a history of not dropping major new characters into the teacups except as the villain. They give them a setup first. If we see a Warlock in Cap Marvel then maybe. The Infinity Wars screenwriters said as much.

    I am leaning towards some form of time travel, which lets them revisit the past films (we already know the battle of Ny plays a role) and they change the time flow to get a different outcome but still with consequences, different deaths who people now think are safe but in the end everyone erased comes back.

  7. While that sounds good, I would just send Squirrel Girl in to take out Thanos.

    1. Yeah, but they’d probably want the movie to last more than 10 minutes.

  8. Going off the theme of sacrifice (which is used extensively in the first part), I would pretty much follow your whole story up until the part where they snatch the Soul Stone.

    From there:

    Adam Warlock successfully brings back all non-superpowered population (which also includes Starlord and Sam Wilson). Adam explains, however, that Thanos was able to keep a magical block on the superpowered heroes from being resurrected (as he hinted after killing Loki).

    The only way to return a superpowered hero, is with a sacrifice.

    Okoye dutifully goes first and sacrifices herself for her king — Black Panther returns.

    Nebula sacrifices herself and Gamora returns (finally paying her sister back).

    Wong sacrifices himself and Dr. Strange returns.

    Finally, the originals stand side-by-side. They nod to each other and approach the sacrificial portal (think Siege Perilous).

    Thor throws down Stormbreaker and utters the words, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” Thor sacrifices himself.

    Iron Man sacrifices himself.

    Bruce Banner sacrifices himself.

    Captain America hands Sam Wilson his shield. Gives a salute. And sacrifices himself.

    Spider-Man, Wanda, Bucky and… HULK re-appear.

    STINGER:

    Stormbreaker stays planted firmly on the ground. No one is worthy enough to pick it up.

    Where I got my skills from:
    https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Comics-Peter-David/dp/1581807309

    Autographed by author and all!

  9. Two small issues I have with this notion:

    1) After specifically saying he would prioritize the stone’s safety over Stark’s life, Strange then bargained the stone for Stark’s life. This means that the one of the 14,000,065 scenarios in which the good guys won had to involve Stark playing an important role.

    2) I don’t believe for a nanosecond that Loki’s dead. That was one of his magickal simulacra that tried to kill Thanos. Loki was hiding somewhere on the ship where it was safe.

    —KRAD

    1. I had a similar thought about what was going on. Strange saw over 14 million outcomes, and said the Earth’s heroes only won one of them. He also made an interesting comment to Tony when Tony asked him why he did what he did.
      .
      The one thing Strange would never do is surrender the stone. It makes sense that he would see the possible outcomes where he would refuse over and over to do so, millions of lost battles where he does all he can to keep the stone from Thanos and everything going badly. The one outcome they won was playing a long game and allowing Thanos to believe he’d won for a time. It was the only outcome that allowed for the possibility of having what Thanos did be undone.

      1. I agree. As he was disintegrating, Doc Strange said something along the lines of “It was the only way” to Tony Stark which I think hinted that he was doing what he saw in that one alternative future outcome that worked.

      2. The only path to “win” was letting Thanos have collect all the stones. Fighting him would bring about deaths in natural ways and then Thanos still takes the stones. You minimize natural deaths by following this path. Then, once Thanos has acted on his plan, the heroes (Captain Marvel and likely one other player we haven’t seen plus the remaining Avengers) recover the stones and use them (sacrificing the lives of some of the first Avengers in the process) to bring back those who were removed from existence by the stones and disperse them so far out towards the corners of the universe that no one would ever be able to find them all again, let alone collect them together in any ten lifetimes.

  11. The set-up seems to me to be regroup, recruit, and plan. There is plenty of power and smarts left in the MCU to take down Thanos and reverse what he did (especially if someone cuts his hand off this time). I think introducing Adam Warlock -and- Captain Marvel to save the day is one Deus Ex Machina too many.

    Couple of predictions: as in the comics, Vision will be restored but without his emotional self. Banner will figure out what’s going on with The Hulk and get the Hulk a power upgrade, which will have mixed consequences. Shuri will take over as Black Panther for a while (she did in the comics). At the end, Pepper (who -is- pregnant) and Tony will leave the field for a while, turning the Iron Man suit over to Rhody; Cap will go off into the sunset with Sharon, turning being Cap over to Falcon.

    Look, Thanos isn’t actually all that hard to defeat; despite all his mega-power, he’s only able to think of one thing at a time, so distraction and confusion should be enough to get a big advantage.

    1. I think Bucky becomes Cap. The MCU could then differ from the comics by having Falcon trade his wings for an Iron Man suit.

    2. RE: Iron Man’s inevitable successor . . . .

      A lot has been made of the fact that MCU Shuri is little to nothing like the comics’ Shuri. While comics Shuri is a severe, mystical, savage traditionalist, with little affinity for or interest in technology, MCU Shuri is entirely the opposite. She is a teenaged, peppy, cheery, female, POC gadgeteer genius who works with nano-tech armor. Meanwhile, in the comics, Tony Stark was replaced as Iron Man by a teenaged, peppy, cheery, female, POC gadgeteer genius who built her own suit of armor, and Tony’s latest suit in Infinity War was just demonstrated to be entirely nano-tech. SO . . . not a big stretch to imagine that Shuri might actually be tapped (possibly by Banner, if he survives and Iron Man doesn’t, because he was so impressed with her skills when working on Vision, and as Tony’s friend, he’d have pull with Pepper if she’s the successor/owner of all Tony’s work) as the next Iron Man.

      Food for thought.

      2. I wouldn’t believe anything that’s advertised in the next movie. Remember that often aired group shot set during the Wakanda battle that had the Hulk bringing up the rear.
        .
        PAF

      3. Yea, I’m a little perturbed by that used-in-nearly-every-marketing-material shot with the Hulk bringing up the rear. Not that the studio has to play fair, but as the movie neared it’s end I did still expect Hulk to bust out of the Hulkbuster armor because, you know, it’s in the trailer and commercials that he’s there in the charge.
        .
        In the last several weeks before opening day I obsessively avoid anything with the word “Avenger” because I don’t want any spoilers. I don’t want to sit in the theater thinking “Oh, this is the part where this is going to happen.”
        .
        Having what little I do know of the upcoming event NOT actually happen is equally dissatisfying. It pulls me out of the movie.

  13. While I agree that Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel are going to be involved in some way, I’m guessing that it’s going to be Hawkeye and Ant-man who are pivotal in changing things back… since they purposely had nothing to do with Avengers 3. AND it’s always a cliched plot twist that the seemingly weakest character holds the key to saving the day.

    1. If Marvel re-acquires the Fantastic Four, would they get involved somehow?
      Is that even a remote possibility?

      1. I don’t think the timing is right for the FF, X-Men, Silver Surfer, et al. to appear in Avengers 4, except mayyybeee in a post-credit sequence. For one thing, A4 has been filming in parallel to A:IW, and Disney/Fox is not yet a done deal. For another, they would have had to cast the Fox-escapees by now, and casting information is almost impossible to keep secret. Muchas I’d love to see the FF go into action against Thanos, or see Hugh Jackman pop claws one last time alongside Cap, the Widow and the Panther, I just don’t see it happening in A4.

      2. Good point! I hadn’t thought about the fact that primary filming has already been done.
        eh… it was a long shot anyhow.

  14. Y’know…
    Marvel has a prime opportunity here to do something along the lines of Doctor Who:
    All of the major actors’ contracts are due to close at the end of the Avengers 4 movie. In the final scenes of the Avengers movie next year, why not make use of the Infinity Gauntlet and change the appearance of all of the major characters into new actor’s faces (example: Captain America changes from looking like Chris Evans to looking like Zac Efron, Tony Stark changes from looking like Robert Downey Jr to looking like Taylor Lautner, etc.).
    I know that Marvel would never do it, but I think that it could really work!

    1. No. That’d be too much real world intruding on the film. We’d know that the changes in actors are to get a cheaper, younger crowd. Much better (and gets the studio the same result) to have the torches passed (Cap’s to Bucky, Iron Man’s to Rhodes, etc.) and it continues with different characters under the masks than claim it’s the same characters with different faces.

  15. There’s a reason why the Original Six Avengers did not die; they get to sacrifice themselves to put the universe back together. They beat Thanos, but the gauntlet is broken and cannot control the gems in unison. The Original MCU Avengers each take a stone and hold hands GotG vol 1 style. They bring everything back at the cost of their own lives. The movie ends with the dedication of the classic Avengers Assemble statue in New York.

  16. I’m thinking that it could have been simpler/easier than that.

    After getting the gauntlet “loaded” with all the stones,
    Thanos holds the invincible weapon in the air, gives the
    command to kill half the universe,

    and Thanos and the gauntlet crumble into dust.

    The gauntlet and holder are both gone. Problem solved.

    Disney can send me a check for what I’ve saved them for A4.

  18. I haven’t watched a movie in the theater since Spiderman 2 and boy did my eyes hurt after watching that one think it was the digital version =) Good to see Comic movies finally making waves but I don’t think Hollywood know what they are doing. I mean is there a good Punisher movie? Is Deadpool suppose to be funny?

    1. There was a reasonably good Punisher film (Punisher: War Zone) and a great Punisher TV series. As for Deadpool: well, yeah, it was pretty dámņëd funny. I laughed a hëll of a lot and so did pretty much everyone. You can’t even get through the opening credits without giggling hysterically. As for Hollywood, that’s a pretty sweeping statement. I would say that Hollywood may not know what it’s doing, but Kevin Fiege sure as hëll does.
      .
      PAD

  19. I don’t think we’ll see the introduction of new heroes in A4. I believe the movie will be split in half: we’ll follow the ‘living’ Avengers (including Captain Marvel) in their plot to face Thanos while we’ll also follow the ‘dead’ Avengers who will face their own challenge inside the Soul Stone. The two different teams will ultimately work towards a common goal of saving/returning all of those who ‘died’ via some line of communication (such as Dr. Strange’s astral form), and the two separate plot threads will come together in a major battle against Thanos in the finale, after which all those who were sent into the Soul Stone will be returned to our world.

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