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What If Thanos Had Snapped The Other Half Of The Avengers In Infinity War?
Thanos snapped away half of life in the universe leaving half of the Avengers to reverse his actions, but what if the other half had survived instead?

What If Thanos Had Snapped The Other Half Of The Avengers In Infinity War?

The events of Avengers: Endgame would have been very different had the other half of the Avengers been snapped out of existence by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. The storytelling choice to rely on the original MCU Avengers team of Captain America, Iron-Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk, and Hawkeye with some help from Ant-Man, Nebula, Rocket, and War Machine was sensible. Acting as a farewell to old friends so that newer ones could return to take over the mantel led to a satisfyingly emotional conclusion to the Infinity Saga.

Following Thanos’ destruction of the Infinity Stones and his subsequent beheading by Thor, five years passed. During that time Tony Stark became a father, Bruce Banner finally took control of the big green rage machine within him, Thor sunk into depression, Steve Rogers started a self-help group, Clint Barton complicated his hero status by becoming a vigilante, and Natasha Romanoff did everything she could to hold the remaining Avengers together. Even so, when Scott Lang gave them the idea for a “time heist” and Tony Stark made that into a practical possibility, their collective desire to put right what had gone wrong and return the people they had lost was too strong to be ignored.

This could all have been completely different though. The nature of Thanos’ plan was that there was no value judgment on who lived and who died in the Snap. The result was random and, despite amounting to genocide on an unfathomable scale, Thanos claimed this made it fair. This raises an intriguing question: how would events have played out if the other half of the Avengers had survived the Snap? With what was already known about these characters it is possible to make an informed guess as to how they would have used their powers and abilities to not only change the past but also lay the groundwork for the future of the Avengers.

The Endgame Time Heist Could’ve Still Happened

It has become easy to assume that Tony Stark/Iron-Man was the preeminent figure in the Avengers. After all, he started the MCU and has often proven to be both the MVP and, in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the cause of the team’s problems. The former happened again in Avengers: Endgame when he used his genius-level intellect to solve the problem of time travel. This wasn’t a problem that any scientific genius could solve, since, in Avengers: Endgame, Bruce Banner/Hulk could only send time through the body of Scott Lang, making him a teen, an old man, and a baby before turning him back to his proper age.

In Stark’s and Banner’s absences, there are other options for who could have come up with the same solution. Given that the Time Heist was Scott Lang’s idea after he was trapped in the Quantum Realm, the obvious place to look for similar inspiration would be Hank Pym, Hope van Dyne/Wasp, and, particularly, Janet van Dyne. After decades spent lost in the Quantum Realm, Janet would have known more about it than anyone and would have understood the possibilities for traversing time through it. With the additional help of Hank and Hope, who would have wanted the return of Scott, Janet’s knowledge of surviving the Quantum Realm would have allowed them to come up with a similar Time Heist concept along with the kind of scientific knowledge to have made it possible.

Whether they would have had the technological means to go with that would be another issue. As a result, another scientific genius would have been involved to make the time travel solution possible or perhaps even better than what Tony Stark conceived. Despite her youth, Shuri’s scientific credentials were impeccable. Like Tony Stark, she had used enormous resources at her disposal to create extraordinary technological weapons, while displaying a gift for designing suits for superheroes. Some theories have suggested that Shuri could become the new Black Panther but Avengers: Infinity War merely suggested that she was capable of surpassing both Banner and Stark. When discussing how to remove the Mind Stone from Vision she asked Banner, “Why didn’t you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?” Banner’s sheepish response was that he and Stark hadn’t thought of it. Evidently, Shuri’s genius is capable of eclipsing Tony Stark’s in certain instances, and it is not unrealistic to believe that creating the conditions for time travel could have been one of those, particularly when paired with the knowledge and expertise of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne.

There Would Be Leadership Issues But The Avengers Would Be Based In Wakanda

Following the loss of so many of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the question of who would lead those that remain is pertinent. After all, despite the issues between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers that culminated in Captain America: Civil War, they had been leading the Avengers since their inception. They both knew when to work together for a greater cause, even if they sometimes needed a push, as with the death of Agent Coulson in The Avengers.

As a result, their absence would have left an inevitable power vacuum although there would be plenty of options to fill it. Nick Fury would be an obvious candidate, given his history with the Avengers Initiative, although his link to the remaining heroes was weaker since he had not recruited any of them. More than this, his role in the MCU has been more as an overseer who left the large-scale heroism to other exceptional individuals.

Doctor Strange would certainly fit the bill even though he had no formal links to any Avengers before the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Still, the way Strange butted heads with Tony Stark makes it clear that he would probably have done the same thing with the likes of Fury and Hank Pym. The most likely outcome of this would have been for him to have adopted a knowing loose cannon position within the team dynamic.

As The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showed, Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes had a lot in common with Steve Rogers/Captain America, especially after Shuri removed the Hydra programming from Bucky’s mind. However, with the stakes being so high and with both having been side characters up to that point in the MCU, leadership roles would have been unlikely. For different reasons, Peter Quill/Star-Lord would have been equally implausible. The fallout from his personal failure to stop Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and the loss of Gamora would have led him along an interesting path to redemption that was broadly like Thor’s Avengers: Endgame Story, making him a less viable option to lead the Avengers.

As a result, the more realistic leadership candidate is King T’Challa/Black Panther. Despite his immense physical powers and royal status, his lack of ego and calm wisdom would be a sensible counterpoint to Doctor Strange. There would also be a more practical element to this as Wakanda had the means and the technology to be the ideal base of operations for the Time Heist. Given that the major Avengers: Infinity War conflict took place on Wakandan soil, it would be the logical place to gravitate to for those seeking to respond quickly. As the post-credits scene in Avengers: Infinity War made clear, Nick Fury and Maria Hill were aware that something was happening in Wakanda at the time of the Snap and would certainly have gone there to see what had occurred. With Shuri likely to be happier using Wakandan tech at her lab, too, Wakanda was a sensible place to shape the plans to reverse Thanos’ genocide.

Doctor Strange Would Have A Huge Part To Play

The fact that Doctor Strange had seen 14,000,605 different futures and therefore knew the only way they could win would be a significant advantage in shaping a response. Given his already powerful self-assurance, and given that Strange is more powerful than the Ancient One, it might’ve been interesting to see how his awareness of the necessary combination of events to bring about victory would have impacted his interactions with the other Avengers.

The most significant of these would most likely have been with Peter Parker/Spider-Man. As Tony Stark’s protĂ©gĂ©, the loss would hit Peter harder than most, and, given his youth, the need to find a new mentor or father figure to latch onto would be significant. Spider-Man: No Way Home certainly toyed with the idea that Parker instinctively felt Strange could fulfill that role by asking for his help in dealing with the problems that followed the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home. However, unleashing the multiverse in No Way Home pointed to the possibility of Parker’s youthful naivety bringing inadvertent complications to Doctor Strange’s plans.

Acquiring The Soul Stone Would Be Especially Difficult

The most obvious problem that would arise from trying to reacquire the Infinity Stones would be in getting the Soul Stone from Vormir. As both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame make clear, the cost of gaining the Soul Stone is sacrificing what one loves most. Among the original Avengers, there were clear candidates for this given the length of their friendships. However, if they had all been snapped, instead, the options are less obvious because those personal relationships didn’t exist in the same way that they did between Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.

Realistically, of those that would remain, the only characters with that kind of emotional link are the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Certainly, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Infinity War have shown the depth of familial love between the characters. The issue is that it would be extremely sad for the Guardians of the Galaxy to lose two of their members in the same permanent way after Thanos sacrificed Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War. Nevertheless, Drax the Destroyer would be most likely to sacrifice himself for the sake of his friends and because of the loss of his wife and child at the hands of the Mad Titan. Drax’s true plan was to kill Thanos to avenge the death of his family, but if that were not possible, then causing Thanos’ plan to fail would compensate for it if it meant that Quill, Mantis, Groot, Rocket, and Nebula could carry on without him.

It Would’ve Been A Great Way To Pass The Torch Within The MCU

There can be little doubt that Avengers: Endgame following Avengers: Infinity War in the way that it did was a hugely satisfying conclusion to the Infinity Saga. The sheer dramatic weight of the fight between Thanos and the Avengers was spectacular and the way it led to the return of all the heroes saved from the Snap was brilliantly juggled. What followed was thrilling and deeply emotional, with the passing of the torch within the MCU working in a way that would be tough to improve upon, while also showing that losses like Iron-Man will be hard to replace.

However, the chance for Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Wasp, Falcon, Winter Soldier, and the remaining Guardians of the Galaxy to go back in time to interact with the younger incarnations of the original Avengers and, in some cases, themselves is an intriguing idea. To have brought everyone back and thereby proving they were ready to lead the Avengers in the future would have been another great way to end the Infinity Saga. Nevertheless, the absence of the grand spectacle of Avengers: Endgame’s final act would have been a little disappointing and there would have been nothing that could have carried quite the same emotional weight as “I love you 3000” or Steve Rogers dancing with Peggy Carter in 1949.