Terrible MCU Fan Theories That Are So Bad They’re Good

The content drought of 2020 took a toll on pretty much every fandom, but none more so than the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Accustomed to multiple entries per year, fans far and wide love to theorize about upcoming chapters in Marvel Studios comic book movies and their greater universe. This year, in particular, fans have been scratching at an itch that can’t really be satiated until Phase 4 drops at some nebulous time in the future when it is safe to go to the movies again. How are they scratching at this itch?

Sh*tposting terrible fan theories.

This time-honored tradition has been around as long as the internet and message boards existed and the MCU isn’t immune to the treatment. This is a collection of awful, but hilarious fan theories about the MCU. Vote up the theories that could plausibly never happen, but are worth reading anyway!

Thanos Is Actually Just An Evil Captain America

From Redditor u/MarvelKenneth:

You have all been duped by Marvel.

Why do Thanos’s shades of purple change throughout the films? Why do we barely know anything about Thanos’s origins? Where did Thanos even get the Mind Stone in the first place?

These questions share one thing in common: the answers to them are being hidden by the sinister heads at Marvel Studios. They don’t want you to know the truth. I bet this theory will be removed by the Disney snipers before it even lasts an hour, because I’m about to expose the true backstory of the Mad Titan in this brilliantly-crafted theory I built in a cave with a box of scraps. And it mainly involves Steve Rogers, who is more unpredictable than you think…

Our theory starts with Captain America, the first Avenger. Clearly, at the end of Avengers: Endgame, he’s depicted to be returning the Infinity Stones. Unfortunately, we never see him returning the Stones, but why is that?

You also gotta consider how he even restored them properly. Steve only had the Stones, but he didn’t have some of the containers (the Tesseract, the Orb, the Scepter), so how did he even properly put them back without returning to 2023 for them? Even HISHE parodies this in their Endgame parody.

There’s only one simple answer to this: Steve Rogers used the Stones. With the Super Soldier Serum in his veins, he was able to withstand the power of the Time and Reality Stone to restore the objects containing the Space, Power, and Mind Stone. After this, Steve began to realize the power within the Stones and how he could manipulate them. We don’t see this because we don’t need to.

But in our theory, this becomes important later.

Of course, as we know, Steve Rogers returns to the 1940s and lives a happy life with Peggy Carter. But while everything looked happy on the surface, imagine the gruesome life Steve was actually living, the cruel reality he had to go through. Not only was everything predictable, but he had to sit back in hiding and keep the timeline intact.

He knew JFK was going to be assassinated. He knew 9/11 was going to happen. He knew HYDRA was inside SHIELD. But he couldn’t do anything about it, and instead must let every event naturally occur.

Imagine how it feels; knowing you can help but you can’t.

And of course, the inevitable still happened. Everybody he cared about died, and he’s back to being alone, except now he’s old.

He returned to the main timeline and refused to tell Sam Wilson of this horrifying timeline and life he had to live. He gave him the Captain America shield and “moved on”.

But the elderly Steve Rogers couldnt’t move on. He couldn’t let this timeline suffer the same tragedies the alternate one did. With the Stones (notably the Time Stone), he could fix history, maybe even find world peace, and save some fallen Avengers along the way. He knew what the Stones could do, so it was worth a shot. He made the public believe he was dead and traveled back in time with the remaining Pym Particles.

He began his quest by traveling to 2012, where he intended to steal the Mind Stone and Time Stone. Having successfully retrieved the Scepter right after 2023 Cap returned it, he went to the New York Sanctum to trick the Ancient One into giving him the Time Stone. Knowing what Steve intended to do with the Stones, the Ancient One refused to give the Time Stone away and attacked him. Steve barely made his escape to 1970, vowing to come back for the Time Stone in another timeline.

At Camp Lehigh in 1970, Steve managed to sneak underground and steal the Tesseract, but because of what he intended to do with it, he was banished.

Red Skull was already banished to Vormir by the Tesseract in 1945, so where was Steve Rogers going?

The Tesseract was teleporting Steve to Titan, a dying planet of Titans slowly suffering extinction.

Steve dropped the Cube and was now on the bleak planet, where he suffered a long banishment. Steve initially tried to escape to another timeline, but discovered that the Tesseract’s power had damaged his suit beyond repair. As one of the poor, he had virtually no way off the planet, even with the Mind Stone in his possession. He was new here, so he was seen as a madman and untrustworthy.

Over the years, Steve did come to terms with his fate and aged even more. Because of the excessive time traveling, the Pym Particles took effect on his brain, so, like Darren Cross, he became even more deranged. The Super Soldier Serum, although it allowed him to live longer, was also growing defective, so he began balding and became purple rather than red like Red Skull. As he adapted to Titan’s atmosphere, those combined effects made him grow bigger in muscles. He became a Titan, eventually.

Steve realized what was happening. He was Thanos. There was already a Steve Rogers currently frozen in ice in this timeline. This was his destiny.

Steve decided to take on this “Thanos” persona, a false identity that would later fool even the all-knowing Red Skull on Vormir. Despite this, he still had some selflessness in him left. He tried to save the planet, but the Titans still thought he was a madman, and wanting to kill half of the population didn’t help his case. Titan still died, and now he could safely escape the planet and begin his work in his selfless quest to save the universe, or at least half of it.

He already had the Mind Stone. Just five more to go, right?

Thanos kept turning different shades of purple as the chemicals continued to change him. Thanos adopted children and even allied himself with his former enemy, Loki. Knowing there were Stones on Earth, he sent the God of Mischief to steal the Stones he previously couldn’t: both the Space Stone and Time Stone. Although the Chitauri forces came close to keeping possession of the Cube, the invasion was eventually ended by the Avengers. The Chitauri directly commanded by Thanos to secretly steal the Time Stone without Loki’s knowledge (Thanos feared Loki would turn against him with the power of two Stones) proved ineffective towards the Ancient One’s powerful protection. Loki was captured and Thanos lost both the Mind Stone and Space Stone. Back to square one.

Over the years, Thanos went after the Stones he remembered, but couldn’t remember the location of the Soul Stone (the Time Heist was now over a century ago for him) and didn’t know the first location of the Reality Stone in London.

In 2018, Thanos was ready. He stole every single Stone as the Infinity War lined up. He remembered the details of the entire event, easily beating every opponent that stood in his way. Before stealing the Mind Stone, however, Thanos stared in confusion as Captain America held him back. For once in nearly 50 years, he truly thought of his past self, the man he once was.

Three weeks after he succeeded in wiping out half of the universe, the Avengers ambushed him. Thanos saw himself as Captain America one last time. How ignorant he once was, how foolish he was! But eventually, this Captain America would become Thanos, creating an endless loop of Thanos counterparts haunting every single timeline. Inside Captain America, Thanos would live on forever.

He was inevitable.

So, let’s review the important stuff:

Thanos is just an evil, elderly Steve Rogers from an alternate timeline.
Evil Cap stole the Mind Stone from Thanos, whom the latter did in another timeline as Evil Cap, creating this infinite paradox of where the Mind Stone originated.
Thanos not only planned to steal the Space Stone in 2012, but also planned a secret theft of the Time Stone on the Ancient One during the Battle of New York.
Thanos turns different shades of purple throughout the movies due to his progressing condition of combined Pym Particles and Super Soldier Serum.
With that, thank you for coming to my TED talk. Leave any questions and criticisms in the comments down below.

The Worlds Of The ‘Teletubbies,’ ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ And The MCU Are Connected

From Redditor u/atl1015:

This is based on two things: the multiverse thing Marvel has going on, which I don’t quite get but from my understanding, there’s just a million Marvel worlds where things can be super different. And the second thing is a picture I saw on IG connecting Tellitubbies to LOTR. The picture basically showed how the Shire and Teletubbie’s land looked really similar, and how there are 4 Teletubbies like the Hobbits. And the baby sun is like Sauron’s eye. So anyways, to the theory:

This version of the LOTR world where Sauron wins is just a multiverse of Marvel, where Thanos wins by teaming up with Sauron. Sauron realizes that making things all evil doesn’t really work out for him, so he gets Thanos to warp reality so that the Shire becomes Teletubbie’s land while Sauron watches over it. I would even say the Keebler elves are what the elves of LOTR became.

EVEN MORE EVIDENCE:

-Iron Man and Gandalf both fight with lights or lasers or something whatever same thing.

-Gimli and Thor both have an axe and beard, and both become comic relief as the series continues. I’m also pretty sure Gimli has something going on with one of his eyes, and Thor is MISSING an eye.

-Aragorn is a king, he represents a nation, as does Captain America.

-Hawkeye and Legolas? Don’t even need to explain.

Marvel Started Setting Up ‘Secret Invasion’ Back During ‘Iron Man 2’

From Redditor u/sigmanu69:

The reason that Marvel replaces Terrence Howard, who played James Rhodes (War Machine) in Iron Man, with Don Cheadle, who played James Rhodes (War Machine) in the movies afterwards, was because the Skrull invasion had already begun. This was an early indication by the Marvel executives that the Skrull invasion would be happening. This was foreshadowing the later “stages” of the MCU.

The MCU Is Apparently The Crossover Universe

From Redditor u/ShinyPikacute:

Left Behind, the story of airline pilot played by Nicolas Cage during the supposed rapture where half the world’s population disappears without a trace, takes place during Infinity War. Thanos and his troops attacked Wakanda, a nation so cut of from the rest of the world that no one realizes that Earth was invaded by aliens again so no one understands why or how half the population disappears so they call the rapture.

In The Greater Marvel Universe, Spider-Man Is The Source Of All Evil

From Redditor u/elvagabundotonto:

If Spiderman had not existed, the Green Goblin would not have destroyed half of NY trying to kill Spidey and may have become useful in the fight against crime with his weapons development, Doctor Octopus would not be so obsessed by destroying Spidey and may use his scientific knowledge to make the world a better place, Venom may have infected Hindsight or Cypher instead of Spidey and would be a lame villain instead of a terrifying evil spider-monster, Electro would not have gone all mad against Spidey after they first fight and could have become a superhero (he was after all not so villain at the start)…

The list is long but the facts are there, Spidey is the root of all evil.

Korg = Darkseid

From Redditor u/Nolantis:

In the opening to [Avengers: Infinity War], we see the Asgardians slaughtered by Thanos, however, we do not see Korg.

My theory proposes that Loki used the Space Stone in secret to teleport Korg to another universe so he could be safe. The universe he was sent to was the DC Universe.

But wait, isn’t there a big rocky looking character in the DC universe? Exactly; Darkseid.

My theory is that when people say Darkseid is, they’re trying to say Darkseid is Korg, but they can’t since they’d probably get a lawsuit. So, why does Korg want the anti-life equation then? He seemed like a pretty sane character in Thor: Ragnarok. The reason he would want the anti-life equation is to rule all sentient life to print him more pamphlets, so when he boomtubes back to Marvel he’d have enough pamphlets for everyone in the universe.

WandaVision Will Break Into Jojo’s Bizarre Reality

From Redditor u/Let_R_D:

Wanda (aka Scarlet Witch) in the series now has the ability to warp reality, even changing colours into black-and-white to style it as an old TV show. I believe that this will be caused by Wanda becoming a Stand user. While Wanda being a reality-warping superhero is pretty much already established in the Marvel comics canon, I feel like Vision being revived back to life will establish WandaVision as a crossover with Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The fact that she lives in a neighbourhood would also mean she lives in a Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town.

Vision himself will be revived back from the dead either with Josuke using Crazy Diamond to heal him (to be fair, Vision only had an Infinity Stone ripped off from his forehead, leaving only his lifeless android body, but since he isn’t really human, Josuke can just repair him back to life with Crazy Diamond and boom! good as new) or Wanda using Bites the Dust to go back in time where Vision was still alive and use Bites the Dust again to live in the 60s or 50s. The time travel might also establish Wanda having a Stand that can control time. It’s likely that Wanda’s Stand will have Bites the Dust as her main ability since she has the ability to reverse time to the extent of living in a TV show set in the past.

Of course, this brings the possibility of not only Vision being revived but other characters like Iron Man, Black Widow, Jonathan Joestar, Muhammad Avdol, Iggy or Jotaro Kujo. it would be interesting to see if the MCU actually introduced Stands into their universe. (they could’ve used Mutant abilities, but knowing how the MCU is a lot more bizarre, it’s very likely that everyone will be Stand users)

Idk man. Do you think this might be true. I mean it would be interesting to see Stands being introduced into the MCU if Araki wills it with the only issue being the trademarked names and a fight between Mutants and Stand users seems lit.

The Rat In ‘Endgame’ Is Symbolic For Disney

From Redditor u/Pokeball_Z:

Infinity War had a beautiful and perfect ending if I say so myself. The MCU story was finished, there was nothing more to tell. All loose ends were tied together.

However, Disney’s greedy mouse didn’t like their big moneymaker ending, so they forced Marvel to do another movie.

The rat at the beginning, which presses the button to save Ant-Man, is symbolic of Disney’s Mickey Mouse. The filthy rat demands the plot to continue.

Hank Pym and Scott Lang Get Around

From Redditor u/The_LastCastoff:

Ant-Man has been in every Marvel movie, but he is so small that no one noticed. [He’s] been running around trying to help in every Marvel movie, but he is stuck in Ant mode so no one can see him.

Thanos Caused ‘Arrested Development’ Season 4 Remix and Season 5

From Redditor u/generalzee:

As any Arrested Development fan knows, Tobias Fünke featured briefly in Infinity War when Thanos was using the reality stone to recreate the Collector’s museum. This means one of two things:

1) Arrested Development actually happens in the MCU and The Collector really DID collect Tobias for some reason, or

2) Thanos is just a really big Arrested Development fan.

The reason it can’t be the first is that Season 4 of Arrested Development would have happened around the time of The Avengers, and we never hear anything about “The Incident” or Iron Man, or any of the other craziness. Also, S4 contains the Fantastic 4 as copyrighted characters of Marvel Entertainment.

So Thanos is clearly just a huge AD fan, and who can blame him? But is it just coincidence that all of a week after Thanos snapped his fingers we got a Season 4 remix? And Season 5 is coming in all of a month? This is a show that’s been dead in the water so many times, it’s a goddamn miracle we’re getting another season. A literal miracle. Thanos, clearly acting in the Universe’s best interest, has used the Infinity Gauntlet to do the impossible: Get us more Arrested Development.

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Buffy Mote

Buffy Mote is a die-hard Marvel enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe. Having spent years engrossed in comic books, movies, and television series, Buffy has developed a keen eye for details and a passion for storytelling that has made her a beloved figure among Marvel fans. With a background in journalism and creative writing, Buffy's insights and engaging style have attracted a dedicated readership eager to delve deeper into the complex world of superheroes and villains.

Outside of her writing for marvelnerds.com, Buffy is an active participant in comic book conventions, often hosting panels and sharing her analyses of character development and plot intricacies. Her love for Marvel isn't just confined to the printed page or screen, as she's known to collect rare memorabilia, participate in cosplay, and even run a Marvel-themed podcast. Whether you're a casual fan or a fellow Marvel nerd, Buffy Mote's contributions are sure to enrich your appreciation for the expansive and thrilling Marvel Universe.

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