Marvel's 'What If...?': 'Avengers: Endgame' would have more plot twists if Thanos, Hulk and a rat had done things a little differently
Marvel's 'Avengers: Endgame' was the definitive superhero movie of the decade and it's a film we'll all keep watching again and again for years to come. The writers and the directors of the movie put a lot of thought into making sure that the film that came to theaters was the best possible version.
That doesn't mean we can't stop and wonder how differently the movie would have turned out if a few things had gone differently and with the upcoming Disney+ series 'What If...?', we're going to get an alternate take on the epic movie.
So here are three changes that we think could have made 'Avengers: Endgame' a completely different movie:
What if Hulk went to Vormir?
Ever since the movie came out, people have been wondering what would have happened if someone else had died instead of Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr). However, our question is this: what if someone else died instead of Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson)?
Of all the Avengers, Bruce Banner / the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) would have been the most interesting person to send to Vormir in Natasha's place.
Considering how difficult it is to actually kill the Hulk, there's a pretty good chance that he could have survived the fall from the cliff. Besides, since the Hulk is practically two people in one body, does that mean Banner and the Hulk have separate souls as well? And if so, could Banner have died in the fall and left the Hulk alive?
These are some really mind-bending possibilities and it's understandable why the writers didn't want to overcomplicate the movie (which was quite complicated already with all the time travel shenanigans). However, 'What If...?' does create an opportunity to explore some of these really weird ideas.
What if the rat had not rescued Ant-Man?
This is, without a doubt, the single most important point in the entirety of 'Endgame'. None of the things the heroes accomplished in the movie would have been possible if Scott Lang / Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) hadn't been rescued from the Quantum Realm by a random stray rat.
Without the rat, there would be no time heist and 'Endgame' would just have been three hours of people sitting around depressed. Of all the heroes who popped up in the movie, none had a bigger contribution than this unsung rodent and without it, the story of the greatest superhero film of our time would never have come about.
What if Thanos won the second round?
The climax of 'Avengers: Endgame' hinged on the moment when Thanos (Josh Brolin) snapped for the second time, only to realize that Iron Man had stolen the Infinity Stones. But what if Tony had been too slow to swap out the stones?
Thanos destroying the universe isn't anything new to fans of Marvel Comics. In fact, something very similar happened in the 2003 limited series 'Marvel: The End', which saw Thanos destroying the whole universe only to realize that his actions were all part of the Creator's plan to fix a fundamental flaw in the universe's design.
He then went on to recreate the universe exactly as it was minus the flaw, which is pretty much what would have happened if this what-if question had become reality.
'What If...?' is scheduled to arrive on Disney+ sometime in 2021.