Fanboys Anonymous

Avengers: Endgame was advertised in both title and marketing as the culmination of many different stories for our beloved characters, and for all we know coming out of that movie, it seems to actually have delivered on that promise.

Several heroes and even some villains met their demise or were written out of the franchise with an ending of sorts, and while that may just be a wrap, I'm not entirely convinced of this.

In fact, there are some character we know for sure will be returning in some fashion, due to the pipeline of future projects in the works.

So how will those characters return and what are the options for how the Marvel Cinematic Universe could potentially bring back all of the characters who have been written off?

Here are my theories on where we go, now that they're gone.




Vision

This is the easiest one. Shuri finishes working on repairing his brain like she was trying to do during Infinity War.

That's it. He's a computer. All you need is a new motherboard, a new hard drive, and whatever other parts are necessary to run his operating system, and then you just transfer the old files and you're good.

Maybe Scarlet Witch's connection to the Mind Stone and her powers can help be the jumper cables which are the missing element to the formula, and that's where WandaVision (hate that title) can pick up from.

Natasha Romanoff

Everyone has gone on record multiple times in saying that there is no way to bring Black Widow back. She's gone for good. Forever. Finito. The end. That's it.

I call bullshit on that.

If they returned the stones to the time they got them, does that not mean that Natasha's soul is lingering in something of a limbo status, kind of like what happened in some fashion with Gamora? (More on her later)

If you say she died so they could have Hulk do the snap, then who died for Tony Stark's snap? He didn't, as he died from the wounds of that action, not that he traded his soul. We're missing something there.

If you say that she died so they could take the stone, then when Captain America put it back on Vormir...somehow...that reverses the process, as it needed to be put back in exactly the same time that they took it, or else they've changed the past and created a different timeline, and if they've done that, then the entire purpose of the scene with The Ancient One was moot because they failed.

So how do they bring Natasha back? Well, I don't think it will happen in the Black Widow movie, as that will likely be a prequel, but if they ever decide to, they can just have her be un-snapped and living as an amnesiac.

Think of it somewhat like Bucky. She'll have faint glimpses of her past life, but no real memory of who or what she is, because she's gone through a reboot process of sorts and she's not quite all there yet.

Then, someone comes along to bonk her in the head or do some sort of magic and fix her, and voila.

But that brings me to...

Gamora

She's in a very similar position to Black Widow, but not quite. Nobody is replacing the stone to when Thanos took it. He took it, he used it, that's not being reversed.

But we have Gamora in the Soul World speaking to Thanos and asking him "Did you do it?" and "What did it cost?"—two things which denote consciousness, in some form.

We also have the 2014 Gamora, which makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm almost giving up trying to wrap my mind around any of that continuity and mathematical balancing act that likely has no real answers.

So here's what I'm thinking. Adam Warlock was teased at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and it's doubtful they did that with no intention to follow through with him.

In the comics, Warlock is incredibly tied to the Soul Gem, and I think a variation of that is in store for Vol. 3 as a means to explain how he was "created" by Ayesha.

The Sovereign are surrounded by gold in every way, as well as literally being gold. Even the anulax batteries (I mean, harbulary batteries) are gold and super powerful.

What if the method in which The Sovereign are able to harness this insane power for the batteries, as well as create perfect beings, is to tap into the Soul World and access the energies of the Infinity Stones by proxy?

If so, Adam Warlock's connection to that could grant him the power to do a merging of the minds between Gamora's 2014 self and the consciousness that was thrown off the cliff by Thanos.

That way, the Gamora who is alive and well is not the same physical being that was killed by Thanos, but she's got the same memories and ends Vol. 3 remembering her love for Star-Lord and the rest of her family, as well as the events of Endgame.

Tony Stark

If you're looking for a means to bring Robert Downey Jr. back into the fold in any capacity, he can be the voice in the suit for Peter Parker's next costume, or a guiding JARVIS artificial intelligence that Morgan Stark can interact with.

Eventually, if they want to do Ironheart and make it Morgan instead of Riri Williams, then he can easily voice the essence of Tony Stark without having to worry about his age or being in shape or anything like that.

But if you're talking about how to bring Iron Man back as an actual person by undoing his death, I think you need to get wacky with the timeline again in some fashion with a character who has the ability to heal Tony and bring him back to life.

I don't think that's happening, though. I think the AI route is the one and only way they'll use him, save for maybe something like watching "old footage" of something and having Downey do a cameo in that fashion, but the character would still be dead.

Steve Rogers as Captain America

Technically, Steve Rogers isn't dead, he's just old and retired, having passed the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson.

All it takes to change that is to have someone de-age Steve, and all it takes for that is someone with the power or technology to de-age someone.

The super soldier serum inside him has kept him alive this long, and there's no telling how that would interact with some other kind of serum or someone's powers tapping into that and rejuvenating his cells or something.

Again, I don't think this will happen, but it's much easier to do that than to mess with the timeline some more, since he's still alive right now.

Heimdall, Loki and the Asgardians

They're not coming back, most likely, but if they did, I think it would be through some passage through Hel and/or Valhalla, winning their souls back, like has happened in the comics in the past.

The Villains

Thanos, Ebony Maw and company aren't coming back. There's no reason for them to. Thanos is the only one worth bringing back and his story is finished with no real possible other things to do.

This includes 2014 Nebula. She's dead. We don't need her. We have the heroic Nebula.

The Snap's Collateral Damage

It hasn't really been addressed how just because half the universe was wiped out from the snap itself doesn't mean those were the only deaths.

If the pilot of an airplane was snapped away, it's likely the whole airline crashed and everyone on board died. Plenty of people got into car accidents because of that. Parents died and left their infant children with nobody to take care of them. Doctors disappeared, making it harder to help cure the ill. People killed themselves because of losing their family members and friends.

Those people won't be brought up, most likely, because it's just too sad to keep mentioning for the rest of the MCU's existence and it's a hard concept to fully wrap your mind around when you're in a movie that will ultimately still boil down to superheroes punching villains.


For now, those are my thoughts on the possible ways to bring back the dead or "dead" characters, but my mind could change at any point with future films or new information.

How do you think the MCU would bring these people back? What other ideas do you have?