Kevin Smith Shares 'Avengers: Endgame' Theory Claiming the Real Thanos Wasn't in 'Infinity War'

As Avengers: Endgame approaches its theatrical debut in a few months' time, Marvel fan theories about what will happen in the film are starting to get bigger and more fantastical by the day. It's not just fans, either; during a recent episode of Kevin Smith's "Fat Man on Batman" podcast, the filmmaker dropped some Marvel Cinematic Universe theory of his own.

According to Kevin Smith, one big revelation of Avengers: Endgame will be the fact that the Thanos we met in Avengers: Infinity War wasn't actually the real version of the Mad Titan!

"There's a there's a theory that just heard from JC right before we came in that was online today. The theory is - it's a fan theory, I don't know where it comes from... a fan - that the Thanos we met was not the real Thanos, but an alternate reality Thanos, and that Avengers: Endgame is goign to have the real Thanos, who is the Thanos that we saw in the mid-credits sequence in 'Avengers.'

Doesn't that found far f*cking fetched?

It's crazy to me because hat you're presupposing then is like, 'Man that Thanos is nothing, this Thanos is gonna a badass.' And I'm like, 'He f*cking killed half the people in the world, like what more do you want? You're telling me that's the 'weak' Thanos?'"

Obviously Smith isn't a big fan of this little fan theory, since in his next breath he states, "That was a crackpot theory I read." It is true that the idea of Avengers: Endgame introducing a new alternate Thanos as "The Real" Thanos is completely far-fetched - but it's actually a theory that seems to have been built on the bones of other Endgame fan theory. There's been a good amount of speculation that Endgame will include a major time travel component - though the nature of that chronal manipulation has remained unclear.

There are a few theories that point to the surviving Avengers retuning to the Battle of New York from the original film, and using the Chitauri portal to strike at Thanos years before he has the Infinity Gauntlet. A situation like that would indeed create two versions of Thanos: The armored version seen at the end of Avengers, who confronts Earth's heroes without the Infinity Gauntlet, and the one who caused The Decimation, and may use the power of the Infinity Stones (specifically the Time Stone) to chase the Avengers through time, before the changes to the timeline wipe him out.

That latter scenario tracks with a lot of pieces of Endgame that have been rumored or teased during production on the film. There are scenes that seem to take things back to the Battle of New York; hints that Thanos could be in his armored outfit, with a bladed weapon, to boot; and even directors The Russo Bros have hinted that revisiting the past (via things like Iron Man's B.A.R.F. tech) will be a major plot point.

So: even though the notion of Avengers: Infinity War having a "fake Thanos" seems unequivocally wrong, the idea that Endgame could have two versions of Thanos may still prove true!

Avengers: Infinity War is now available on home video. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8th, Avengers: Endgame on April 26th and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th.