It’s only a couple of months until we get to discover the havoc that Thanos’ “ decimation” wrought on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we still don’t know very much about the state of play as we head into Avengers: Endgame. But due to the wonders of the internet and Lego’s dedication to making intricate tie-in play sets, we’ve got a pretty outrageous Fantastic Four-centric theory. It’s based around a leaked image from an alleged new “LEGO” set–which until confirmed should always be taken with a pinch of salt–that seems to hint that the film will end exactly where the first Avengers did: The Battle of New York.
Novo vazamento Lego pode ter revelado a batalha final de #AvengersEndgame.
(? IG: paul_seeley4) pic.twitter.com/j6FqPgfYSd
— Nação Marvel – #CaptainMarvel ︽✵︽ (@nacaomarvelofc) February 1, 2019
Historically, LEGO sets haven’t always been directly connected to the movies or properties that they’re based on, but the ones for Avengers: Infinity War were pretty accurate when it came to portraying who would be in which locale or sequence during the massive intergalactic epic. Here, though, the fact that the Avengers might end their fight in the Big Apple isn’t a huge surprise as that’s what a lot of fans have been theorizing since pictures of a clean shaven Steve Rogers in his classic suit made their way onto the internet. Instead, it’s actually one of the mini-fig inclusions that really got our brains going.
The set includes Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, a sort of Mecha Thanos, and most importantly in this case Ant-Man and Thor who seem to be wearing matching outfits similar to the ones we saw in the recent Titan Series photos (we’ll come back to those later). It also includes a mysterious flying creature who looks like some kind of robot Batman with a few extra wings. Well, we know it’s not Bruce Wayne as he belongs to Marvel’s distinguished competition, and the MCU has already filled the billionaire playboy philanthropist role. So just who is that big ol’ fly-guy? We’ve got a theory which ties into the potential for introducing a whole new world and new heroes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It’s clear that the Quantum Realm is going to play a massive part in however the Avengers deal with the world changing events of Infinity War; the aforementioned suits that Thor and Ant-Man are wearing could potentially be created to help them survive in the miniscule realm. We know that there is potential for time travel after Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne warned Scott Lang not to get “caught in a time vortex” before she got dusted at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, but we think that this supposed “LEGO set” leak means that the Quantum Realm might actually end up introducing another famous dimension to the MCU: The Negative Zone.
A vital part of Fantastic Four lore, the Negative Zone is an alt-universe which essentially holds a swirling vortex of unimaginable power. The so-called Lord of the Negative Zone is a notorious FF villain known as Annihilus, who just happens to be a winged beast who could very easily be the new addition in the “LEGO” vision of the new Battle of New York.
We’ve long wondered about how the MCU could introduce Marvel’s first family and the inclusion of Annihilus could be the beginning of melding the two long separated worlds. Perhaps Thanos causes a rift in reality to free Annihilus from the Negative Zone so the powerful being can help him beat the Avengers. Maybe during their adventures in the Quantum Realm, Scott and Thor accidentally discover the Negative Zone and unleash the beast within it, causing Thanos to team-up with his former foes like he’s done so many times in the comics.
Of course, the potential of the Negative Zone also offers up a way to introduce the Fantastic Four themselves. Could the team of heroes have been trapped in there until the interdimensional door is opened by the Avengers? Maybe they’ve been hiding preparing for the oncoming onslaught of Galactus, or could it even be that they exist in a different universe to the MCU entirely? We’ll have to wait until April 26th to find out, but for now it’s incredibly fun to wonder just what all of these little clues could mean.
Images: Marvel Comics, Disney