Avengers Infinity War ending: Is THIS what happens next in Avengers 4? (SPOILERS)

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD – Do not read on if you have yet to see Avengers: Infinity War.

Those who have seen the movie will know that the film ends, shockingly, with just about every MCU character dead, apart from a select few.

Bucky Barnes, Drax, Groot, Mantis, Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Peter Quill (Star-Lord), Doctor Strange, King T’Challa (Black Panther), and Sam Wilson (Falcon) all disintegrate when Thanos successfully collects all of the Infinity Stones, thereby wiping out half of humanity.

With Loki, Gamora and Vision killed by Thanos earlier in the movie, this essentially leaves only Tony Stark (Iron Man), Bruce Banner (Hulk), James Rhodes (War Machine), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Thor as the core survivors; plus Nebula, M’Baku, Okoye and Rocket.

Notice anything in particular about that list? Many Marvel fans certainly have, with one particular theory on Reddit articulating what could happen next in Avengers 4.

User Nergaal wrote of Stark, Banner, Romanoff, Thor and Rogers: “Assuming Hawk Eye is still alive, these exact 6 are shown dead in Tony’s vision in Age of Ultron.

“This is a way too big coincidence, and I am pretty sure the 6 of them will somehow convince Thanos to flip the 50-50 coin on the reverse side: let them 6 die and bring all the others back (so they can get the juicy money-printing Black Panther, GotG, etc factories).

“It will be a ‘heroic’ exchange, and Thanos will likely agree to such fair exchange (he only cares about wiping half, not which one of them).”

They added: “There is a good chance Thanos will regret killing Gamora (after spending so much time inside the soul gem), and thus Thanos might sacrifice himself in exchange to bring Gomora back.

“Also, Dr. Strange 100% saw this outcome as being the only good one. That’s why he agreed to let the Time Gem go, and let himself get killed, as he said ‘it was the only way’.

“The only drawback to this is having Thor and Rocket go. Thor might be somebody MCU might like to stick around, but Rocket’s sacrifice can be a good driving force for GotG3.

“Only ones that are dead and likely to stay that way are non-snap deaths: Vision (makes Scarlet Witch super motivated) and Loki (his story is about Thor and Thanos said no resurrections).”

We’ve still got a long time left before we’ll see what exactly happens: Avengers 4 is not due out for another year.

In the meantime, there’s Ant-Man and the Wasp to get excited about, plus the currently-filming Captain Marvel.

Although Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers did not appear in Infinity War, it was strongly indicated at the very end of Infinity War that Nick Fury was contacting her about The Snap.

Avengers: Infinity War is out now worldwide.