Major spoilers ahead for Avengers: Infinity War.

A lot can be said about Avengers: Infinity War, and even more can be said about the bonkers ending. To recap, Thanos (Josh Brolin) basically wins the war when he collects all six Infinity Stones. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he accomplishes what he sets out to do—wipe out half the universe at random. This ends up killing beloved characters like Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), all of the Guardians of the Galaxy except Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), and more. There are still major superheroes on the board like Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Captain America (Chris Evans), but half the universe is just gone, and Thanos is happily watching the sun rise, still in possession of the Infinity Gauntlet and all the Stones (although it looks like the gauntlet was damaged after he snapped his fingers).

The ending of Infinity War makes the split in the audience feel profound. There are two kinds of people that go to see Marvel movies. There’s the casual viewer that will go see a Marvel film if they think it looks interesting and then there are the die-hard fans that will see every Marvel movie on opening weekend and keep up to date with what’s happening for future installments. These two audiences will not perceive the ending the same way. The first group, the casual viewers, will probably be left dumbstruck by what they just saw. “Black Panther just got his own movie! And now he’s dead? What the hell! That can’t be it!” And the die-hard audience will say, “Spider-Man literally has a movie coming out in July 2019. There’s no way he’s dead for good.”

So let’s break down the two options here, keeping in mind the whole time that Infinity War is clearly part 1 of 2, and that the story we’re watching is only half-complete.

All of These Characters Are Seriously Dead

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Image via Marvel

For starters, let’s be clear that there are two kinds of dead in Infinity War. There are people who are killed directly and those that are killed by the Infinity Gauntlet finger snap (which we’ll call “dusting” for the sake of convenience). The characters killed before the dusting—Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Heimdall (Idris Elba), probably The Collector (Benicio del Toro) Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and Vision (Paul Bettany)—are probably dead for good no matter what happens with possibly the exception of Gamora due to her personal connection to Thanos.

If this is the case, it means that the universe is irrevocably changed and there’s nothing any of our heroes can do about it. Everyone will just live with survivor’s guilt forever and Avengers 4 will be more in the vein of Left Behind at worst or The Leftovers at best. The world itself will also be pretty much unmade and none of characters will be around to see it rebuilt. Additionally, since Thanos still has the Infinity Gauntlet and all the Stones, he’s pretty much unstoppable anyway, so what would be the point? I just depressed the hell out of myself by writing this paragraph.

This ending would be shocking if it were an ending instead of a cliffhanger or if Marvel was really willing to reckon with what it would mean to live in a world where 50% of all populations just vanished. But that’s not the kind of propulsive action-comedy that Marvel is known for making, and while it’s certainly a bummer conclusion, it’s not really a bummer and it’s not really a conclusion.

Most of These Characters Are Probably Coming Back

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Image via Marvel Studios

To Marvel’s credit, they’ve tried to be as quiet as possible on potential sequels. They haven’t announced released dates for anything past Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, which is technically a Sony picture and is set for a July 5, 2019 release date. Then there’s common sense, which states that since Black Panther made over a billion dollars worldwide, Disney would probably be less-than-thrilled if Marvel didn’t make a sequel starring Chadwick Boseman as the King of Wakanda. They’d, along with viewers, would also probably be somewhat disappointed if half of Wakanda was now dust.

Which brings us back to having just watched half a story, and which ultimately makes the ending of Infinity War self-defeating. It’s a gut-punch to see all of these characters “die”, but it’s more like a thought experiment. “What if half of all Marvel superheroes up and died suddenly?” Well, we’d be really sad. But that’s not the end of the story, and it’s clear that saving these dead people is the mission of Avengers 4.

Granted, we have a whole year to think about how these characters will be saved and what kind of sacrifice will be required from the surviving heroes to make that possible. We also have to wonder what kind of movie Avengers 4 will be. Will it be a dour movie since half the world is dead? Will it be a time-hopping or reality-hopping adventure where the characters try to find timelines or outcomes that allow them to defeat Thanos?

The how is almost irrelevant because the deaths we’re really waiting on haven’t arrived yet. It’s likely that Loki and Heimdall are dead for good, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Gamora and possibly Vision are somehow resurrected. And I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the dusted characters are brought back to life one way or another.

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Image via Marvel Studios

And yet that lack of impact renders Infinity War oddly inert. It doesn’t have an ending, and the cliffhanger only exists to be undone. The question for Avengers 4 isn’t, “How will they bring these characters back?” but “How can it hope to leave a lasting impact if the follow-up story is just a giant ‘undo’ button?”

As for the two movies we’re getting between Infinity War and Avengers 4Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel—it appears they’re unaffected because they take place before Infinity War. In Infinity War, it’s mentioned that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) accepted house arrest as punishment, and we can see him under house arrest in the first trailer. Since the trailer is fairly upbeat, it’s safe to assume that Ant-Man and the Wasp takes place before Infinity War. As for Captain Marvel, we know it takes place in the 1990s, so that film is definitely not in danger of being affected by Infinity War. However, in the post-credit scene of Infinity War, we see Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) send out a beacon to Captain Marvel when he sees the dusting, so we know there has to be some kind of connection between the two films. We’ll have to wait until March 2019 to find out what that exact connection may be.

What did you think of the Avengers: Infinity War ending? How do you think the story will conclude in Avengers 4? Sound off in the comments!

For more on Avengers: Infinity War, click on the links below:

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Image via Marvel Studios
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