The showdown between Iron Man and Thanos at the end of Avengers: Infinity War was a long time coming, with Tony Stark having been haunted for years after first coming face-to-face with the Mad Titan's alien invaders during the climactic Battle of New York in 2012's The Avengers. But when the long-awaited confrontation finally took place between Stark and Thanos on the latter's homeworld of Titan, the Avenger was surprised to learn that Thanos recognized him; his own reputation having extended beyond the stars as well.

In the commentary for Infinity War, co-director Joe Russo acknowledges the supervillain's recognition of Stark is a direct result from Iron Man carrying a nuclear warhead personally into outer space and devastating Thanos' invading forces during the Battle of New York. Now, a new fan theory about Avengers 4 expands on the history between Tony Stark and Thanos years before their brutal brawl on Titan: Even though their fight on Titan may have been the Iron Man's first face-to-face encounter with Thanos, it may not have been Thanos' first meeting with Iron Man. And the chronological discrepancy may all be thanks to time travel as suggested on Reddit by user AVigz.

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Next year's currently untitled fourth Avengers film almost certainly involves time travel in a desperate bid to avert the tragic ending to Infinity War, a final act that saw Thanos succeed in wiping out half of all life in the universe using the Infinity Gauntlet. In order to save Stark's life from the MCU villain, Doctor Strange relinquished the Time Stone to Thanos, even after vowing to sacrifice Iron Man and Spider-Man if necessary in order to protect the viridescent Infinity Stone. Of the millions of possible outcomes Stephen Strange glimpsed in preparation for the final battle, his willingness to give up the artifact he has sworn his life to guard is the only one move he could make, apparently, in order to kick off a longer, hopefully successful game.

This, coupled with set photos from Avengers 4 revealing key moments in the decade-long history of the MCU featuring an aged Tony Stark and Scott Lang, strongly suggests that the characters post-Infinity War travel through time perhaps using a recovered Time Stone. Ant-Man and The Wasp filmmaker Peyton Reed hinted that time travel would indeed play a role in the upcoming MCU film with the chronologically displaced characters potentially weaving through iconic scenes in past films similar to 1989's Back to the Future Part II dancing between the raindrops of continuity.

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If true, a future version of Tony Stark could have confronted Thanos personally years before the two came to blows on Titan during an earlier MCU film as part of Stark's time traveling mission. That would potentially explain why the villain recognizes Stark both visually and by name despite never (As far as Tony knows at that time) having met him before on screen. This could also suggest that once the future Tony presumably succeeds at the end of a fourth Avengers film, the timeline where Thanos wins will eventually be erased from existence rather than creating a temporal paradox.

But when would the two actually have met before their battle on Titan? Well...

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Prior to Infinity War, Thanos' largest role in the MCU was in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy tasking Ronan the Accuser and his adopted daughter Nebula to track down the Power Stone before the Kree zealot rebelled and took the Infinity Stone for himself. This leaves the possibility that a time traveling Iron Man and Ant-Man could head deep into the cosmos to recover the Power Stone from Ronan and the Reality Stone from The Collector.

If Infinity War was about Thanos largely staying one step ahead of the Avengers and Guardians to recover all six Stones, perhaps Avengers 4 is about the survivors staying one step ahead of the villain in gathering the Stones years before he first does.

Of course, another possibility lies within Russo's comments about Thanos' original association with Stark in the Infinity War commentary track: The Battle of New York.

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Avengers 2012

With set photos recreating the climactic MCU battle, perhaps Tony travels back to the events of the 2012 film to confront the villain in space, either right before his past self has bombed the extraterrestrial attackers, or immediately after, when Thanos' has been dealt his greatest defeat at that time, and is theoretically at his most vulnerable. How the future Stark plans to revisit the battle remains currently unknown, but that he will do so in some manner supports the theory that Iron Man and Thanos had come face-to-face before Infinity War, while corroborating and expanding on the co-director's comments that the association between the two Marvel characters began in that sequence.

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Since story details, including the final title, for the fourth Avengers film are still being tightly guarded by Marvel Studios, it'll be sometime before audiences see what Doctor Strange and Iron Man's master plans are. However, it's virtually guaranteed Infinity War won't be the last time the heroes come face-to-face with Thanos, in this timeline or the next.


Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers 4 stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Brie Larson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Karen Gillan, Evangeline Lilly, and Josh Brolin. The film is set to hit theaters on May 3, 2019.

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