I Still Can’t Believe The MCU Introduced A Perfect Way To Explore Thanos’ Story More After His Death & Have Totally Ignored It For 4 Years

6 years after Thanos’ death in Avengers: EndgameI still can’t believe the MCU introduced a perfect way to follow up on the villain’s story in 2021, only to ignore it since then. The MCU essentially hinged around Thanos during huge swathes of its first major story arc, with the Infinity Saga revolving around Thanos obtaining the Infinity Stones and using them to wipe out half of the universe’s population via the Snap. Though the MCU’s heroes eventually undid the Snap, it underlined just how dangerous Thanos was in a way that cemented his legacy for years to come.

Following Thanos’ second and final death in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU timeline has been criticized for struggling to find a way to build a new antagonist that can reach the same heights as the Infinity Saga villain, and accused of living in the character’s shadow as a result. Interestingly, 2021 offered a chance to transform the continual references to Thanos from something that kept the franchise looking back at the past to something that helped build towards the future – but this avenue has been essentially passed up on for several years.

Eternals Introduced Harry Styles Into The MCU As A Character With Crucial Ties To Thanos

Ethernals‘ credits scenes brought a range of surprises into the MCU, but perhaps the biggest was the double debut of Harry Styles as Marvel’s Starfox – also known as Eros – and Patton Oswalt as Pip the Troll. The duo are introduced as they encounter Eternals Druig, Makkari and Thena, with Starfox suggesting they’ve arrived to lend a hand reuniting them with the other Eternals who were taken away by Arishem the Judge, stating that: “Your friends are in big trouble. And we know where to find them.“

This by itself might have not been as big a deal if the sequence didn’t confirm that a major comic fact is also true in the MCU – as Pip provides an introductory speech about Eros that takes care to mention he is “the brother of Thanos“. While not the only focal element of Starfox’s comic story, the fact he is the sibling of one of the more dangerous villains in both the comic and on-screen world is certainly a crucial detail, and one that the MCU made sure to introduce before doing nothing with this potentially fruitful story avenue.

The MCU Had The Perfect Excuse To Still Explore More About Its Biggest Villain While Also Building To A New Future

Having Thanos’ story set up Starfox and the Eternals’ own narratives would have allowed the MCU to delve more into Thanos’ history and the missing parts of his on-screen lore while also using it to build towards a new future. This is something that the franchise had already made clear it was willing to do in the aftermath of his second and final death in Avengers: Endgamewith the “Thanos was right” graffiti seen since then speaking to a desire to have the villain’s actions resonate in later chapters of the story.

Indeed, this could have avoided criticisms that the franchise was still too focused on the past, by instead having Thanos’ story arc used to explain things like why Starfox was suddenly appearing in the MCU, and how his brother’s genocidal plans had an impact on his life. Given Starfox is also introduced as “the royal prince of Titan“, delving into Eros and Thanos’ shared history with Titan and what the decimation of Titan meant for Thanos’ brother could have been par for the course, particularly since audiences would still have a vested interest in how this fleshes out the universe.

In this sense, the MCU could have theoretically had the best of both worlds – being able to show audiences more about one of the franchise’s most fascinating villains and flesh out more about his story posthumously, while also having this serve a practical story purpose for the overarching narrative years after we saw Thanos die seemingly for good on-screen. While it doesn’t appear there are intentions to explore this avenue currently, the franchise does still have one place where it’d make a lot of sense to follow up on this story thread.

The MCU Still Has The Chance To Bring The Eternals & Starfox Back Into Its Story

While the various threads left hanging by the ending of Ethernals haven’t been properly followed up on outside of Captain America: Brave New World showing the geopolitical conflict emerging over Tiamut’s adamantium corpse, this does make sense given where many of those threads lead. Short of ETERENLES 2 – which doesn’t seem likely to happen given the reception to the first movie – the only real chance of a follow-up on the Eternals and Starfox’s encounter would be in an ensemble crossover movie, and the tease of Blade is seemingly in limbo until the Blade movie actively releases.

As such, it seems the MCU’s best chance of following up on these storylines would be within either Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars. This is both because the teased epic nature of the upcoming films could potentially more easily fit Starfox into its sprawling cast, and because having the brother of Thanos team up with the Avengers at some stage seems like a story angle the MCU may wish to use, even if this is only briefly directly alluded to.

Over 20 actors having already been confirmed for the cast of Avengers: Doomsday supports the idea that the upcoming Avengers movies will contain a considerable number of characters from various corners of the MCU.

Similarly, if a soft reboot is coming after Avengers: Secret Wars as has been theorized, then this potentially offers one of the last possibilities to explore this territory. Given the 2015 Secret Wars comic transformed the multiverse – and inspiration is being taken from the comics – letting the films serve as a reset of sorts would make a lot of sense, especially since the franchise needs an explanation for how the X-Men appear in the main timeline. As such, it seems possible this could also lead to some less popular characters like the Eternals being put on the backburner at best.

Given Starfox’s complicated comic history – which has included a court case about whether he had been using his powers to sexually coerce others – it’s understandable that the MCU may wish to take a particularly careful approach when it comes to adapting the character on-screen. However, simply never following up on Harry Styles’ Marvel debut would be an approach that seems more wasteful than careful, especially since Starfox offers a way to capitalize on Thanos’ story further over half a decade after his final MCU movie demise.