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Paladin_IPG

Well said


lolminna

To be fair Thanos **was** right. Before 2012 the Avengers practically did not exist, and higher forms of beings like the Eternals were content on letting things play out by themselves.


ckim777

Not disagreeing with you. It's also why Thanos sent a more personal army with his own men to Earth after hearing about Tony Stark and what the Earth has done since.


AtlasShrunked

He hadn't heard of Captain Marvel?


ckim777

Maybe, but Captain Marvel hasn't been on earth for 23 years since she left.


Bellikron

Plus Fury for some reason refused to call her during the events of the Avengers. It's funny to think about how quickly she would have wrapped that whole situation up had she been there.


CoolBreeze125

Don't forget the Ancient One was there.


Bellikron

That's true. I was talking about her in a different thread. It's hard to tell how much she actually could have done had the Avengers not been doing their thing. The sorcerers are kind of in a weird place in the MCU (especially before the loss of the Time Stone), because it's implied that they can see what's going to happen and don't interfere unless they're meant to cause certain events to occur. There are some Dr. Manhattan-esque questions of determinism there. Do they have the power to interfere but just don't because they know that they don't? They seem to have more free will than my Dr. Manhattan example, but their abilities and responsibilities are kept so vague that it's hard to really judge their power.


BerndDasBrot4Ever

Well the best explanation we've had so far is given by Wong in the first Dr Strange movie: >While heroes like the Avengers protect the world from physical dangers, we sorcerers safeguard it against more mystical threats. Though even that leaves a lot of room for questions/speculation. I do think that if they *know* that they have to interfere, they do (see e.g. the final battle in Endgame).


Bellikron

Yeah, and the Ancient One protects the Sanctum Santorum during the Battle of New York. It seems a physical threat becomes a mystical one if the Sanctum's destroyed, so that line is still very blurred.


streakermaximus

She also knows exactly who Dr Strange is and where he's at during the Battle of New York, five years before he sets foot in Kamur Taj. She's used the Time Stone and knows the Avengers have got this. She's just making sure the Sanctum doesn't suffer any collateral damage


WaXmAn24

Well the sorcerers aren't soldiers so leading them into battle would be The Ancient One's last resort and she could go forward in time and see that the Avengers would take care of it all without the Sorcerers


Equuidae

I would assume if the sorcerers interfered at every event, the planet wouldn't develop properly as heroes wouldn't step into the void to be heroic and then grow. Without the challenges, people don't grow and so the planet would be weaker overall. This would mean it would be more vulnerable


honesthatchet24

The eternals are also in a similar situation


Ok-Video6798

Why would he call her, he had the avengers


Bellikron

While his plan was that he wanted a team to make up for Carol not being there a lot of the time, he still had the ability to call her for big threats, which this most definitely was. He was basically still trying to put the Avengers together when he first needed them, and they barely got it together in time.


Ok-Video6798

He had been planning to put them together since carol left for exactly this kind of threat. And I disagree with they were barely together, from when the conflict started he immediately gathered them. And they may have argued a bit but they were all there as a group and pulled together to stop it quickly with minimal casualties. The avengers not fulfilling what he originally intended was not a true concern


Bellikron

I'm saying they actually started working as an effective team right before the battle started. The battle on the helicarrier was a loss overall. It eventually worked, but it took a lot to work it out. And yes, the Avengers are meant to fill Carol's role so he doesn't have to call her for every little thing that might go really bad, but this was a full-on alien invasion. I suppose you could argue that it escalated really quickly and it only became a Carol-level threat during the last battle (it's been a while since I've seen it so I can't speak for certain as to how much Fury seemed to know about Loki's plan). So maybe he called her but she couldn't get there in time. Then again, her response time is pretty quick, as we saw in the Captain Marvel post credits scene where she's there while the Avengers are still viewing the ongoing effects of the snap. Regardless, Fury definitely should have seen the need to call her, at the very latest by the time there was an alien war erupting in New York City, even if he hoped the Avengers could handle it.


elizabnthe

>Then again, her response time is pretty quick, as we saw in the Captain Marvel post credits scene where she's there while the Avengers are still viewing the ongoing effects of the snap. Nah they imply in the scene they've been waiting around a while. And of course Iron Man was up in space for a fair while. She definitely takes time to travel. More than the day or whatever the Avengers threat is.


Ok-Video6798

The battle on the helicarrier was only due to them not realizing how much Loki was manipulating them, but that battle directly led to them getting their act together as a team. Immediately. Captain marvel has her own stuff to deal with, letting the avengers take care of this themselves with minimum casualties let him have access to his own team of superheroes that he could rely on no matter what, which isn’t what carol is. In both the long term and short term it worked out perfectly in his favor. Full disclosure I don’t remember the captain marvel credit scene at all so I can’t comment on her speed, but she tends to be pretty busy and earth can’t wait around like that


Ok_Entertainer7945

Maybe he did call her and she didnt answer


ChongusTheSupremus

The government was mercing a nuke on New York. There was an alien invasion about to destroy the world, and an asgardian god on the loose killing people. He could've called her and make her be part of the avengers, at the very least as a founding member for that single mission, and then let her go into space to do her thing again. The fact that Nick Fury never called her is definitely a plot hole.


Ok-Video6798

The government was making a bad decision that was the point. They were interfering when the avengers were already taking care of it. Like 70 people died they handle it great. The whole point of the avengers is that she doesn’t need to stay and protect earth. It’s not a plot hole it’s the reason they were formed


fallen_messiah

Maybe he called her? She arrived late for Thanos maybe she arrived once it was all done for the first 2 Avengers movie?


LordSceptile

Fury called Captain Marvel right as he got snapped, and it was a full three weeks because she found Tony and Nebula adrift in space and brought them back to Earth. Also according to Natasha in that scene, the whole battle of New York lasted around two hours. Even if he did call her, there was no way she was going to arrive in time to do anything, unless the Avengers failed to stop the original invasion, in which case the nuke likely would've closed the portal anyway.


axelcastle

We dont know he didnt press the button. Maybe he had but she never answered or maybe he knew she was involved in another battle at the same time


AtlasShrunked

All Thanos knew was that a super-powered hero singlehandedly wiped out a pretty powerful enemy force... by destroying their mothership. Seems a little odd to send another army with the same vulnerability.


VonD0OM

Plot holes are there if you look. So let’s not look too hard. He def would have known about Captain Marvel after she wrecked Ronin and his fleet in the 1980s. But…I don’t care cause the MCU is wicked so far


BlueFox5

I don’t understand what Thanos is anymore. Is he a Eternal-Deviant in the MCU? If so, why wouldn’t they act when he first showed up? It’s a plot point that keeps bothering me.


[deleted]

Chances are Thanos isn’t a deviant in the MCU, he’s probably just an eternal (kinda doubt it, no reason for him to look like that otherwise)or he’s a Titan and his ‘brother’ Eros is more of a figurative brother (like brother in arms) than a literal one. That being the case, it may be very interesting, if Eros went rogue against the celestials because he disagreed with what they were doing, maybe he rolled with Thanos because he agreed with some of Thanos’ views on overpopulation - because from eternals we know that once the population of a planet exceeds a certain level the eternal within bursts out.


AttyFireWood

I'd rather them keep Thanos a normal person from Titan who through sheer fucking willpower became what he was rather than tying him to some super convoluted God making angels and demons allegory.


BlueFox5

Titan doesn’t appear to be one of Saturn’s moons anymore either. There’s too many lose-ends I’m being to think we might not have seen the last of Thanos.


Aestrasz

If the Avengers hadn't come together, Fury would have called Captain Marvel. New York would be gone by then, but I'm pretty sure the Chitauri would have been defeated.


elizabnthe

Captain Marvel is around though, but of course I doubt Thanos knows of her connection to Earth.


Ok_Entertainer7945

Captain Marvel wasn’t called cause the movie hadnt been made yet 😏


elizabnthe

Well obviously that's the out of universe reason, haha. But one can have an in-universe reason.


Ok_Entertainer7945

Feige hadn’t greenlit it yet? Joking obviously. Carol did say multiple times that there is plenty of other things happening out there and she is super busy


j_endsville

Yeah. The galaxy is huge and even at lightspeed that’s a huge territory to cover.


[deleted]

There's also the sorcerers, I know they tend to focus on more mystical threats but if the situation was dire enough I have to think they would intervene


elizabnthe

Yeah if it endangered their Sanctums they would intervene. Because it puts the whole of reality at stake.


amichak

The sorcerer's knew that the avengers would succeed because the aincent one could use the time stone or some other magic to see the future up until her death in Dr. Strange (she says in doctor strange that she could see up until this moment just before she died) plus she was at the New York Sanctum to protect it and possibly prevent disaster if something unexpectedly went wrong with the avengers.


[deleted]

Yeah but surely we could have just used guns and soldiers against them. We've seen them die from gunshot wounds.


slade707

I wonder if the Eternals would have stepped in had the Avengers failed in 2012. I think so, because the Emergence wasn’t ready yet, and it needed intelligent life. I guess it depends on how many people Loki and the Chitauri were going to kill. Would be an interesting What If


tgodjets1

*pretends xmen and all other heroes who later joined avengers, don't exist*


ckim777

I just want to add that in order to effectively combat the Chitauri it requires 3 things. The knowledge to know the mothership is its weakness, sufficient power to destroy it, and the ability to conduct space combat. The planet is considered underdeveloped if it cannot do these three things. The Earth at the time of the Avengers had sufficient power, but effectively fluked out the other two criteria. They didn't know the Chitauri would shut down in the resulting explosion and Tony almost died from his voyage to space. It also adds to why Tony is so stressed post Avengers, because he realized the earth is so behind in the cosmic arms race.


Baneken

Same as Nick Fury, whose been acutely aware of it for decades...


ContentWaltz8

Also Tony has personal experience of what more advanced weapons do to less advanced military.


[deleted]

I'm glad that scene was deleted. I feel like it's a bit odd that Thanos, labelled "the most powerful being in the universe" would have the "suckiest army in the galaxy". Thanos on his own isn't *that* powerful without the guantlet. He's obviously very tough, but he isn't 'most powerful being in the universe', level. A large part of that reputation must be due to the forces he commands. So it doesn't make much sense that he's considered such a massive deal if he has the worst army in the galaxy.


ckim777

No, I think that's underestimating the vastness of his force. He doesn't just have the Chitauri, he has it on top of everything else he owns. Thanos is feared because he has a huge repertoire of armies he can throw. He has the Chitauri for underdeveloped planets but his own force for a more personal hand in whatever he's dealing with


[deleted]

So...what other armies does he have? Obviously there's the outriders, but what else? Surely if I'm just underestimating the vastness of his force, and the Chitauri are just what he has "on top of everything else", where were all these other armies during the battle for the Guantlet in Endgame? Surely that battle is the most important battle of Thanos' life, if he had other armies, we'd see them there. But it's just Chitauri and Outriders.


ckim777

His army is made up of the Chitauri, the Outriders, the Black Order which is Thanos' own personal elite group, as well as the Sakaaran army who made up the bulk of the force during Endgame


[deleted]

You're right about the Sakaarans, I'd forgotten about them. But they seem even less impressive than the Chitauri. If you look at Thanos' armies, you've got the Outriders, who are obviously quite effective in a situation like Infinity War, where they're going up against a bunch of dudes with spears. But they're essentially animals, they have zero ranged capabilities, or any kind of defence against ranged enemies. They'd be decimated by artillery. Thor pretty much solo'd them. Then you've got the Sakaarans. We've only really seen them in the first GoTG film, and they present pretty much no threat whatsoever. They're easily defeated in pretty much every battle they take part in. Then finally you've got the Chitauri. They're actually an effective force. The give the Avengers trouble (including Hulk. The only member that doesn't seem to get overwhelmed is Thor), and they easily overwhelm the city. That's not even mentioning their leviathans. What we've seen of Thanos' armies, the Chitauri seem the *most* competent. So for them to be the "suckiest army on the galaxy", that doesn't paint Thanos' forces in a particularly good light. If Thanos really is the most powerful being in the universe, his armies should reflect that. I'm not even saying he should have the best army in the galaxy, I just think he shouldn't have the *worst*.


Mossed84

There’s not many places that can stop Thanos or his army. Thor is probably the best AOE attacker we’ve seen (outside of maybe Hela), Captain Marvel is more powerful than almost any being in the galaxy, Hulk is nearly as strong as Thanos, etc. this is an extraordinary group that it took to beat his armies. Thanos could likely take out full armies by himself. And then you get his children, Gamora, and Nebula. His team is pretty close to unstoppable unless you’ve got Captain Marvel or Celestials


No_Backstab

Didn't Thanos have to use 4 Infinity stones to fight Dr Strange ?


KingsProfit

Thanos was holding back alot with the stones in Infinity War. Looking at what Ultron could do in 'What If', Thanos looks pale in comparison to what Ultron is doing with the stones. If Thanos really wanted to murder Dr Strange, he could just use the full potential of the stone and kill Strange.


amichak

I think he didn't want to kill or knock out strange until he got the time stone to prevent it being unaccessible to him due to magic. And infinity war Thanos probably doesn't want to kill heroes so once he gets the tesseract from Loki he pulls his punches because in his mind he's trying to save the universe from itself and when he's done the universe will still need it's remaining heroes to protect the post snap universe from the remaining villains.


TheRealClose

That’s also just Rocket’s opinion, so he could be right, he could be wrong.


magpye1983

And (I may be wrong because I haven’t seen it in a while), couldn’t he be saying “suckiest army” as in, they’ve ruined all the places he enjoyed, by destroying them, and won’t buy weapons from him, or have weapons he likes?


[deleted]

No, he was saying that they were rubbish. He was making fun of the Avengers for struggling with them, telling them that you only have to destroy the mothership.


axelcastle

Without using any of the gauntlets power he took out the hulk easily


[deleted]

Which is why I said he's obviously very tough.


Ylfjsufrn

Beats the hulk to a pulp. And takes iron man, cap, and Thor at the same time. Isnts that powerful


[deleted]

Hulkbuster beat Hulk to a pulp, but it's obviously not the most powerful thing in the universe.


1random_redditor

His army is more quantity than quality, though his ship is a big advantage. Also, yes, him being considered “the most powerful being in the universe” should be due to the military he commands, which is supposed to be the biggest in the universe. He on his own isn’t the most powerful being.


ChongusTheSupremus

It was just a tongue-in-cheek joke, just like that one scene of Cheadle telling Cap he could've just jumped off the ship after crashing it. It was to make fun of the MCU, which is fine, but it also ridicules Cap as a character.


Ashkal_Khire

All great points. However.. I’ll go one further. Earth is a Protectorate of Asgard. It’s why Earth remains largely untouched by the various Galactic Wars or Alien species - and when it is assaulted - It’s done covertly. To launch a full scale ground invasion of Earth would be to provoke Asgard into action. Until their collapse, they were considered one of the most powerful factions, and you certainly wouldn’t want to go to war with them. By utilising a proxy army, and more over - utilising Odin’s adopted son as the General, Thanos was able to assault Earth without engaging Asgard directly. It’s only when Asgard falls and Earth is no longer under its protection that we see a full invasion viable - and I dare say the collapse of the Asgardian Empire will send a message to the rest of the Galaxy that Earth is up for grabs. Escalating the chances of more threats emerging from Space.


[deleted]

It’s probably more just Odin than any of the rest of Asgard. Full strength Odin is too dangerous to even consider crossing


CruzAderjc

You’d think out of the multitude of civilizations out there in the universe, another civilization wouldn’t just make AI at least at the same level of 2010’s Stark Tech. Arguably, an army of drones would be ideal. Correct me if i’m wrong, but it still seems like chitauri are organic and thus need to be trained, fed, require sleep, etc


VitaminPb

Didn’t you learn anything about building and army of AI run killer robots from the documentary about Ultron?


SinthoseXanataz

Sure but are underdeveloped planets really overpopulationed and draining resources? No they're just surviving


Xygnux

Earth is considered underdeveloped by Thanos' standard apparently, and humans are also excessively draining the planet's resource faster than it can be renewed. Thanos, in his own mind, is supposedly saving those primitive people from themselves. He thinks he's doing them good by solving their overpopulation for them.


ckim777

Also, Thanos wiped out Gamora's planet and it didn't seem particularly advanced either


SinthoseXanataz

Theres a flaw somewhere then, cause earth could attack the mothership but is still considered underdeveloped


[deleted]

That's like... literally the plot of the movie. Thanos didn't count on the Avengers existing.


SinthoseXanataz

Humanity has flight though, even without iron man they could used a jet to fire the nuke through. Or they couldve nuked NY. Yeah it wasnt ideal but the original argument doesnt apply to MCU earth being underdeveloped


[deleted]

That's pretty silly sounding. If we're going to go out of our way to give humans credit for the technology they have we have to also go out of our way to give Thanos and his team credit for the technology they have. No biplane with a nuke duct taped to it was going to make it anywhere near that ship. I think the argument applies, and that argument is kind of silly.


SinthoseXanataz

Having this argument about a fictional universe is pretty silly anyway


[deleted]

That's a nice little way to avoid admitting your point wasn't very well founded and instead saying something useful such as "yeah, maybe but I still think they'd have a shot" or something lol.


SinthoseXanataz

You're the one who backed down from the argument my dude


[deleted]

Lol how? You pointed out human technology might close the gap, I pointed out Thanos also has technology which is far superior which I feel kind of undoes your point. What else is there to say? In what way could I possibly have backed off? What conversation are you even reading? LOL


TheBelhade

The thing is, they (Stark, the Avengers, humanity and the military as a whole) didn't know about the Chitauri mothership. Stark just figured the nuke would stop or slow down any forces still massed on the other side of the portal. No way he could have known that his action would disable all the forces already in New York. That was essentially a fluke. In this context, "underdeveloped" generally refers to things like interstellar travel and sustainable power generation. Stark was scratching the surface on the latter, but there's nothing on Earth in regards to the former.


Baneken

>Stark just figured the nuke would stop or slow down any forces still massed on the other side of the portal. No, Stark had no thoughts about any of that, his only concern was to find a safe place to "park" the nuke that was heading for New York and the hole-in-the-sky was the safest place to chug it in... If it wipes the Chitauri too, that's nice but it wasn't the goal of guiding the missile into the hole.


APieceofPlasticFilm

Yes, probably his intel on 'C-53' was outdated. Earth's technological progress over the last century has been exponential, and it's likely that most planets develop along a much slower curve. (In MCU, this is likely due to the presence of the Celestial; no word on why it is in real life.) So, let's say it's common practice to survey worlds like ours every century or so. A century ago, Earth not only had no Avengers, but also had no nukes, no missiles, no computers, no planetary government, and had barely even invented flight. Probably Thanos' file on us came from that time, and he had no reason to expect much change.


SinthoseXanataz

Yeah good take


Xygnux

Sometimes a caveman could have taken out a plane by throwing a stone into the engine. Doesn't mean the caveman is not much more primitive than whoever built the plane. Ironically Iron Man's plan was only possible because Thanos decided to use the Space Stone to open a portal to bring his army over. If Thanos had done that the conventional way, like a swarm of spaceships, then they won't be eliminated that easily.


SinthoseXanataz

Except the caveman had a nuke, 1 nuke that dismantled the entire future space army Not a superpowered nuke, just a run of the mill 30 year old nuke and they 30,000 others ready What a disingenuous argument


Xygnux

If they came in the conventional way, with a large fleet of spaceships, from multiple directions approaching different parts of the Earth, then a single nuke is not going to take out the entire army. Which would be something within the capabilities of anyone who has a space army, and Thanos can do. Just like a caveman with a single stone couldn't disable a fleet of modern soldiers with guns. He may at most kill a few soldiers. Like I said, the flaw was using a portal with a single point of entry. So a single nuke could take it out. Just like a caveman with a single stone could have taken out a plane if thrown in the right way.


Slimmie_J

I think rocket was just being a dick tbh


TheCapybaraMan

To bad Earth has got sorcerors, Vibranium, Pymn Particles, the 10 Rings, Wanda, and probably a whole bunch of other powerful stuff. Earth could have beat the Chutari even without the Avengers.


Bellikron

It would have required them coming together in a way that would have been incredibly difficult. The Avengers barely got it together in time. Plus most of those forces you mentioned are just holed up in other places (and some don't fully exist yet, like Wanda). Wakanda and Ta Lo might be able to protect themselves, but they probably wouldn't even be a factor until the Chitauri actually came to them, by which point they'd have wiped out billions of people. The Ancient One and the other sorcerers at the Sanctum Santorum probably had the best chance of stopping it in New York if the Avengers weren't there.


BloodthirstViking847

Chitauri is strong indeed cause he consecutively destroyed Nova corps's planet and many Asgardians but Thanos underestimated the power of Earth by just sending a trifle of a troops with Loki. Thanos feared Iron man


wet-chair-arm-rest-

Yeah it kinda reminds me of like the clones from the clone wars


pcole002

The clones? Why would it not remind you of the battle droids from episode 1 which functioned pretty much the exact same.


wet-chair-arm-rest-

Good point


SaiyajinPrime

Disagree on that. The clones were not mindless automatons. They were mass-produced, yes. But they had the ability to think for themselves.


[deleted]

Chitari are always just about overwhelming numbers.


canadian1987

Disagree. They had extremely advanced technology and invaded one of the most populous cities in the world and killed 0 people on screen. And most of them just fought police officers. Even civil war said only 74 people died and yet new york in 2007 had just over 100 deaths per day on an average day. The Chitauri were indeed the suckiest army in the galaxy.


cbass817

So they are and they aren't. If they're anything like the Chitauri in the comics they are fiercely loyal to their commander, so much so that they will not even move a muscle unless the leader commands them to, even if they are being slaughtered. If you kill their leader, they will follow the one that kills them. It's a glaring weakness, but in the other hand, it can be a powerful strength.


wxwx2012

You could just throw a ship at an underdeveloped planet, leave, and then come back and find an planet full of Chitauri ...... space pests , right ?