There's a new Avengers fan theory about Nick Fury and it's wild

Avengers 4 is fast approaching and the fan theories just won't stop coming.

After Avengers: Infinity War left us with a monster cliffhanger as to the fate of our beloved superheroes and people have been going wild, trying to figure out how the good guys will come back from this and beat Thanos after he wiped out half of the population of the universe.

A new fan theory coming out could make a lot of sense and it regards none other than Mr Nick Fury himself.

If you recall, in Infinity War before being dissolved into some sort of human dust, Fury sends a message on a mysterious pager-esque device which is thought to be contacting Captain Marvel.

Redditor sfmarch07 speculates:

I believe Nick Fury in the ‘90s in the Captain Marvel movie will be shown or made aware of the future and future events, potentially even by Doctor Strange coming back in time from Infinity War. 

He will be shown specific things that he and other characters have to do throughout the entire MCU to ultimately set up future events for how they need to be in order for the Avengers to win in Avengers 4, per Doctor Strange’s end game plan from the possible 1 out of 14 million outcomes.

Meaning everything that has happened in the MCU so far had to happen the way it did, but more importantly was set up in certain cases to happen the way it did partly by Fury himself.

The main suggestion here is that the events of all the Marvel films have been leading to this moment, all set in motion thanks to Nick Fury knowing exactly what was coming next.

The theory continues:

If you go back and watch most of the scenes and post credit scenes with Nick Fury in the MCU movies, it’s like he always knows something that the other characters don’t, and knows how to tell them just what they need to hear or contributes something that makes a big difference with no explanation of how or why he knew to do it.

(…) If Fury was shown the events of the future back in 1990 during the Captain Marvel movie and was shown things he needed to do for the future, that would also explain why he started out as a lower level guy in S.H.I.E.L.D who was ready to hang it up (according to the Captain Marvel trailer) but ends up becoming the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. by the events of the first Iron Man movie in 2008.

Seeing as how the Captain Marvel film hasn't come out yet, this could prove to be a solid theory and the trailer definitely backs up what's being speculated here.

That being said there would have to be a substantial, almost invasive amount, of time travel involved in Avengers 4. Otherwise, the film is going to be a bit of a skeleton cast with the remaining heroes wondering just what went wrong.

Sfmarch07 continues:

During Captain Marvel, Nick Fury learns about aliens and cosmic threats for the first time, which is his true motivation for assembling the Avengers in the first place.

(…) I think in Avengers 4, through some time travel, you’ll be shown  how all the events in the MCU up to this point have been set up and happened the way they did for a reason, especially the events of Captain America: Civil War (which was also written by the Russo brothers).

It's a novel idea and it might well be how it plays out, despite how much of a cop out the whole 'Let's reverse it with time travel' trope is, which in case you're wondering, is just a glorified version of the classic film ending of 'It was all a dream'.

Another part of the theory really doubles down on the time travel aspect:

In order to retrieve the Soul Stone, Tony [Stark] is going to have to sacrifice something, the same way Thanos had to sacrifice Gamora. But instead of sacrificing Pepper Potts, what if Tony instead has to go back in time to 1991 and infiltrate Hydra or seek out the Winter Soldier, and order the hit on his parents himself, sacrificing the thing he loves most?

(…) It would be the hardest decision that any character has had to make in the entire MCU, and a decision that only Tony Stark himself could make.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Captain Marvel takes place in 1990 and Tony’s parents are killed in 1991.

The idea here being that Tony Stark will essentially be the driving force behind his own origin story.

If this is what happens, that would create a time loop, or bootstrap paradox, in the MCU timeline. But it seems unlikely they would spend 22 films setting up all this to just glaze over every prior film in Avengers 4.

A bootstrap paradox is a time-travel scenario where the original timeline couldn't take place without the time-travelling happening in the first place.

Regardless of it all, we can all probably agree that Nick Fury's character definitely needs some more context and the original theory would be the best suited.

Read more: This person thinks they've found the title for Avengers 4 hidden in Age of Ultron