The Black Widow Fan Theory That Will Have You Thinking Twice About Hulk's Snap In Avengers: Endgame
The Infinity Gauntlet served as the MacGuffin for two dozen films spanning over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From the appearance of the Tesseract in "Captain America: The First Avenger" to the devastating Soul Stone in "Avengers: Infinity War," much of the films' storylines revolve around capturing these items to keep them out of the hands of nefarious beings. By the time Thanos (Josh Brolin) collected them all, he had them placed in an iron gauntlet specifically forged to allow the user to use the mighty stones.
By the end of "Infinity War," Thanos completes his quest for the stones and snaps his fingers, turning half of the universe's population to dust. Before people begin to disappear, Thanos sees himself speaking to a younger version of Gamora (Ariana Greenblatt). She asks him what it cost, and he responds, "Everything."
Thanos wasn't the only person to use all six Infinity Stones, however. Both Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), issue their own snaps. Do they have similar visions? One Redditor has a theory about what happened when the Hulk snapped.
Does the Hulk see Black Widow?
The anonymous user posits while rewatching the movie that Thanos isn't the only person to have seen someone sacrificed to the Soul Stone: "Does this happen to everyone who uses the gauntlet? And if so, who does the user see? I think that Hulk saw Black Widow after he snapped and it was that conversation with her that made him realize her death was permanent."
The Redditor brings up a good point. Would the conversation be a part of the undertaking? A way for the soul to process what the user has done? Bruce seeing Natasha, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), would certainly bring closure to their relationship. In "Avengers: Age of Ultron," viewers saw the two of them grow close, going so far as to debate how a relationship would work between them. Could the Hulk snapping his fingers bring him to see her and allow him to come to grips with her death? Bruce turned living as the Hulk into a very lonely existence. Losing the one person he let in since Betty Ross would have been devastating.
Others, such as u/willbo2013, agreed: "Now that you say this, I actually wish we could've gotten a Hulk/Nat scene in the soul world [sic] to tie up their relationship (still feel like we never got closure from ['Age of Ultron']). Hulk could've been like 'I have to bring you back,' and Nat could've been like 'it doesn't work like that big guy.'"
Whom did Iron Man see?
Present throughout the thread is the idea that Tony Stark's snap should have triggered a conversation for him as well, with the original poster claiming that Tony may have spoken to Morgan (Lexi Rabe). Other Redditors, however, were quick to point out that Morgan is still alive.
Redditor u/WollyGog states, "Both Gamora and Natasha had been sacrificed to the [S]oul [S]tone. And if the [S]oul [S]tone only let you see loved ones who were dead (rather than just what lives it had taken), Tony would probably have seen his mum or dad."
On the other hand, there is a comment from another deleted user that lends a little credit to the theory: "I originally interpreted it as what each person lost (Thanos lost Gamora, Hulk lost Nat, Tony is losing a life with his daughter); not them visiting who was in the [S]oul [S]tone, but a mental projection of the 'cost' of using the gauntlet. ... Tony gives his [soul] for the sake of his daughter, giving the 'everything' a different meaning."
More of the comments present deeper theories and ideas, including some that discuss the feasibility of Tony seeing Yinsen (Shaun Toub), taking viewers back to the beginning of "Iron Man" and bringing the entire story full circle.