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Thanos was bad, but the latest episode of “What If…?” foreshadowed how powerful another MCU villain might have been wielding the Infinity Gauntlet.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for What If…? Season 1, Episode 7, “What If… Thor Were An Only Child?,” streaming now on Disney+.
At the conclusion of Marvel’s Phase 3, Thanos was defeated by the Avengers, and it only took half of all life being destroyed, time-travel, an infinity stone heist and Tony Stark sacrificing himself to finally take out the Mad Titan. With the combined power of the Infinity Stones, Thanos had been nearly unstoppable. In the end, though, the power of the Infinity Stones were his own undoing.
Superhero movies are all about the latest and the greatest, and Thanos was seen as the biggest threat to the MCU at the time, as he united all of the Infinity Stones in the Infinity Gauntlet, but he may not have been the best villain equipped to handle that immense power. The truth is, if Ultron had the Infinity Gauntlet, he would have been a much more formidable “big bad” than Thanos.
The concept comes from Marvel’s What If…? Episode 7, “What If… Thor Were an Only Child?” At the end of the episode, Thor saw a portal open up and an army of Ultron Sentries being led by a sinister version of the villain with all six of the Infinity Stones forged into his body. The episode ended on a cliffhanger, but the potential cosmic havoc that Ultron could dole out is mind-shattering.
Thanos was correct that the combined power of the Infinity Stones would be unmatched in the universe. However, that much power was taxing and took a toll on its users physical bodies. Using the stones destroyed one of Professor Hulk’s arms and killed Tony Stark. Thanos mistakenly thought that he could wield that power, but even he was mortal, and wielding the stones took a physical toll on him as well, nearly killing him.
Born of the Mind Stone and made of Iron Legion parts, Ultron would not have had the issues that Thanos or any other mortal would have. In theory, the stones take a toll on the living beings who use them, but with an artificial body, Ultron may survive, which lines up with his prediction in Age of Ultron, where he thought that after the dust settled the only living things in the world would be like him — made of metal. Even if the stones damaged Ultron’s body, all he would have to do is transfer his AI into a different form.
There is another part about all of this that makes an Infinity Stone welding Ultron more terrifying. Thanos wanted to bring stability to the universe by wiping out half of life to ensure resources could be maintained. Ultron, on the other hand, was more savage.
He was created as a peacekeeping initiative, but he deemed humanity to be the biggest threat to peace. As a result, he decided that all of humanity needed to be destroyed. His unquestioned motives would make him more ruthless than Thanos. Thus, if Ultron did acquire all of the Infinity Stones, he would have been a better “big bad” than Thanos.
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