Avengers: Age of Ultron THEORY

Okay so if you haven't heard yet, Paul Bettany has been casted to play as Vision in the next Avengers movie. For those who don't know, this is the same person who voices JARVIS, Tony Stark's computer A.I.

Well Theory #1, a popular one that has been much speculated since it was leaked that the next Avengers movie will be titled "Age of Ultron," is that Ultron will ultimately be some evil version of JARVIS that will become the villain for the next movie. Yeah, a lot different than his comic origins of being invented by the original Ant-Man, Henry Pym. But the Ant-Man movie isn't even expected to come out until AFTER the second Avengers movie and it won't even be Hank Pym as Ant-Man, but Scott Lang, the second person to become Ant-man. Who, by the way, has already been casted to be played by Paul Rudd. Don't worry Pym fans, Henry Pym may still make an appearance as Michael Douglas has been casted to play him.

But if you're as antsy and impatient as Deanpool, you've probably read a dozen articles on this theory already. So what's something new? Well first off, Deanpool can't take full credit on this theory, a lot of it came from this article. It's waaaaaay out there, but speculating is the most fun part. So read that article, or read this post which will touch upon most of the same stuff with a few bits of added commentary.

Theory #2: Someone has to die, and that someone is likely Tony Stark.

Now here us out, Robert Downey Jr. has already been in 4 (5 if you want to be picky and include a short cameo in The Incredible Hulk) of these Marvel movies that make up the Avengers franchise. And the dude is pretty old. It's also quite obvious that his character as Tony Stark/Iron Man is the most popular character from the franchise. He's got a trilogy that has brought in a lot of revenue for Marvel. He got to play the biggest hero amongst heroes in the Avengers movie being the one to nuke the alien invaders and almost giving up his life in the process. His job is one of the easier ones since he's not phsyically the one in the suit, he just has to look good for the camera when his face is actually required. Unlike Captain America and Thor. But that's beside the point. He's only contracted to appear in 2 more movies. Avengers 2 is a safe one to assume, and we'd hope the third installment in the big showdown against Thanos, most likely. 

But how would he die, but still appear in the third movie? Glad you asked. 

Let's look at possible plotlines rather than behind-the-scenes stuff now. With this current Avengers roster, Tony Stark is probably the closest hero to be compared to Batman. Rich, no real physical powers, playboy, rely on gadgets and technology or any other resources. But one of the things that's always overlooked for both characters is their intellect and strategic preparations. A guy doesn't have a dozen or more Batsuits or Iron Man armors without having each one be for a specific situation or purpose. Similar to the common Batman story of having contingency plans for all the members of the Justice League, Tony Stark is the perfect candidate to come up with a similar plan for each of the Avengers. Now Deanpool has literally no idea what they would be for any of them, but with the amount of resources at Tony's disposal, he'd surely have one for each. Remember when he tapped into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database when he was on the helicarrier in the movie? Subsequently learning that they were using the Tesseract to make weapons. Deanpool is sure there were much more secrets gleaned from that information than just that. S.H.I.E.L.D. itself might have protocols on how to deal with each Avenger and Tony might just have archived all those. Archived them all into JARVIS that is. Could you imagine some I, Robot or other artificial intelligence sci-fi flick where the A.I. takes it upon itself to deal with/fix situations by taking everyone out of the picture. That would be your Ultron, forged out of strategic pieces from each of Iron Man's armors (or the remaining ones at least). With all the knowledge and intelligence of how to take down each Avenger plus having the right pieces from Tony's armors, Ultron would take care of the Avengers with ease practically. 

But Tony has way too much ego to let the fall of the Avengers be his fault. He'll likely do whatever it takes to fix his own mistakes... Even if it leads to his death. Deanpool could see it now. The Avengers come up with a well-thought out plan to take down Ultron, which will seem too good to be true because it will only be like middle of the movie in terms of time, and one thing will go wrong... and it will ultimately lead to Tony's sacrificial death. His death of course will propel the Avengers with the proper motivation to eventually defeat Ultron. Boom. No more Tony Stark, Marvel's most marveled movie character for the Avengers franchise. Or is it?

Theory #3, the Vision plays a big role for the future. 

Tony is central to the Avengers. The combination of both his genius intellect and being a master strategist helps the Avengers gel. Sure Rogers/Captain America can lead the team, but Tony represents the future of the team. How do you keep that flavor when he's dead?  Well Tony would have his own failsafe for Iron Man himself too, in case the armor fell into the wrong hands. Ultron taking all of the Avengers and SHIELD's secrets and using it against them sounds like a pretty similar situation of "armor falling into the wrong hands". And that failsafe would be Vision, an android with JARVIS' programming. Sounds like a good solution for an Ultron A.I. spawned from an evil version of JARVIS. The twist? It would use the brainwaves of Tony Stark. Tony Stark's mind behind Paul Bettany's android appearance. Yes, the always prepared Tony Stark, prepped for his own death by sending his brain waves into the mind of the android, Vision. So we still get the Tony Stark presence, just in a much different appearance. It seems way out of left field, and probably sounds like a stretch. But it has a lot of levels to it. Tony was usually in the pilot's seat with JARVIS always there as the "co-pilot." Now, Jarvis will get to be in the pilot's seat, with Tony as the co-pilot. Pretty poetic.

So how does Robert Downey Jr. still show up in Avengers 3?

Imagine the ending scenes of Avengers 2 with a funeral for Tony Stark. A small, private one with Avengers present in their civilian forms. From afar you see Vision floating, then commenting on what a lovely ceremony it was. Then in the little blue screen under the helmet, we see Tony Stark as a talking head with some snide, sarcastic one-liner. Boom. Now everyone can't wait for the third movie.

This limits Robert Downey Jr.'s presence in the third installment of the Avengers trilogy, but still merits why he'd get a paycheck from the second of his two remaining contracts. But now they have Vision/Paul Bettany to fill the role left by Tony's death. And if Marvel plays its cards right, it won't even have to readdress this issue until the third Avengers movie. Everything in between the Avengers 2 and Avengers 3 will be sequels and introducing new characters (Ant-Man being a prime example). A couple cameos here and there, some repercussions of Tony's death affecting the Avengers. Maybe get Bruce Banner or Colonel Rhodes to be the one to keep this mega-secret. Shoot, you could even imagine Rhodey picking up the Iron Man mantle in Tony's absence. 

WHY IT MAKES SENSE:

The second movie of a trilogy has to be the one where the villains flex its muscles. It's the "Empire Strikes Back" chapter. There has to be chaos, death, and tragedy. Anything that is unexpected, but ultimately central to the whole story. Examples in the article were the Vader-Luke father and son reveal or how Spock died in the second movie. 

There's only a few characters that can die in this Avengers franchise that can leave such an impact. Deanpool believes it would either have to be Captain America, Iron Man, or Nick Fury. Steve Rogers only comes up since he's the leader of the team. The team would definitely fall out of order without Rogers' leadership and it would be up to Tony most likely to take the reigns. Similarly if Nick Fury were to die in action, it would throw a big complication into story. Especially since he's one of the lone believers in the potential good that the Avengers can bring. It may be downplayed in the moment, bringing the Avengers into a similar thirst of vengeance like when Agent Coulson died. But could come back at the end to be play a potentially influential twist for us to see who would take over as director of SHIELD. Maria Hill? Or Tony Stark? Or even Steve Rogers. All 3 make for an interesting movie, but with the facts laid out, and Tony Stark easily being the most beloved Avenger to this point, Tony is likely the one to die.

Let's dig into Vision's comic book origin. He's a synthezoid/artificial intelligence that takes on the brain patterns of a fallen hero, who was Wonder Man. Well in this case, there's a slight twist with Tony Stark's brain patterns instead. But for the most part it holds true to Vision's origins. Marvel movies are always clever in finding ways to distinguish the movie universe from the comic universe, and this one would keep fans of both universes intrigued. Remember the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3? It may be a it or miss for more traditional fans, but it's definitely something that will change the status quo and likely gain more interested viewers than the amount of sticklers you may lose. Because you can't deny that this whole cockamamie theory doesn't grab your interest.

The whole Infinity stones tease that came in the post-credit scenes of Thor: Dark World probably will be explored more after the second Avengers movie. It might not be a Thanos central story, just like how the first one wasn't really either. But he'll likely get some sort of post-credit scene/end of the movie scene where we'll be teased of more Thanos involvement after this second Avengers film. Maybe he'll have some sort of evil agent that was behind the Ultron incident occurring. Deanpool expects more of the Thanos character being revealed in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Makes more sense for a cosmic threat be first addressed by cosmic guardians doesn't it?

What do you think of Deanpool's crazy theory? Would you like to see it happen? May 2015 can't come around any sooner.