Is cosmic obliteration really what the future holds, as the latest trailer for the forthcoming First Steps appears to show?
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hat if Thanos really had finger-snapped away half of all life in the universe and then kicked back on his scorched Titan homestead like a giant, purple Cincinnatus? What if Ultron had succeeded in uploading himself into the cloud, turning every smart fridge and Fitbit into a genocidal death bot? What if Loki had kept the Tesseract, conquered Earth, and turned Avengers Tower into a golden skyscraper shaped like his own smirking face?
These are the Marvel sliding‑doors moments we are secretly relieved that we will never see – too bleak, too bonkers, or too off‑brand to survive outside the whiteboard of producer and Marvel boss Kevin Feige.
But what if the Disney-owned studio actually went there? What if the universe did end in tears, ash and the soft whirr of a retro‑futurist espresso machine sputtering out its final cortado as Galactus devours the sun?
