The first Avengers film will go down as being the best, always, as it was the first time our heroes came together and decided to become a team. It forged the way for the rest of the MCU, and it was contingent on our good guys saving the day. But what happened if the Avengers didn’t save the day? What happens if the US government chose to nuke the island of Manhattan and it didn’t go into a wormhole and blow up alien spaceships? Let’s talk about it.

At the end of the day, The nuke was a pivotal part of the storyline, and had it been allowed to hit New York, that storyline would’ve shifted to an extreme extent. For one, all our heroes would be dead, with possibly the exception of Iron Man. I say this because we could look at this in two ways: with Iron Man already away from the city trying to stop the nuke or being right there when it went off. As the second is more likely, I’m going to say all the heroes would be dead. But it’s much more than that. The entire island of Manhattan would’ve been demolished, with waves rippling out for miles. This would put an end to all NYC heroes, whether on the board already or not. The explosion would have likely stopped the connection from opening the wormhole, and actually might have destroyed the Mind stone. We never get a lot of information on destroying the stones, and Wanda is the only one who has, so we can’t confirm nor deny the explosion might destroy it. But that almost doesn’t matter, as the Mind stone and where it ends up would have been completely different.

If the two stones that were present at this time weren’t destroyed, they could have landed who knows where and in whoever’s hands. But without the main 6 heroes, 90% of the events that took place in the MCU wouldn’t have happened. Think Ultron and that entire movie plot being gone, which sets up Scarlet Witch and Civil War which sets up Black Panther (to name a few). Everything is in some way connected to actions from this movie. The only positive to this would be what the government wanted, which is the nuke killing the aliens that were invading New York and probably Loki as well.

But before we acknowledge just how doomsday-like this would have been, let’s also think about Thanos. If we go off the narrative that the stones were destroyed, that would be the end of Thanos’ search for them, as he would never be able to get all 6. However, if the stones weren’t obliterated, the stones might have become easier for Thanos to grab, as one wouldn’t have ended up in Vision’s head and the other would never have been handed over by Loki (for two reasons).

To wrap this discussion up, if the nuke had hit New York the MCU simply wouldn’t really exist. Many of our heroes rose either because of an original Avenger (whether directly or indirectly) or through Infinity Stones. Without the story, as it played out life as we know it wouldn’t have happened, and the MCU would have wrapped up in 2012. But hey, wasn’t the world supposed to end that year anyway?

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