As Avengers: Endgame slowly disappears from the spotlight, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe pushes onward toward Phase 4, it’s not yet clear who’ll take on the role of an overarching villain (assuming the MCU will ever see another one to begin with). Since Thanos is out of the picture, fans have begun to scour the internet for clues as to who Marvel’s next big bad is. Rumors indicate that the Taskmaster is the main antagonist of the upcoming Black Widow movie, and it looks like either Adam Warlock or Rocket Raccoon’s mysterious creator will face off against the Guardians of the Galaxy in their next film.
While studio president Kevin Feige has hinted that the “real” Mandarin will come back in a big way in Phase 4, a new fan theory suggests the villainous robot from Avengers: Age of Ultron could return to the MCU as well. As reported by ComicBook.com, the titular character was destroyed at the end of Joss Whedon’s final Marvel film, but before he bit the dust, he was seen flying a Quinjet around, which was later commandeered by the Hulk. If Ultron was able to upload a version of himself onto the ship’s computer system, there’s a chance that a copy of him is still intact and would have eventually made its way to Sakaar, the trash planet seen in Thor: Ragnarok.
Of course, there’s nothing to suggest any of this actually happened, but the aforementioned fan theory does make one interesting observation. With Ultron representing the ideal robot, and Adam Warlock poised to be the perfect humanoid, a potential story arc could see the two battling it out to settle the man vs. machine debate once and for all.
To be honest, we aren’t entirely sold on this particular theory, but we certainly wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s big bad in the future. What are your thoughts, though? Would you be interested in having James Spader return to voice Tony Stark’s murderous machine? Let us know in the comments section down below.