Back in 2018, I wrote a piece about how Thanos’s Snap would have potentially set the universe on a crash course towards total extinction. Fun, I know. And while Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home deal with some of the post-Blip aftermath, it’s buried under enough plot that you just sort of move on. Even watching the explainer in Far From Home, you just sort of blink at the visual gag of blipped band members crashing into basketball players before moving on with the plot.
But then WandaVision happened. And oh boy, do I have concerns.
In the episode “We Interrupt This Program”, we see Monica Rambeau, formerly known as Geraldine, reverse-dust back into existence where she was when she died: her mother’s hospital room. But obviously, it’s not her mother’s room anymore, and she stumbles out into the hallways with other very dazed and confused people who have just manifested out of nothingness back to the last spot where they existed.
This one scene, while heartbreaking for Monica, is also deeply, deeply disturbing because of what it implies. So I’ve got some questions, and none of the answers, thus far, are happy ones.
(Also, for clarification, The Snap is when Thanos killed half of all life, and the Blip is when Hulk returned them all during Endgame).
1) What about people who were flying during The Snap?
The mechanics of the return process are not entirely clear. Either the people are returning to the exact geographical point where they turned to dust, or they are appearing near the closet object that still exists when they died. If it’s the first one, oh god.
We know there were planes in the air when The Snap occurred because Nick Fury watches a plane strike a building amidst the chaos at the end of Infinity War. So does that mean that all the passengers and pilots rematerialized in mid-air when they came back? If so, then they came back and immediately fell thousands of feet to their deaths. And what about people who were in cars? They rematerialized on busy roads, and at least a few of them will be hit by cars in the process. People on trains likely fared a little better, so long as a train wasn’t coming (or the train maintained the same schedule for five years). And what if you were getting surgery? Or were very hurt? Or you lived on the 10th floor of a building that isn’t there anymore? All I am saying is there are going to be some very, very scary moments when people first reappear, and not everyone will survive.
However, if instead they are coming back in or next to the object they were last next to, then it’s slightly less terrifying. Slightly, however, is key here, because people are still gonna die. Imagine you materialize on a plane that is currently in flight, adding a ton of extra weight to the plane. Or worse yet, scaring the living shit out of the pilots. Imagine showing back up in your car that is currently being driven by someone else. Imagine if the car you were driving is now nothing but a cube, or abandoned in some lot somewhere where you can’t get help or get out.
All I am saying is there are going to be a lot of families who are all excited because their loved ones are coming back, only to find out they died immediately upon arrival.
2) Is homelessness a huge problem now?
Okay, so say Marvel made some explanation about how those people in mid-flight or drive are fine. They probably already have, to save us all from the horrors of thinking about people falling to their deaths or being immediately run over. But that’s just the tip of the concern iceberg.
Many problems arise immediately as people return. These people are all legally dead, so they don’t have access to their bank accounts, if their families haven’t already taken the money. They’ve all lost their jobs and, being legally dead, can’t get new ones until they are recognized as alive. Their homes are either abandoned and in a massive state of disrepair, or they are being used by other people. And again, they can’t pay their rent or mortgages because their accounts are still frozen. Also, if they happen to be sick or injured when they return, they won’t have the health insurance they need in order to be treated (you know, for those barbaric countries where healthcare isn’t free).
And yes, while I am sure governments will figure out a way to get people un-dead-statused, not everyone is going to be able to go back to work or into a home right away, or in some cases, maybe ever. You have to imagine that homelessness is going to skyrocket pretty much immediately and not abate for several years without some kind of social relief programming.
3) How did the global infrastructure bounce back so fast?
Back when I wrote my first article, I said it would likely take 5 to 10 years to sort out all the massive infrastructure issues, which might have been generous. The world of Endgame looks somewhat okay, though we see Scott running amongst piles of garbage and abandoned cars so clearly there’s still work to do. But adjustments have been made, the world has recalibrated.
Now all of those dead people are back in one fell swoop. Oops.
Except in Far From Home, which takes place only eight months later, everything seems fine. Maybe not perfect, but they go to Europe with passports like it’s no problem, and there are celebrations and carnivals and all sorts of big organized public activities. So how did the world go back to normal so fast?
We are in the middle of a pandemic right now, an event that took about three months to infect the entire world and is going to take somewhere in the range of two years to fully combat all the immediate danger. But then comes the rest of the issues, like the tanked economy, impoverished families and communities, and the closing of small businesses, which will take likely a few more years to get back to “normal.” There is no way the world is so normal in just eight months after regaining thousands upon thousands of people. It’s just not possible. There would still be food shortages, the need to retrain thousands of people, and limited resources and space, all of which would need to be resolved very quickly to avoid people suffering needlessly.
Unless it was solved by magic which…I mean, I guess.
4) How are people dealing with this massive trauma?
Yeah, for those lucky dogs out there who are in good mental health, this might come as a shock, but trauma doesn’t go away just because the root of it was fixed. Everyone in the world, in the universe, lost someone in The Snap, and likely watched people literally blow away into dust. In Endgame, we still see people going to support groups and openly weeping over the loss of their loved ones five years later, because grief is a long and often endless process. That doesn’t just get fixed just because said loved ones come back.
But wait, there’s more. You get the added bonus of thousands of other people who now realize they died and were gone for five whole years, during which so much has changed. We see that happen to Monica in this episode, where she had to somehow wrap her head around not only watching people materialize from thin air but that one minute ago, her mother was alive, and now, not only has it been five years, but she’s also dead.
I genuinely think we see even more of this in “We Interrupt This Program.” For one, when FBI agent Jimmy Woo tells Monica that there’s this weird forcefield around a town, and then watches Monica disappear into it, he is very nonchalant. I mean, if I saw a person disappear like that, I would be terrified. But sure, you think, Woo knows about the Avengers and has met Antman, so he’s used to it. Okay, but what about the two cops that tell them that Westview, the town WandaVision takes place in, is not a real town? They act like they’re telling Jimmy and Monica about a dog they saw. That’s right, a whole, mysterious town appears and no one can get into it, and the cops are just like “Eh, you know, it happens.” That’s the kind of attitude you have when you’ve watched people you love vanish and then have them re-appear suddenly. At this point, they probably just think they’re in Hell.
So are there massive therapy centers we don’t see? Is mental health being addressed in schools and workplaces? Are these people really okay?
5) The world is still, potentially, on the path to extinction
Okay, so, all of that is bad…real bad. But it is potentially worse. In the previous article, I talked about how The Snap basically tanked biodiversity by removing animals from species that are already scarce and through a lack of resources and ruined the delicate ecosystem. Well, problem solved, right? All those animals are back now, which means their populations are restored and balance can be achieved.
Yeah, no, problem not solved.
Five years have passed, so it’s unlikely the return of breeding pairs is going to be enough to recoup a dwindling population. Since resources will remain an issue once all those lives are returned, it’s likely the animals are going to be too stressed out and malnourished to have successful offspring. Same thing would likely happen with humans. Can you imagine in all the stress of people disappearing, and then all the stress of people reappearing, wanting to have kids? Would it even be a good idea given how packed hospitals would be? And then what if they disappear too? Not to mention all the chaos of people who remarried or moved on suddenly having those former partners reappear, for whom time has not gone by and believe they are still married. It’s going to be a mess.
So given the fact the infrastructure is going to have to shift again to feed, house, and care for millions of people who suddenly poofed back into existence, and might fail given all the stress on the system, the human race could be in real trouble. It’s also deeply troubling how many resources have to be used to make sure Wanda’s little paradise doesn’t accidentally destroy the world instead of supporting readjusting communities or helping to deliver and distribute food and other necessary goods.
But at least Marvel always has a vast supply of Hand-Wavium on hand. That should do the trick.
