Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out in theaters, and while the movie does its fair share of tablesetting for future Marvel Cinematic Universe entries, it also takes some time to look back at the last time the Avengers were all united against one enemy. In one scene, the film acknowledges that Thanos’ motivations in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are a bit nonsensical, but evil despots don’t have to make sense, I suppose.
About midway through the film, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is dealing with an imbalance in his DNA that is causing his Spider-hormones to overpower his human ones, and while he may no longer have the resources of the Avengers at his disposal like he used to, he can maybe pick one of the team’s greatest scientific brains for some help. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has started teaching at a local university, and wears an inhibitor to keep the Hulk from taking over while he’s in the middle of class.
Peter sneaks into one of Dr. Banner’s lectures and as he arrives, a student who apparently has a knack for derailing class by asking about the not-so-green professor’s superhero days asks a pretty reasonable question: If Thanos was concerned with overpopulation, why did he decide to snap away half of all known life with the Infinity Stones instead of using them to double the resources? Bruce points to another student who is painted green and asks him to answer that question, to which he simply shouts “Hulk smash!”
So not even one of the smartest people in the Avengers can answer this question, but Marvel can’t really, either. For nearly a decade, there have been debates about Thanos’ nonsensical plan, as he claims to see what he’s doing as a difficult but necessary sacrifice for the good of those who remain after their friends and family are wiped from existence. If Thanos wanted to do something he believed would be a net good for everyone else, why take the path of genocide when you could nurture life with a snap of your fingers? Some call it a plot hole; others argue that Thanos is simply a tyrant who wouldn’t ever stop to consider if there was another solution than the one he’d thought of himself. Bruce’s deflection to someone who gives a non-answer feels like Marvel kind of shrugging and moving on, but it is a funny acknowledgement of something that has puzzled fans since Infinity War premiered in 2018.