In the wake of Avengers: Infinity War, some MCU fans formulated what became known as the Thanus Theory. This suggested that Ant-Man could easily kill Thanos by shrinking, crawling up his butt, and expanding. Surprisingly, a similar idea just emerged within one Marvel Comics mini-series. While it doesn’t involve an anal adventure, it is just as disturbing as the Thanus Theory — if not more so.
Written by Christos Gage, with art by Marcus To, Battleworld #2 centers around a group of superheroes stranded on the titular gestalt planet. Like the locales forming Battleworld itself, the heroes were pulled from across time, space, and reality. This team includes the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, a teenage Spider-Man, and Carol Danvers when she went by Warbird instead of Captain Marvel.
In recent years, Hank Pym cut himself off from the superhero community. There were many reasons for this, but chief among them was the death of his students at the hands of the villain Arcade. The death-trap loving mastermind kidnapped several young heroes from Pym’s Avengers Academy and reenacted The Hunger Games. When Pym learned that some version of Arcade had set up shop on Battleworld, he was eager to enact a little revenge.
Ant-Man Hank Pym’s “Thanus” upgrade explained
After his students’ deaths, Pym had studied everything he could about Arcade. The former Ant-Man knew Arcade’s control over his Murderworld theme parks was near absolute. Arcade was likewise paranoid about personal protection and utilized a series of magical wards and personal forcefields. However, Pym spotted one glaring weakness to those protections: Arcade still needed to breathe normally.
With that in mind, Ant-Man sought to bring Arcade down from within by combining both his power sets. He enlisted an army of stinging insects, shrunk down small enough to ride the oxygen molecules drawn inside Arcade’s body when he inhaled. From there, it was a simple matter for them to enlarge just enough to instill anaphylactic shock in the oblivious Arcade.
While not identical to the Thanus Theory, Pym’s plan hinged around the shared concept of attacking an enemy from within. However, the comics’ Ant-Man’s actions could be argued to be more disturbing. Despite its scatological nature, the Thanus Theory would at least be quick. Many would find that less objectionable than the torturous death from internal wasp stings Hank Pym used to threaten Arcade.
Battleworld #2 is now available at comic shops everywhere.
