As someone who can’t swim, is incredibly afraid of boats, and will never be able to afford a ticket anyway, I had no plans to ever check out a Disney cruise. But early previews from the corporation’s upcoming oceanic vacation experience, the Disney Wish cruise, may change my mind.
Here’s why: Only on Disney Wish can you finally hear Ant-Man himself talk about crawling into a Marvel villain’s butthole and then exploding inside of him. Yes, the Avenger has finally addressed the infamous “Thanus” theory.
This momentous occasion is all a person could want from a vacation.
New video from a recent, early-access press tour of the Disney Wish previewed Avengers: Quantum Encounter, an interactive something-or-other for guests to passively enjoy while they’re in the dining room. Mostly, it’s a chance to watch Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly in character as Ant-Man and the Wasp, respectively, goof around while you’re eating.
A video tour recorded during this press preview shows the entirety of the Quantum Encounter—and most importantly, the way it begins.
“Hi, I’m Scott Lang,” says Scott Lang, “but you might know me as Ant-Man.”
“Before we start,” he says next, “let me address the elephant in the room. I’ve heard a lot of chatter out there asking why I didn’t shrink down, go in, and, uh … kill Thanos in a really creative way. First of all: gross. Secondly, it’s much more complicated than that. Allow me to explain…” At that point, the Wasp (a.k.a. Hope Pym) interrupts Ant-Man, probably to avoid making cruise guests listen to a man talk about Thanos’ rectum during dinner.
This is a hilariously odd way to kick off an otherwise trifling video, in which Ant-Man and the Wasp instruct guests on how to break into an object placed on their tables, and yada yada yada. But if you know about the “Thanus” theory, it’s also incredibly satisfying—the culmination of a yearslong meme.
The short version is that, in the lead-up to Avengers: Infinity War, fans speculated as to how the Avengers might destroy Thanos. (The original thread that birthed the theory specifically asked for people to come up with “the worst ways” to kill Thanos.) The most popular idea involved Ant-Man, who’s able to shrink and expand himself at will, getting tiny, climbing up Thanos’ butthole, and then enlarging himself within the supervillain. It would be a quick, easy, mostly painless way to end the fight.
Reddit user sodabased is responsible for the original game plan, in a post from 2017:
"As soon as the Hulk makes it to the urethra he turns his suit off.
Thanos’s manhood explodes as a blood-covered Hulk emerges from the bloody mess. Thanos falls down unconscious and slowly bleeds to death.
The camera tightens on Spiderman who looks at Doctor Strange, “Well let that be a lesson for ya Doc! Hulk smash Kidney Stones!”
The camera then pans to each and every one of the heroes who have survived the war as they do a good guffaw."
This became known as the “Thanus” protocol, spreading like wildfire both throughout the Marvel fandom and, eventually, the rest of the internet.
Josh Brolin, a.k.a. Thanos himself, made the meme to end all memes when he posted an Instagram video of himself straining on the toilet. The attached hashtag: #flushantman.
People supported this theory so vehemently that even Rudd had to comment on it. He wasn’t quite sold that Ant-Man would be the guy to take out Thanos alone, and especially not by climbing into his booty hole.
“Why not the ear or the nose? Why does it have to be [the butthole]?” Rudd argued on The Graham Norton Show in April 2019, weeks before Endgame’s release. Well, duh, Paul, that’s no fun!
After Endgame came out and Thanos was decidedly not obliterated by an expanding Ant-Man in his rectum, the “Thanus theory” seemed dead and gone. But what did Ant-Man himself think of it?
Well, now we know: Ant-Man had heard tell of this idea that he could have just crawled up Thanos’ Thanus to take him out. This was his first post-Endgame appearance; of course he took the opportunity to set the record straight as to why he didn’t just do the thing. Surely Tony Stark would still be alive if he had!
Good thing we have shows like The Boys, which recently paid direct homage to “Thanus”—albeit with an exploding, 11-foot penis, not an anus. “We said, ‘Well, let’s give the audience that [“Thanus” reference], because we can give them the thing that they want,’” showrunner Eric Ripke told Polygon earlier this month, about The Boys’ make-good on the fabled “Thanus” protocol.
I imagine that, considering how quickly the Wasp shut him down, this is both the first and last time we’ll hear Ant-Man bring up the beloved theory. But perhaps in his next movie—Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, out February 17, 2023—he’ll revisit the issue.
