About

Ant-Man Will Defeat Thanos by Crawling Up His Butt and Expanding, also known as the Thanus Theory, refers to a humorous fan theory speculating that in the 2019 Marvel superhero film Avengers: Endgame the character Ant-Man will defeat Thanos by entering the villain's body through the anus while in his microscopic form and rapidly expand from the inside, killing Thanos in the process. In March 2019, the theory spawned a series of related memes on Reddit.

Origin

Prior to the release of 2018 film Avengers: The Infinity War, several users online proposed various theories on how Avengers could defeat supervillain Thanos, some of which relied on Ant-Man's ability to shrink to minuscule size and expand back. For example, on July 29th, 2017, Redditor sodabased suggested that Avengers could put Hulk in the Ant-Man's suit, get him inside Thanos's mouth and let him expand back once he reaches the supervillian's urethra.^[1] On December 10th, 2017, Redditor iwasherenotyou suggested that Ant-Man himself could enter Thanos' body and expand.^[2]

On December 19th, 2017, Redditor maxwellthebeech posted a mock-up poster of Ant-Man climbing Thanos's ear in /r/Marvel subreddit, where it gained over 1,300 upvotes. In the comments, several Reddit users speculated on the idea of Ant-Man killing Thanos by expanding from inside his body, with Redditor Rayhann suggesting that Ant-Man could "crawl up his ass and deeply violate his very being which would traumatize him".^[3]

Months later, on March 16th, 2018, Redditor^[16] bigblackhotdog posted in the /r/marvelstudios subreddit "If antman gets small, goes into thanos b hole and then grows big would thanos grow with him or explode in ecstacy."

Spread

On March 19th, 2018, Tumblr ^[15] user tanjonathans wrote, "infinity war is a dumb movie cause why would you bother all those heroes to fight thanos when all you have to do is get ant-man inside his asshole, make him grow back to his normal size and that’s it purple joss whedon is dead." The post received more than 139,000 notes in one year (shown below).

On April 30th, 2018, Twitter^[4] user @filmgloss speculated on a potential reason why Ant-Man did not appear in recently released Avengers: Infinity War, making a reference to the humorous theory. The post gained over 11,000 retweets and 30,400 likes in one year. On May 1st, 2018, Tumblr user a-stew posted a screenshot of the tweet which gained over 83,200 likes and reblogs in the same period.^[5]

In the following months, the possibility of the theory working was discussed on Reddit and other online platforms.^[6] On June 7th, 2018, YouTuber John Campea posted an analysis of the theory (shown below, left).^[7] On July 20th, YouTube channel entertainmentie released a video interview with the Ant-Man actor Paul Rudd in which they asked the actor about the theory (shown below, right).

I almost think it's a question for Thanos. If there is one thing we learned from Infinity War, it is that Thanos can take a lot of punishment. And, so, you know…

On March 14th, 2019, Redditor Aimless_Devastator commented "Are we still betting on Ant-man defeating Thanos by crawling up his butt then expanding?" in /r/movies thread dedicated to an Avengers: Endgame trailer. In the thread, Redditor Nolio1212 posted a response which gained over 15,200 upvotes in six days (quoted below).^[8]

I thought about this, and I can’t think of a worse death.. for Ant-man. Thanos is pretty tough, like can take some punches from the Hulk kind-of-tough, well his butthole and insides have to be hulk-level strong too.
The way I see it happening is Ant-man crawling up his butt, expanding and then whatever I can describe as the chunky human soup that would come flying out of Thanos’ ass from Ant-man trying to expand into something that just won’t budge.

On the same day, Redditor x720xHARDSCOPEx posted the comment in /r/copypasta subreddit, gaining over 8,200 upvotes in six days.^[9] On March 15th, 2019, Redditor KushPatil made a post referencing the theory in /r/prequelmemes subreddit, which received over 50,800 upvotes in five days.^[10]

In March 2019, numerous notable posts referencing the theory appeared in /r/dankmemes^[11][12] subreddit.

Josh Brolin's Response

On March 28th, 2019, Thanos actor Josh Brolin posted an old video of exerting himself on a toilet bowl,^[13] hashtagged #flushanantman as a reference to the theory. The video gained over 1.2 million views and 280,000 likes in 24 hours. The original video was first posted by Brolin on April 21st, 2018.^[14]

Scientific Explanation

On April 2nd, 2019, Mel Magazine^[17] published "A BIOPHYSICIST EXPLAINS HOW ANT-MAN COULD KILL THANOS FROM INSIDE HIS ASS." In the article, the author writes the various results of what could happen if Ant-Man performed the theory. Alex Klotz from MIT said:

If Ant-Man were more fluid as he expanded, he would splurt through the two sphincters on either side of the rectum, out of the anus and into the colon. However, based on videos of him shrinking and growing, it looks like he can only expand isotropically, without changing shape.

I can think of three possibilities: he just gets stuck, rectum-sized, until he shrinks again; [he] tries to expend but builds up so much pressure that it kills him; [Ant-man splurts] out of the anus.

Ultimately, he concludes that because of both Thanos' strength and the power of the Power Stone, Thanos' body may be more resilient than normal. Therefore, Ant-Man might not burst through Thanos' entire body. Klotz says, "Each tissue and connection in the body has its own strength and its own limits, so even if he can expand through the rectal wall, I don’t know if, for example, the same could be said about breaking the pelvis." So Ant-Man may burst through the anus, but possibly not the entirety of Thanos' body. "Literally tearing him a new one will do plenty of damage in its own right and at the very least [it’ll] be extremely unpleasant."

Chuck Tingle Adaptation

On April 10th, 2019, erotica novelist Chuck Tingle released an erotic adaptation of the theory entitled Revengers Buttgame: Antguy Gets Small To Go Into Thamos' Butt And Then Gets Big And Hard.^[18] That day, the author tweeted,^[19] "please enjoy new tingler superhero event REVENGERS BUTTGAME: ANTGUY GETS SMALL TO GO INTO THAMOS' BUTT AND THEN GETS BIG AND HARD out now." The post received more than 280 retweets and 700 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

The synopsis for the book reads: "t’s up to Antguy to use his amazing powers, shrinking himself down, entering Thamos’ butt, then blowing up extra large."

The book soon went to #1 on Amazon's Fantasy Erotica rankings.
The following day, Tingle tweeted,^[19] "wow just hit number 1 new FANTASY EROTICA ON ALL AMAZONS this proves love and shows TASTEFUL LITERATURE WILL RISE TO TOP IN WORLD OF SELF PUBLISHING to celebrate i would like to ask @ChrisEvans to come on big time podcast for reading of REVENGERS BUTTGAME.

That day, The Daily Dot^[20] published an article about the book. Tingle said to the website, "If [Paul Rudd] can be a small man and a big man, then he could probably find some new ways to prove love inside a butt."

Disney Acknowledgment

On June 29th, 2022, @CultureCrave posted a video of a short film on a Disney cruise ship in which Paul Rudd's Ant-Man nearly explains why the theory is unfeasible before he's cut off by The Wasp.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References