Ant Man Will Defeat Thanos By Crawling Up His Butt And Expanding

2017fan theory / catchphraseclassic

A Marvel fan theory, also called theThanus Theory, joking that Scott Lang could kill Thanos in Avengers: Endgame by shrinking, entering his rear, and expanding back to full size. Born on Reddit in 2017, it became one of the loudest Marvel jokes of the 2018 to 2019 Endgame hype cycle.

thanos memesmarvelfan theory memesabsurdist humor memesshock humor memes

Overview

"Ant-Man Will Defeat Thanos By Crawling Up His Butt And Expanding," also called theThanus Theory, is a joke fan prediction that in Avengers: Endgame, Scott Lang could kill Thanos by shrinking to microscopic size, entering the Mad Titan through his anus, and growing back to full size from within1. The bit ran wild on Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr through the twelve months before the film's April 2019 release4.

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The joke pairs Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom with the appeal of a stupidly simple counter to an infinity-stone-wielding villain1. Related tags like "#flushanantman" and phrases such as "rapidly expand from the inside" circulated as image macros, mock movie posters, and copypasta4.

How It Spread

Three days later, on March 19, 2018, Tumblr user tanjonathans posted that Infinity War was a pointless movie because you could just get Ant-Man inside Thanos's asshole and make him grow, a post that pulled more than 139,000 notes within a year3. On April 30, 2018, Twitter user @filmgloss quipped that Marvel had cut Ant-Man from Infinity War specifically to avoid the exploit, racking up over 30,400 likes and 11,000 retweets4.

The theory roared back with the Endgame marketing cycle. On March 28, 2019, Thanos actor Josh Brolin posted an old workout-strain video on Instagram tagged #flushanantman, pulling 1.2 million views in 24 hours6. On April 2, 2019, Mel Magazine ran a straight-faced explainer where MIT biophysicist Alex Klotz calculated whether Ant-Man could actually rupture Thanos, concluding the pelvis might hold but "literally tearing him a new one" would still land1.

On April 10, 2019, erotica author Chuck Tingle released "Revengers Buttgame: Antguy Gets Small To Go Into Thamos' Butt And Then Gets Big And Hard," which climbed to #1 in Amazon's Fantasy Erotica category within a day5. Marvel eventually acknowledged the bit in June 2022, when a Disney cruise short film had Paul Rudd's Ant-Man start to explain why the plan wouldn't work before The Wasp cut him off6.

How to Use This Meme

The format is typically deployed as a smug pre-release prediction for any Marvel film with a big villain, or as a mock scientific explainer covering biophysics, plumbing, or ballistics of the maneuver1. Common conventions include the phrasings "just crawl up his ass," "rapidly expand," and the hashtag #flushanantman6.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ant Man Will Defeat Thanos By Crawling Up His Butt And Expanding

2017fan theory / catchphraseclassic

A Marvel fan theory, also called theThanus Theory, joking that Scott Lang could kill Thanos in Avengers: Endgame by shrinking, entering his rear, and expanding back to full size. Born on Reddit in 2017, it became one of the loudest Marvel jokes of the 2018 to 2019 Endgame hype cycle.

thanos memes marvel fan theory memes absurdist humor memes shock humor memes

Overview

"Ant-Man Will Defeat Thanos By Crawling Up His Butt And Expanding," also called theThanus Theory, is a joke fan prediction that in Avengers: Endgame, Scott Lang could kill Thanos by shrinking to microscopic size, entering the Mad Titan through his anus, and growing back to full size from within1. The bit ran wild on Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr through the twelve months before the film's April 2019 release4.

Loading tweet...

The joke pairs Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom with the appeal of a stupidly simple counter to an infinity-stone-wielding villain1. Related tags like "#flushanantman" and phrases such as "rapidly expand from the inside" circulated as image macros, mock movie posters, and copypasta4.

How It Spread

Three days later, on March 19, 2018, Tumblr user tanjonathans posted that Infinity War was a pointless movie because you could just get Ant-Man inside Thanos's asshole and make him grow, a post that pulled more than 139,000 notes within a year3. On April 30, 2018, Twitter user @filmgloss quipped that Marvel had cut Ant-Man from Infinity War specifically to avoid the exploit, racking up over 30,400 likes and 11,000 retweets4.

The theory roared back with the Endgame marketing cycle. On March 28, 2019, Thanos actor Josh Brolin posted an old workout-strain video on Instagram tagged #flushanantman, pulling 1.2 million views in 24 hours6. On April 2, 2019, Mel Magazine ran a straight-faced explainer where MIT biophysicist Alex Klotz calculated whether Ant-Man could actually rupture Thanos, concluding the pelvis might hold but "literally tearing him a new one" would still land1.

On April 10, 2019, erotica author Chuck Tingle released "Revengers Buttgame: Antguy Gets Small To Go Into Thamos' Butt And Then Gets Big And Hard," which climbed to #1 in Amazon's Fantasy Erotica category within a day5. Marvel eventually acknowledged the bit in June 2022, when a Disney cruise short film had Paul Rudd's Ant-Man start to explain why the plan wouldn't work before The Wasp cut him off6.

How to Use This Meme

The format is typically deployed as a smug pre-release prediction for any Marvel film with a big villain, or as a mock scientific explainer covering biophysics, plumbing, or ballistics of the maneuver1. Common conventions include the phrasings "just crawl up his ass," "rapidly expand," and the hashtag #flushanantman6.

Frequently Asked Questions