Why the Russos would save Wolverine (but no other X-Men) from Thanos in Infinity War

The X-Men weren’t quite ready to team up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes when the Russo brothers were making both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. But with the Disney-Fox merger now final, and along with it, the much-buzzed prospect of reuniting the X-Men with the rest of their Marvel pals, even the Russos have opinions on how team Xavier already could have been playing in the MCU.

Asked recently by IGN which of the X-Men they’d have allowed Thanos to dust, Joe Russo gave a funny, yet well thought-out answer: He’d let Thanos snap everyone but Wolverine. Why? Well, because if we think we’ve seen Wolverine angry before, it probably wouldn’t compare to how nuclear he’d go on the Mad Titan if he had to watch every mutant he ever cared about vanish before his eyes.

“I’d love to see a fiercely motivated Wolverine going up against Thanos,” confessed Russo, while acknowledging that that kind of sweeping move might outrage X-Men fans. But, he later added, “It’s not our job to give the people what they want, it’s to give them what they need.”

Russo went on to explain that, when half of all life is hanging in the balance, there’s plenty of leeway within smaller groups to dust as many (or as few) people as the story requires — just as we saw at the beginning of Endgame, where only Clint Barton remains to enjoy what’s left of his family’s post-dusting picnic. 

“It’s not like you take a group, and then, like, randomly half of that group loses half of its members,” said Russo. “Hawkeye’s entire family disappears. So in any given group, you could lose almost everyone in that group — and that’s what happens.”

Any Infinity War fan who still tears up whenever the see Peter Parker turning to dust in Tony Stark’s arms couldn’t argue with Russo’s logic. More than previous MCU films, both Infinity War and Endgame raised the stakes for what Marvel Studios is willing to do to make their heroes’ sacrifices count. 

The Russos even had some fun takes on whether iconic characters who aren’t part of the MCU would (or, in many cases, wouldn’t) survive The Snap — including Anthony Russo’s decision to completely wipe out every single one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (hey, it was a bad day for mutants all around.)

To see more fun conjecture from the Russos over which characters whom they (er, we mean Thanos) would preserve, from the Scooby Doo team to the cast of Friends, check out IGN’s complete video interview here.