Culture

Lil Nas X is officially in the MCU and he’s thrilled about it

Lil Nas X attends the Tom Ford AW/20 Fashion Show at Milk Studios in gorgeous pink cheetah or leopard print outfit

Lil Nas X attends the Tom Ford AW/20 Fashion Show at Milk Studios on 7 February 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty)

Nothing can bring down Lil Nas X – not homophobic haters, vile internet trolls or even a Marvel supervillain.

Lil Nas X was blown away after learning about a fan theory on Reddit that he survived Thanos’ infamous snap in Avengers: Infinity War that erased half of all life in the universe.

One Reddit user pointed out that Nas must have survived the “blip” – another name for the fictional event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – because of a subtle easter egg in the new movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Nas shared a screenshot of the Reddit post in question with his reaction to the news. He simply wrote: “Holy s**t”.

The Reddit post started by explaining a little bit about the MCU timeline. They shared that Shang-Chi “was obviously set in 2023” because of some chosen references to post-Blip life.

The Redditor said that Thanos’ terrifying snap “happened in 2018”, and Nas released “Old Town Road” in 2019 – which meant “Lil Nas X had to have survived”.

“Why? Because Shang-Chi and Kate were doing karaoke to ‘Old Town Road’, which came out in 2019, after the snap,” they wrote.

Which… can’t fault their logic. For Kate and Shang-Chi to be singing a song that came out after Thanos’ snap, the musician must have survived.

“Idk, just thought it was a cool detail,” the Redditor wrote. “I love adding to the canon of who got snapped and who didn’t.”

Fans latched onto the idea that the beloved musician is canonically part of the MCU.

https://twitter.com/BirdIsSalty/status/1435473551000178692

One fan even wondered if Thanos could have been a “big fan” of Nas, and the rapper responded that he needed “someone to sync Thanos listening to ‘Industry Baby’”.

It’s possible Lil Nas X could have released his breakout song a year early or even after the blip to fit the MCU’s timeline.

But it’s unlikely that Marvel considered the ramifications of including a Lil Nas X song in their timeline. So it’s safe to assume that the current timeline is accurate, and the rapper survived the MCU event if his song existed in Shang-Chi.

The revelation doesn’t have huge ramifications for the MCU, but it’s absolutely fascinating to think about some of the world’s favourite heroes being big Lil Nas X fans.

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