The Blip
The Blip (also known as the Decimation and the Snap) is a fictional major event and period of time depicted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Others were portrayed for dramatic effect, such as blipped characters returning to general chaos and confusion, finding that loved ones had died in their absence, their homes and life savings were repossessed, and their jobs had been filled by others.
[1][2] In the tie-in novel Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War: The Cosmic Quest Volume Two: Aftermath by Brandon T. Snider, the event was referred to as "the Decimation", but this naming was not used in any other related media.
[4] Despite Feige's comments, both events were collectively referred to as "the Blip" in MCU projects such as WandaVision (2021), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Hawkeye (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and The Marvels (2023), and the term also appears to reference the five-year gap between the two snaps during which half of Earth's population was wiped from existence, such as used in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022).
[28] The Eternals (Ajak, Druig, Gilgamesh, Ikaris, Kingo, Makkari, Phastos, Sersi, Sprite, and Thena) also survived the Blip because they were artificial, not biological, beings, and were therefore not subject to its effects.
[43] After Endgame was released in April, the showrunners and Loeb revealed that the series would not directly depict or reference the Blip for several reasons.
While acknowledging that this meant the series seemingly no longer lined up with the films' timeline, producer Jed Whedon stated that the writers had an explanation for this that made sense to them even though they did not plan to "burden the audience" with it.
[44] A line referencing the Blip and how the Quantum Realm could be used to avoid it was filmed for the series finale but was ultimately cut from the aired episode.
[45][46] In Avengers: Endgame, Clint Barton's family, Erik Selvig, Shuri, and Jane Foster are confirmed to have been blipped.
For example, Barton is distraught at the loss of his family and takes on a new identity as Ronin, travelling the world to massacre organized crime figures involved in the drug trade and child trafficking.
[28] He comes across a memorial park listing names of the vanished, including himself, then reunites with his daughter Cassie, who had been a young girl when he last saw her and is now a teenager.
Due to the powerful emission of gamma radiation resulting from the Stones' use, Banner volunteers to wear the Gauntlet and successfully restores the blipped victims in the condition they had vanished.
The broadcast shows Midtown School of Science and Technology band members reappearing in the middle of a basketball game.
[53] The film reveals that several more characters had been blipped and restored, including Peter's aunt May Parker and his classmates Ned Leeds, MJ, Betty Brant, and Flash Thompson.
[18] In the same episode, when characters outside the Westview hex first see Vision onscreen, three weeks after everyone returned, Darcy Lewis asks Jimmy Woo and other colleagues to confirm that "he's dead, right?
The large screen televisions in the headquarters show the news that the Blip happened and that people around the world are being reunited with their loved ones.
[58] The writers and producers had many conversations about how to portray people returning from the Blip, and decided to set the sequence in a hospital as an interesting place to depict the scariness and confusion of the event from Monica's perspective.
The event caused violent revolutions throughout the world by organizations such as the Flag Smashers, who felt that life was better during the Blip and engage in terrorist activities to promote an anarchist society.
[64] In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), the Blip is discussed, and fliers can be seen in San Francisco regarding a hotline for sufferers of "post-Blip anxiety".
[65] In Eternals (2021), Ajak reveals that the Blip delayed the onslaught of the Emergence for five years, as it halved the Earth's population from the necessary level needed for it to occur.
[67] In Hawkeye, set in December 2024, the phrase "Thanos was right" is seen on a coffee mug and in graffiti throughout New York City, such as in the men's bathroom of a Broadway theater.
During the wedding, Strange also learns that his former co-worker Dr. Nicodemus West was blipped, and when he returned five years later, he was devastated to discover that his brother and cats had died during his absence.
[76] In the second episode, Walters' mother, Elaine, reminds the family that Banner was responsible for the undoing of the Blip and that he had saved everyone with a snap of his finger.
3 (2023), Quill admits that he was partially responsible for half of the universe getting destroyed recalling the events of Infinity War and how he got angry after learning about Gamora's death.
The VFX team paid close attention to what each Stone did and originally incorporated all of them into the dusting effect, although DeLeeuw admits that the look was too mesmerizing, saying "we realized it had to become about less being more".
The team then decided to make the Blip caused by the Power Stone specifically, as the characters' corporeal forms were left behind as they were being erased from the universe.
[98] The depiction of the Blip at the conclusion of Avengers: Infinity War sparked various Internet meme reactions,[99] including one referencing Peter Parker saying he does not feel good as he disintegrates, which was applied to other things.
[102][103] One Reddit user who participated described the ban as embodying "the spirit of the Internet" with people "banding together, en masse, around something relatively meaningless but somehow decidedly awesome and hilarious".
[106] Feige has noted the similar connotations and societal ramifications between the fictional Blip and the real-life COVID-19 pandemic, which began several months after the release of Endgame.
[114] A simultaneous mass disappearance of people would also immediately trigger a substantial number of accidental and circumstantial deaths, such as airplane crashes and vehicular accidents.
