A new piece of Avengers: Endgame concept art has surfaced online detailing a rather interesting plot thread that was clearly abandoned at some point during the development process. If this thread would have stayed in the movie, we not only would have seen a young Thanos in the flesh, but we also would have seen him with several members of The Eternals. That is especially fascinating since Marvel Studios is currently developing a movie centered around those characters. Could this be hinting at things to come?

The art was apparently done by Ryan Lang. It sees a young, much thinner version of Thanos in a robe, standing with perfect posture next to several human-esque beings, with some alien features. These are members of The Eternals. Looking at the image, it's hard not to notice that the man in the back has a chin that looks distinctively like Thanos' chin. That's because, and this is where things get really interesting, this figure is the Mad Titan's father. At least in the pages of Marvel Comics. Whether or not Marvel keeps that intact in the MCU remains to be seen. Since this concept art wasn't used, it's not necessarily considered canon.

A little background. The Eternals, created by comic book legend Jack Kirby, are a powerful race of beings created by the Celestials, who are locked in a war with The Deviants in order to see who is superior. A'lars, the guy with the Thanos chin, is a member of The Eternals who fathered the now infamous bad guy. Though, Thanos has some genetics from The Deviants buried within him as well, which could explain a lot.

Avengers: Endgame had a lot on its plate and directors Joe and Anthony Russo had to balance a lot of plates in order to make the movie work as well as it did. With that in mind, it's not terribly surprising that they scrapped an idea such as this, which would have introduced an entirely new race of beings, explored Thanos' complicated family history and teased some of what's to come in the future. It ultimately, as cool as it may have been, would have probably served as needless complication in an already layered, complex and dense story. And since the movie has made $2.7 billion worldwide, it's pretty safe to argue that the Russo brothers made the right decision.

That said, The Eternals has been casting up and looks to be one of the next MCU movies to go into production. While plot details are currently being kept under wraps, it's highly possible this tie with Thanos could be explored. So we may not have seen the last of the Mad Titan and, what's more, we may learn a lot about him as things unfold. Chloe Zhao (The Rider) is on board to direct the movie. While we wait for some official details on that project, be sure to check out the concept art from the Marveltalk Twitter account below.