Let’s get one thing out of the way: No one believes the end of Infinity War will stick. With a snap of his fingers, Thanos deleted half of all life in the universe and billions of dollars of profit from potential sequels, spin-offs, and merchandise. After that snap, pretty much everyone in the theater went “Oh, so Avengers 4 is about them undoing that.”

We all know it’s coming. This isn’t some great revelation. But while that’s about as safe a bet as saying “Venom won’t be in it,” it still feels incredibly strange to see Marvel, the studio who made the bold choice to end Infinity War this way, not even trying to pretend like that ending mattered.

Last night, Tom Holland showed up in-character as Spider-Man on Jimmy Kimmel Live to show off his new suit for next year’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, even though Spider-Man is dead. Last week, it was revealed that Ryan Coogler would return to write and direct Black Panther 2, even though T’Challa is also dead. Last month, we heard Loki and Scarlet Witch are getting their own streaming TV shows, despite both being killed by Thanos in their respective ways. And before that, there was all the controversy around Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and… well, you get it. They’re (mostly) all dead too.

“ I’m not pretending like these characters aren’t coming back, but the “business as usual” marketing still undercuts the impact of Thanos’ snap.

Again, I’m not trying to act like I think all these characters aren’t certainly coming back. They are. We knew most of the big movie sequels were coming months (and sometimes years) before Infinity War was released. But all the “business as usual” marketing and cast/crew announcements still go toward undercutting the impact of Thanos’ snap.

Seeing the end of Infinity War in a theater was a stunning moment for me. I didn’t think a major studio like Marvel would ever do something like that, giving its antagonist a resounding win and letting the audience hang. In the moment, I wasn’t thinking about future movies or contract negotiations -- I was just thinking about how if this was the actual ending of this story, it was equal parts incredible and insane.

That makes Marvel’s actions outside of the theater feel like a massive missed opportunity. The year between Avengers 3 and 4 is the only time we will ever have seen the snap but not know what comes next, and imagine what cool tricks Marvel could have played.

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What if they just hadn’t revealed an Avengers 4 ahead of this film, or announced that the other sequels were put “on hold” after it? Obviously they can’t pretend like Far From Home isn’t actually coming out, but what if they got Tom Holland to somehow play along with Infinity War’s end in its marketing instead of showing up on stage like nothing happened?

I’m not suggesting Marvel stops advertising for their entire 2019 and beyond slate; that would be insane. They still want these movies to be successful even if their characters are supposedly dead. It’s just a shame that they followed up such a bold decision by immediately and consistently selling it short at every turn.

The culmination of a decade-long Marvel Cinematic Universe is something we’ve never seen in film before, and it’s something we likely won’t see for a long time to come after. Whether you like the movies or not, it’s truly unique. It’s too bad we can’t just take a moment to pretend one of its most climactic moments actually mattered.

Tom Marks is IGN's PC Editor and pie maker. You can follow him on Twitte r