While a slew of heroes were ready to go down fighting in the Battle of Avengers Compound, a theory suggests only Iron Man had what it took to go through with it.

Iron Man’s sacrifice at the end of Avengers: Endgame is considered one of the most crucial moments in the history of the MCU. However, there has been continuous speculation about why Tony Stark had to be the one to use the stones to take down Thanos and his Army.

A Reddit post has come out in defense of Iron Man and why he needed to be the one who performs the Snap, while characters like Captain America and such would have been wholly underequipped to handle the power of the Infinity Stones.

Iron Man’s suit is the reason he was the only one who could perform the snap

A theory on Reddit, put forward by user Valzod_SonOfKrypton, opened up about why Iron Man was the only one who could hold the Infinity Stones long enough before snapping Thanos and his army out of existence.

The theory states that given that Robert Downy Jr‘s Tony Stark had created a copy of the Infinity Gauntlet to harness their powers, he was aware of what kind of technology would be required to control the strongest powers in the universe.

For this reason, the character also put the same kind of tech in his suit, which allowed the armor to stave off the power of the stones until Tony Stark used them to end the battle with Thanos. However, given the amount of power that stones contained within them, the armor did not stop Stark from succumbing to his wounds, as the stones were powerful enough to temporarily cripple the Hulk, and permanently damage Thanos as well.

It would not have been possible for Steve Rogers to use the stones in the Battle of Avengers Compound

While Steve Rogers would have been just as eager to sacrifice himself in Avengers: Endgame, the character simply did not have the ability to hold the Infinity Stones long enough to do any sort of last damage to Thanos’s army. Using the stores crippled the likes of Hulk and Thanos, both of whom are considerably stronger than Captain America.

Iron Man was only able to keep the stones for as long as he did because of his armor. The Infinity Gauntlet that Stark made would not have shielded Captain America from its effects and would have been a whole lot more difficult to take off of Thanos, as opposed to just getting the stones away from the Mad Titan. While Rogers would have definitely sacrificed himself if the situation called for it, he just did not have the right equipment to defeat Thanos’s army using the Infinity Stones.