**SPOILER ALERT!!**
If you have not seen Avengers: Endgame, please leave. But if you have seen it, and have questions about the movie, so do we. Read on.
1) Is Gamora dead or alive?
So it looks like the return of Gamora is due to time travel, circa 2014. Without getting into the time travel mechanics, let’s just say that this Gamora has learned not to trust her father, Thanos, and ends up helping Nebula Prime aka the one who survived the Snap. And no, her appearance in the this future doesn’t change anything because time travel works differently in the MCU, so this Gamora is technically from another timeline.
But at the end, when Iron Man grabs the Infinity Stone and snaps Thanos and his army away, did that include Gamora? Did Tony go, “Destroy Thanos and his army/minions”, or was he able to add, “Except Gamora”, or was she snapped away as well? At the end, Peter Quill did try to locate Gamora and could not locate her, so…
I guess that’s why we’re all happy to see the return of James Gunn directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. If anyone has the answer, it’s him.
2) Are all those who returned 5 years younger than everyone else who survived?
The events of Avengers: Endgame takes place 5 years after Avengers: Infinity War, and when those who disappeared were brought back by Hulk, all was good. Except that when Spider-Man/Peter Parker spoke to Iron Man/Tony Stark about it, he said that he remembered disappearing, and the next thing he knew, he was back.
Which means that for those who returned, no time was lost. The return of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) from the Quantum Realm really does mean he’s five years younger than everyone else, because the flow of time is different in the Quantum Realm, but it does look like those who returned didn’t age a day.
3) How is Ned still in high school?
At the end of the movie, Peter returns to school, and sees his buddy Ned, and they hug because Ned survived the snap, and Peter just came back. But in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter was 15 years old, which means it’s his first year of high school. And Ned is his best friend and classmate. Which means that five years later, Ned would have graduated high school, is 19 years old (assuming he’s the same age as Peter), and moved on to college. So how is he still in high school to greet Peter?
4) Was Peggy Carter lying all this time?
If Steve Rogers went back in time to return the Infinity Stones, and stayed with Peggy in 1955, it means that at some point, she would have had to lie that Steve was back. And when the other Steve Rogers was found in ice, it means that there were two Steve Rogers in the timeline – the current one, and the one who went back in time.
So Peggy would know the future, and would have to lie to the newly awoken Steve Rogers for quite a number of years. And did Nick Fury know that there was another Steve Rogers running around? Or was old Steve so good at hiding, that no one knew?
5) How did Steve Rogers get so old?
Steve Rogers received the Super Soldier serum, and that helped preserve him in ice, so that when he woke up 70 years later, he wasn’t a day older. But current Steve went back to 1955, and lived another 70 odd years, and he got really old. Did the Super Soldier serum wear out? Why did it not preserve Steve in actual living conditions?
And did this Steve Rogers really do nothing during the events of Iron Man, all the way to Avengers: Infinity War? There’s preserving the timeline, and there sitting around and letting innocents die…
6) Loki is still alive. Maybe.
When Steve,Tony and Scott travel to New York in 2012 to get their hands on the Space and Mind Stone, they failed in getting the Space Stone and in the ensuing madness, allowed Loki, who was captured at the end of the first Avengers movie, to escape.
Loki literally took the Tesseract and escaped. Would a writer then be able to use this opening, to establish a way for Loki to still be alive post Avengers: Endgame? It might seem like a stretch, but his escape was written in for reason.
7) Who’s the teenage boy at Tony’s funeral?
At the end, the camera pans across everyone at Tony’s funeral, and showed some familiar faces, including Maria Hill and Nick Fury. But the camera also pans towards a teenager, so who is he?
As it turns out, we’ve all met Harley Keener, the boy we last saw in Iron Man 3. He had his mom help Tony get back on his feet after Tony’s Malibu home was destroyed by The Mandarin. Eventually, Tony finds his way again and gifts Keener with a Stark worthy tech workshop, but not before helping Keener deal with his bully.
Overall, Keener’s appearance is a small but a good throwback to the rich vein of movies Tony Stark has appeared in the MCU, even if Iron Man 3 was not the best.
But… should we be concerned that Tony remained friends with a teenage Keener, and was visibly upset about losing a teenage Peter Parker? Hmmm…. na!
8) Can you explain the time travel portions? A lot of it doesn’t make sense.
We know, and we hear you. If current Nebula kills 2014 Nebula, doesn’t it mean that current Nebula will be erased from existence? When and how can Steve Rogers return all the Infinity Stones, without disrupting the timeline, because the timeline was already disrupted the first time the Stones were being retrieved?
As Bruce Banner explained to the Ancient One, the return of the Stones right as they were being taken means that the timeline has not been altered, so let’s just leave it as that, especially considering the timeline would have been splintered, because Loki escapes with the Tesseract in 2012. Urgh, don’t you hate time travel movies?
9) Did Marvel Studios really manage to get all those MCU actors to return for what is effectively a cameo in Avengers: Endgame?
One of the greatest surprises the movie threw out, was that it managed to get actors to return to their roles in the past. Of course, no one is surprised that John Slattery returned to play Howard Stark, or see Hayley Atwell reprising her role as Peggy Carter.
But we also got James D’Arcy returning as Stark’s butler, Edward Jarvis, a role he only previously played in the TV series, Agent Carter. This makes him the first character introduced in a Marvel Entertainment TV series, to appear in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
But more than that – we also saw Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Robert Redford (Alexander Pierce), Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow), and many more. Now that is an amazing thing to see.
10) Steve Rogers can lift Mjolnir, but how can he command lightning?
In the movie’s third act, Captain America finally lifts Mjolnir and uses it to attack Thanos. This was hinted at in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and finally shown here. But in the process, he also called down lightning to hurt Thanos.
Well, it all boils down to the inscription Odin placed on the mystical hammer – “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” And that is why Captain America could call down the lightning, as he had the power of Thor, God of Thunder.
11) Is Natasha Ramanoff/Black Widow really dead?
It’s been rumoured that the standalone Black Widow will be a prequel, showing audiences the early years of Natasha’s life. Budapest anyone? And this corresponds with her death in Avengers: Endgame.
And according to Clint Barton, she cannot be brought back.
BUT.
Steve Rogers travels back to Vormir to return the Soul Stone. If it’s a life for the Stone, does returning the Stone reclaim that life? It should… shouldn’t it?
12) Did Steve Rogers finally meet up with the Red Skull?
When Steve travels back in time to return the six Infinity Stones along with Mjolnir, its to return them at the exact point when they were taken. Now, this means that Steve had to travel to Vormir, and who do we have as a cursed Stonekeeper of the Soul Stone in Vormir? None other than his one-time nemesis, the Red Skull.
Now, what would that have been like? Steve seeing his one-time arch nemesis, and Johann Schmidt seeing the man who led him to become trapped as the Stonekeeper on Vormir. The interesting thing is that the Red Skull was trapped on Vormir, in some form of purgatory, until someone claims the Stone. The fact that Hawkeye took the Stone means that Schmidt’s curse was broken.
With the return of the Stone, was he cursed again, and would he blame the man behind his first and second damnation, Steve Rogers?
Sherwin once held the Matrix of Leadership, but wisely passed it on to the rightful leader of the household.
Natalie
Trinity Sun
