I would trade Captain Marvel any day for Tony('s return).That's why I'll be watching the older movies rather than IW and EG: to celebrate life and memories of 'those that matter'.Don't get me wrong: this movie is incredibly well done (hence the revenues),but I prefer to see Tony and the gang in their prime years rather than being confronted with his death scene over and over again.It made me feel really sad having to say goodbye to this character,especially after seeing him happy with Pepper and Morgan.
Can we take a step back and appreciate the breadth of Steve and Peggy's love story? Especially after Endgame I defy you not to be at least get a little choked when rewatching these scenes. They were so effective because each one of them could have been the end of their story. Against all odds their story refused to end..
- In The First Avenger Peggy loses Steve just as things were beginning. (Steve with both conviction and fear embraced Peggy's voice to comfort him as he made the ultimate sacrifice.)
- In Agent Carter Peggy references Steve several times. This argument between Peggy and Jarvis is one of my favorite moments in the series because it's subtle. The reference is brief and indirect but you see Peggy's lasting hurt.
- In The Winter Soldier we have Peggy silently bearing the burden of love and hope even after decades through the fog of Alzheimer's.
- In Civil War Steve finally loses Peggy.
I will totally buy into a good, layered love story and I will bawl more easily than my wife will acknowledge. Strangely, she's affected more by sappy, predictable, formulaic teen comedy/romance movies. But this is what gets to me more. I mean, just look at the performances.
I think they did a pretty great job of tying off Cap's story for the films. I was very satisfied with it. I think Falcon getting the shield is a nice nod to him becoming Captain America in the comics, and that he's teaming with "Winter Soldier" for the streaming series is even more interesting since Bucky is also Captain America for a time in the comics.
So - if Steve did live of his life in the background of the main timeline, and was indeed the husband that Peggy was so evasive about, then that brings a whole new level to the scene where she's deteriorating in Winter Soldier.
One of my coworkers brought up something interesting.....
The vanished are returned 5 years later. Of the ones who didn't vanish in schools, Peter Parker technically has a lot of new faces in his grade while others have since moved on to college, right?
That must mean his friend and MJ and Flash were among the vanished that are still in his class.
Man, that is so messed up! The vanished are 5 years younger than those they left to carry on post-snap.
One of my coworkers brought up something interesting.....
The vanished are returned 5 years later. Of the ones who didn't vanish in schools, Peter Parker technically has a lot of new faces in his grade while others have since moved on to college, right?
That must mean his friend and MJ and Flash were among the vanished that are still in his class.
Man, that is so messed up! The vanished are 5 years younger than those they left to carry on post-snap.
Imagine those who are coming back to find siblings 5 years older. Like, imagine you have a brother or sister who is 4 years younger than you. You get brought back and now they're technically a year older than you?!
In Iron Man, when Happy and Pepper picked him up from the airport, Tony made them stop at the Burger King before they got to the press conference where he sat on the ground eating said cheeseburgers.
After he returned, they were heading off somewhere and said he wanted a cheeseburger (after being fed likely crap in the cave) and they decided on a plan of action and as he they were getting in the car to leave, he literally says "Cheeseburger first!"
I'm not buying the "Steve was always her secret husband" theory.
It's a lot of contortion just to avoid the idea of Steve showing up to break up a potential marriage. The other guy's loss is not Steve's responsibility - it's Peggy's choice. As we saw in Winter Soldier Steve was always the one.
This article totally made me get it, thanks Kalkamel! The author (Mark Hughes) even offers a second possibility for Steve going into the past that doesn't muck up the timeline, though he pokes holes in that theory in favor of his original premise.
I won't try to sum up the article because the author does a great job of explaining and it's worth reading if you're like me and didn't understand how changing the past wouldn't muck up their future/present. But I will say, it makes more sense to me now, especially the time travel discussion where Banner says you can't change your own past, it already happened. Even if you travel back in time, your "future past" has to remain the same.
So the Avengers know they're creating alternate timelines when they go back in the past to "borrow" the Infinity stones. Returning the stones to the past doesn't have anything to do with the original timeline that they live in, it's only to let the new timelines they created continue on with as little interference from them. They could've just kept the stones and never travel back in time again, and it wouldn't change their own past. But they didn't want to mess up the other, new timelines too bad, so they returned the stones to when they borrowed them, thinking it would be better to let those timelines continue with the infinity stones in place.
Now that I think of it, that creates a small problem for me. If the Avengers never returned the Infinity stones that they took, wouldn't that allow for a better future for those new timelines, since Thanos, or anyone else, couldn't get their hands on all the stones if they were no longer in their timeline? I guess they just decided it was better to interfere as little as possible with those new timelines. Still, you'd think they would be upset by the possibility that their doppelgangers would potentially be subjected to "The Snap" and want to help them. They also needed to get rid of the Infinity stones to remove the threat from their own universe, so returning them was the easiest option.
I do have a possible paradox, though I may have figured it out as well. When Steve goes back to return the stones to their original timeline, since it's established you can't change your past, wouldn't he be going back in time of his own original timeline and create yet another new timeline? Wouldn't he stones still be there in his past, since that's what happened in his past? I imagine that this might be rectified by the tech they use to time travel. Perhaps each timeline has it's own quantum signature (or whatever), and once they returned from those new timelines, they were able to identify them and return to them instead of their original past timeline.
I suppose we can continue to try to dissect the science behind Endgame, but especially now that I understand it better, I think the writers did a great job with it. Even when I didn't understand it completely, I still thought it was a great film, so even these nitpicks don't detract from my enjoyment of it.
Did the people who came back reappear in the same spot they turned to dust? Spidey said he woke up on Titan, right? What about everyone who was on a plane or in a boat? Would people just reappear in the middle of highways and other horribly dangerous places?
... can anyone now just pick up an infinity stone like it was nothing, let alone hold all of them without exploding everything? Wasn't it established previously that not everyone could touch them or hold them and survive which is why Starlord holding one and surviving was a big deal? And the comment from Ego seemed to focus on just holding one... not even about using it.
No my man, you aren't missing anything. Yes it was established early on that only very powerful beings can wield an infinity stone let alone several or all of them. Thanos was well known as the strongest being in the universe long before he had the infinity gauntlet and once he got his hands on the stones he used them with great proficiency.
This means that only a few people in existence can wield the gauntlet.
The following list is everyone I can remember handling an infinity stone barehanded and why I think they are able to wield them.
Hulk can wield the gauntlet 2.0, albeit for the minute he does, because Hulk is on a par with Thanos in physical strength. Yeah Thanos beat the **** out of him in Infinity War but lets be honest, Hulk has never had a challenge like that before. No one had ever surprised him. Even when he went up against Abomination, he knew what to expect.
We don't see it in Endgame but Captain Marvel can surely wield one, if not all, of the infinity stones.
The Maw only handles the space stone for a few seconds before Thanos puts it on the gauntlet. We've seen other characters do this before, Nick Fury for example picked up the tesseract and placed it in a briefcase. His fingers did start smoking but I think that heat was just from the device it was attached to. Red Skull however, did almost exactly the same thing and was teleported to Vormir never to be heard from again until Infinity War. In the moment where Red Skull picked up the tesseract, I believe he was trying to use it against Cap rather than just pick it up.
Ronan is able to wield the power stone mostly because of his determination and rage. His will to destroy Xandar was the catalyst for his being able to wield the power stone in my mind.
Loki we already saw wield an infinity stone. He barehand handled the tesseract in both Infinity War and Endgame. He is a Frost Giant and the god of mischief, regardless of the fact that his godhood is just a title Odin gave him, he is a strong individual and we saw him hold his own against Thor, survived a bout with Hulk, and a dark elf.
Peter Quill is half celestial so of course he is able to partially maintain the power of one of the stones, and control it with help.
Jane? Well her case is a bit strange, she was more or less possessed by the reality stone rather than utilizing it. I don't believe she is truly capable of wielding the reality stone.
Vision is a creation of the mind stone so theres no reason he shouldn't be able to wield a stone.
Clint did handle the soul stone barehanded and the reason for that I think is because he has suffered a great deal already. His heart was broken 4 times over when he realized his family was snapped away and once again when Nat sacrificed herself.
Tony? He is a special case I think. In the comics Tony is the first HUMAN to wield the gauntlet. Tony never handled a stone barehanded, and even in Endgame he didn't handle any of the stones barehanded until he had his suit mount them to his glove. Suddenly we see that Tony is just as strong as Thanos. The gauntlet even stabilizes when Tony wears it just as it did when Thanos wears it. Meaning Tony is the only other person in the universe we see who is able to fully utilize the gauntlet. Why is Tony able to do this? Because he had a hand in each of the aspects the stones control at some point in time.
Reality - In Iron Man, Tony had a change of heart. His entire outlook on his legacy changed and he decided he was going to do all he can to better the world. His reality was shifted when he saw what his weapons were doing and decided to do the right thing.
Power - Iron Man 2, Tony had to figure out how to power the arc reactor without using palladium. In doing so he creates a self sustaining element that powers the reactor indefinitely. He, in effect, created an infinite source of power.
Space - Avengers 1, Tony experienced firsthand the ability of the space stone to create portals across the universe and went through one twice. (I'm also going to mention that the mind stone in this instance had no effect on him I believe because the element he synthesized for his arc reactor was similar enough to an infinity stone that it canceled out)
Soul - Iron Man 3, Tony realized by the end of the movie what was really important to him. Pepper. She is the most important thing in his world, and screw the suits if necessary. He realized here that Pepper really was his soulmate.
Mind - Avengers 1/ Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony has several encounters with the mind stone, studied it in depth, and used his own intellect, plus the help of Bruce and Jarvis (A mind of his own invention) to create Ultron. A living mind based on his own designs. Then with the help of Thor, creates Vision. A true android based on his own design, Jarvis, Ultron, and the mind stone itself.
Time - Avengers: Endgame, This one is obvious. Tony discovers how to travel through time precisely without the time stone and in doing so is responsible for the successful defeat of Thanos.
In essence, Tony masters the aspects of the universe before he ever handles the stones themselves. Which in my mind makes him uniquely qualified to wield them.
So can anyone wield the infinity stones? No. Not everyone can wield them. The people we do see wield them have very specific reasons as to WHY they can wield them.
Tony and Nebula were on Saturn's moon, Titan, so surely they were in Earth's solar system. Since Captain Marvel was en route to Earth and Tony and Nebula were likely between Carol and Earth, it meant very little in terms of a detour for her to rescue them.
Just my thoughts on that aspect of the story.
Can we take a step back and appreciate the breadth of Steve and Peggy's love story? Especially after Endgame I defy you not to be at least get a little choked when rewatching these scenes. They were so effective because each one of them could have been the end of their story. Against all odds they weren't the end.
I will totally buy into a good, layered love story and I will bawl more easily than my wife will acknowledge. Strangely, she's affected more by sappy, predictable, formulaic teen comedy/romance movies. But this is what gets to me more. I mean, just look at the performances.
Loved the movie. Laughed. Cried. Had a good time. Plantings and pay offs. I need to find out what the authors and director did earlier into their careers. Nothing in that movie pulled me out or felt not right with the characters. They treated the characers very well and everything in that universe works. I am looking forward to eyploring the MCU further, even with all the changes that we have to cope with after the 3rd phase ended.
Until I am told otherwise, Steve went back to Peggy, started drawing again and went and met a guy named Stan Lee and started drawings comics for a career
My main man Bucky got hosed. That shield belongs to him. Oh Bucky would be too strong having the shield and Arm...cough cough like Mary Sue, oh I mean capt marvel. He might still be brain washed. Hmm I recall a Hydra Capt before. Oh well, I’ll just wait for the X-Men and magneto or another parallel world Avengers to come in to curb stomp this new avengers gang. Since time travel fixes everything anyway
