Following the staggering twist ending of Avengers: Endgame became one of the most highly anticipated blockbusters of all time. Not only was Endgame the follow-up to Infinity War’s bombshell ending; it was the culmination of the entire MCU up to that point. Considering fans spent a year waiting for the Avengers’ last stand against Thanos, Endgame began on an unexpectedly somber note.
After a surprising five-year time jump, Endgame plays more like a cerebral drama about collective PTSD than a comic book action movie. But despite this subversively action-free opening act, Endgame still provided all the superhero action that Marvel fans were expecting.
Hawkeye Versus Black Widow
During Endgame’s “Time Heist” sequence, Black Widow has one of the most disappointing death scenes in the entire MCU. She fights Hawkeye for the privilege of making the ultimate sacrifice to gain the Soul Stone from Red Skull on Vormir, even though it makes much more sense for Hawkeye to make that sacrifice. He’s the one who needs to be redeemed the most and the one who stands to gain the most if the Time Heist is a success (and stands to lose the most if it’s a failure). Dramatically, it makes more sense for Clint to be the one who died. But Marvel was planning a prequel for Nat and a Disney+ series for Hawkeye, so Nat’s the one who died.
Plus, Clint and Nat fighting over who should fall from the cliff drastically alters the deal Thanos made in Infinity War: it had to be the intentional sacrifice of another person. Clint and Nat both throw themselves over the cliff multiple times. The characters are smarter than this; if both of them fell from the cliff, nobody would be around to collect the Soul Stone and the Time Heist wouldn’t work. A character with a decade-long legacy like the MCU’s Natasha Romanoff needed a much more glorious and coherently edited death scene, like Tony Stark’s at the end of the movie.
Ant-Man Steals The Tesseract
The time-travel plot in Endgame has the same conflict as Back to the Future Part II. While Tony Stark is retrieving the MacGuffin (one of the six MacGuffins, anyway), he has the added obstacle of hiding from his past self. He and Scott Lang infiltrate Avengers Tower in a bid to steal the Tesseract.
The heist goes off without a hitch, and then a major spanner is thrown in the works when the Hulk bursts out of the stairwell, knocking the Tesseract out of Tony’s hands and into Loki’s hands, kickstarting the trickster god’s Disney+ series. An interesting scenario for the second season of What If...? could be “What If... the Hulk Could Fit on the Elevator?”
The Battle Of Earth
After Cap, Thor, and Iron Man fail to defeat Thanos alone, the Masters of the Mystic Arts bring them hundreds of fellow heroes as backup via a series of portals. This large-scale battle sequence, dubbed “The Battle of Earth,” is the action-packed culmination of the entire Infinity Saga. Every fan-favorite hero gets their own triumphant moment: T’Challa is the first out of the portals; Valkyrie rides a winged horse; Captain Marvel crashes through Thanos’ fleet in one fell swoop.
If anything, this sequence is too big for its own good. It has every single Marvel hero fighting side-by-side for the fate of the universe – naturally, there’s too much going on. But despite the messiness of the battle’s middle act, Tony’s final “I am Iron Man” sacrifice still makes for a hugely satisfying, emotionally charged finale.
The Avengers Kill Thanos
Audiences waited a year to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes triumph over the Mad Titan after his shocking victory in Infinity War, but it didn’t land the way they expected. The opening scene of Endgame, in which Steve Rogers galvanizes the Avengers to seek out Thanos and kill him, is subversively anticlimactic.
They fly out to Thanos’ hideout and Captain Marvel holds him down while the others cut the Infinity Gauntlet off his arm. Thor “goes for the head,” but it doesn’t make a difference. The damage is done. They still have to live in the harrowing aftermath of their greatest failure. The God of Thunder isn’t happy or satisfied – he’s anything but, looking crushed and dejected as he wanders off and the shot goes out of focus.
Steve Rogers Fights His Younger Self
When the Avengers decided to travel back in time to extract the Infinity Stones from the locations of their former selves, it was inevitable that somebody would have to fight their younger self. Captain America was the perfect choice for this fight. There’s even a fun nod to his familiar catchphrase: “I could do this all day.” “Yeah, I know.”
Throughout this fight scene, the younger version of Cap exemplifies his more proficient combat style and the older version uses his wits to win. At the end of the fight, when the younger Cap is about to win, the older Cap uses his knowledge of the future to mess with his mind: “Bucky... is... alive!”
Cap, Thor, And Iron Man Take On Thanos
Before the rest of the Avengers show up, Cap, Thor, and Iron Man face Thanos alone in the wreckage of their headquarters. Thor bluntly says, “Let’s kill him properly this time.” This fight is much tenser and more focused than the huge battle where they’re ed by Thanos’ armies and hundreds of heroes from across the universe.
Steve Rogers lifting Thor’s hammer might be pure fan service, but fan service is easily forgiven when it’s this wildly satisfying. Even with the central three Avengers operating at full capacity, Thanos effortlessly wins the fight.
