﻿Hi, my name is Versha, and I am literally counting down the days to 'Avengers: Endgame.'
Food and water ran out four days ago. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning.
But I also want to slow the passage of time, because I’m not quite ready for the end.
We are hurtling toward the most anticipated finale of a series in pop culture, arguably since the Harry Potter books.
We are invested in the characters, their friendships, their trials and tribulations, and of course, their greatest threat of all.
But first, I want to talk about the two characters who have been at the heart of the MCU, from 2008 to now:
Captain America and Iron Man.
At the global press conference for 'Endgame,'
Chris Evans almost got in trouble for starting to talk about the “completion of Cap’s arc” in the movie.
He was attempting to do it in a spoiler-free way, but everyone was on high alert about not giving too much away.
...The completion of the arc, that's safe to say, right? That this movie provides an ending to--
EEENH... Judges?
Truly it's become a family...
But you couldn't make it to the birthday last night?
I, well, um...
That right there is just one of the reasons fans are going to miss seeing these two around,
years of press junkets together where you can tell they’ve become close friends.
Hold on, if we don't play that back, I'm cancelling the press tour.
But what he was talking about wasn’t REALLY a surprise.
Marvel fans have known for some time that this is going to be the end of Captain America and Iron Man as we know it,
as both the actors’ contracts are up, and Evans especially has been vocal about moving on after this.
Roll sound!
The big question is: will one of them actually die?
Fans have been waiting on/fearing this possibility since the announcement of ‘Captain America: Civil War,’
because in the comics, Cap dies in the aftermath of that event. At least, temporarily.
But movie Cap has so far survived both ‘Civil War’ and ‘Infinity War,’
including Thanos’s punch straight to his head, which also killed him in the comics.
The theme of sacrifice is woven into both Cap and Iron Man’s storylines in the MCU,
and so it makes sense that one of them might make the ultimate sacrifice in the grand finale.
The first time Steve and Tony fight, in the first Avengers, is a really key scene for both of them.
Steve has only recently been unfrozen and is very much in his soldier/warrior mindset,
while Tony has some daddy issues going on with how much his dad admired Cap,
and he’s now being forced to work with him.
I only knew him when he was young and single.
Oh really, you two knew each other? He never mentioned that, except for a thousand times.
Tony seems to represent everything the old-school Steve hates: he’s flashy, braggy, egotistical...
Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?
Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist...
But the real crux of the scene is when Cap says this:
You’re not the one to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.
I think I would just cut the wire.
At the end of the 'Avengers,' we see that Tony does indeed make the sacrifice play,
when he carries a nuclear bomb into space as the portal back to Earth closes,
and he doesn’t know if he’s going to survive.
But he does, and then there’s shawarma.
In ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’
Tony continues to try to find a way to ‘cut the wire,’ so to speak,
to figure out a solution that will protect Earth while allowing the Avengers to retire,
or at least not put themselves in harm’s way constantly.
How about a best case? What if the world was safe? What if next time aliens roll up to the club they couldn't get past the bouncer?
What’s noteworthy here is that Tony’s worst nightmare,
seen when Scarlet Witch messes with his head,
is not being able to save his fellow Avengers,
and being the one who’s left behind, feeling responsible.
So, not being able to sacrifice himself in order to save his friends.
You... Could've... Saved... Us...
That’s what we call growth.
Woah-ho-ho-ho!
Of course, Tony’s plan goes horribly wrong,
his protective bots turn evil,
and he ticks off Cap,
one of the friends he was trying to save, again.
And you did it right here! The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD!
Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?
No, it's never come up.
Saved New York? Recall that?
The Avengers do end up coming together in order to defeat Ultron,
and Tony and Steve seem like they’re buds again,
How can you possibly hope to stop me?
Like the old man said, together.
but the continuing character arcs here set up the conflict for ‘Civil War.’
Steve hates it when Tony eschews teamwork in favor of going his own way,
what he thinks is the smart way.
Stark! We need a plan of attack!
I have a plan. Attack.
Tony is deeply troubled by the idea of what other threats are out there,
and how the Avengers can fend them off successfully,
so that they’re not wracked with guilt if they do survive while others around them die.
Steve thinks they can handle whatever comes their way, together.
We'll lose.
Then we'll do that together too.
In ‘Civil War,’ these differing points of view clash in spectacular fashion.
The government forces them to make a choice:
submit to regulation by an international council, retire as superheroes,
or be found in violation of the law.
We’ve been talking a lot about sacrifice so far, but there’s another key theme for Steve and Tony that goes hand in hand with that:
choices — the choice of sacrifice.
There’s a thread in ‘The First Avenger,’ Cap’s origin story, that is still very relevant to him 70 years later.
When he thinks his BFF Bucky Barnes has died, his love interest, Peggy Carter, attempts to console him in a pretty compelling way.
Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him? Then stop blaming yourself.
Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.
She’s talking about the dignity of Bucky’s choice to sacrifice himself for a mission,
and a leader, he believed in.
Later, when Cap decides to sacrifice HIMSELF in order to save New York from annihilation,
he reflects Peggy’s words back at her.
Peggy... This is my choice.
While Steve doesn’t actually end up physically dying,
his life in the 1940s is over.
He may survive like Iron Man does at the end of ‘Avengers 1,’
but he’s definitely sacrificed: he loses the ability to have a life with Peggy.
While he can’t grow old with her,
he is able to reunite with her later in life.
It is Peggy, who taught him about the dignity of choice and the measure of sacrifice in the first place,
who keeps motivating him even after she dies, through the events of ‘Civil War.’
She said "compromise where you can, but where you can't, don't.
It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say 'no, you move.'"
This is one of the reasons the trailers for ‘Endgame’ are so haunting, and moving:
Peggy’s voice features prominently in them.
They’ve taken a clip from when Peggy speaks to Steve in 'Winter Soldier,'
and adapted it for the events of 'Infinity War.'
All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best we can do is start over.
Now there’s a lot of speculation about what the inclusion of this old voiceover means for ‘Endgame.’
My immediate thought was that it confirms the Avengers will attempt to use the Quantum Realm
or the Infinity Stones to travel in time and redo certain established events of past movies,
including the Snappening.
Starting over, as Peggy says.
We know from 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' that there IS such a thing as a time vortex in the Quantum Realm,
Don't get sucked into a time vortex. We won't be able to save you.
and we know the Time Stone and Reality Stones can change, well, time and reality.
Dormammu! Dormammu. Dormammu?
Thematically, just based on what we know of the Avengers’ arcs so far,
and what little the actors have been able to say at press conferences,
we can safely say the ideas of choice and sacrifice will play a significant role in ‘Endgame’ for Steve and Tony.
“We don’t trade lives” became a maxim of the superheroes in ‘Infinity War,’
and there may yet be a way to “cut the wire” that avoids one or both of them having to die.
But the stakes are high.
This is the fight of our lives.
He's pretty good at that.
Right?!
In addition to finding out how it all ends, one of the things I’m most looking forward to is seeing Steve and Tony reunited.
They were kept apart for the events of ‘Infinity War,’
and as it has in the past, their teamwork and leadership together will ultimately make them more formidable against Thanos.
They challenge each other and make each other better.
I'm not afraid of you, old man.
Put on the suit.
Put on the suit!
Yeah.
As for my wish for the ending?
If Cap has to go, and there is time travel involved,
I’d like to see some version of him going back in the past to be and maybe even grow old with Peggy.
To finally get that dance.
It would be a 'Doctor Who'-esque ending, and yes, timelines can get very messy.
Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.
but I’d be willing to suspend disbelief for it.
It’s better than watching my favorite character die.
As for Iron Man, as fitting as I think it could be for him to make the ultimate sacrifice,
I wouldn’t hate it if he’s allowed to keep making cameos in future Spider-Man movies.
Is it so bad to want some version of the ‘Dark Knight Rises’ ending where Batman ACTUALLY gets to retire and fly off into the sunset/Italy?
If dark and brooding Christopher Nolan can do it, so can the Russo Brothers!
I guarantee you there is no way anybody could guess what's gonna happen.
Alright, fine. But if we can’t predict it, does that mean it’s definitely not going to be this?
Uh... Marvel saw the post about how Ant-Man could defeat Thanos by crawling into his ass and instantly growing in size,
and that's why they didn't put him in the movie, send Tweet.
Umm...
Hey, whatever it takes.