In the battle against Thanos, the day was ultimately won by a tiny, unlikely hero.
No, not that one, but you're close.
During a spoiler filled interview with a Chinese website, Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe
Russo let slip the true hero of the film, though if you're anything like us, it had
probably already crossed your mind that the Avengers victory would never have been possible
if not for... a random mouse.
Of course, the key to the Avengers' eventual victory was actually Scott Lang.
He was last seen in the post-credits scene for Ant-Man and the Wasp, stranded in the
Quantum Realm after Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, and Hope Van Dyne… who were to pull him
out once he was finished collecting "healing particles" for their new friend Ghost… were
all dusted before they could throw the switch and bring Scott back.
At the start of Endgame, we learn that during the five years since the Snappening, the van
in which the Quantum Tunnel was housed had been sitting in a rodent-infested storage.
In a 14-million-to-one shot, one of those rodents just happened to crawl across the
exact right spot on the Tunnel's control panel, zapping Scott back into the world.
"I went forward in time to view alternate futures."
"How many did you see?"
"14 million, six hundred and five."
"How many did we win?"
"One."
This raises the question: if not for that mouse, would Thanos have won?
If it would have crawled across a different portion of the panel, even, would the Avengers
have been hosed?
According to Russo, the answer is yes.
"The mouse saved the universe.
Among the many realities in those 14 million possible futures Doctor Strange [foresaw],
the mouse failed to press the button and thus the heroes failed in those futures."
That's… just insane.
Yes, the Avengers' plan to reverse the Decimation was a convoluted one, with different teams
traveling to different time periods in order to pre-emptively acquire all six Infinity
Stones before Thanos could get his hands on them.
It was also fraught with complications: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers failed to grab the
Tesseract during the Battle of New York, necessitating a slight detour to 1970; like Gamora before
her, Black Widow was forced to give her life in exchange for the Soul Stone; and 2014 Thanos
figured out the whole plan due to Nebula's incursion into that period, almost managing
to thwart our heroes by sending the still-villainous past version of Nebula to the present as a
mole.
But since we know that Doctor Strange saw the only outcome that resulted in victory
during his future-viewing party on Titan during Avengers: Infinity War, we know that somehow,
it all played out exactly like it was supposed to… and that included the contribution of
that low-down, dirty mouse.
Think about what must have been going through Doctor Strange's mind when he handed the Time
Stone over to Thanos, knowing that the future of the universe depended on the random wanderings
of a mouse five years in the future.
We suppose that one could take it even further, making the case that the universe was really
saved by whatever anonymous towing company employee decided to move Scott's van to that
crappy storage facility rather than a nicer, non-vermin-infested one.
Or the security guard who let Scott out of the locked facility, rather than calling the
cops on the wild-eyed stranger who had suddenly appeared in said facility out of nowhere.
There were a lot of moving parts to the whole thing, but in the end, we've got to go with
the word of Russo: a mouse was responsible for half of all life in the universe being
restored, which we're sure has nothing to do with the fact that Marvel Studios is owned
by Disney.
It's doubtful that Lang even knows exactly how he was freed, which is a real shame, because
at the very least, that mouse deserves a medal.
Or perhaps an honorary membership in the Avengers?
So next time you think about the Avengers saving the universe, remember: as much as
we all love Captain America and Iron Man,
"I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing: that it was all started by a mouse."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about Marvel are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.