With theories about time travel littering the Marvel Reddit boards, it’s appropriate that the latest teaser for Avengers: Endgame takes us back to the very beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to see how it all formed.
With Endgame, a story that plays out across 22 films beginning with the first Iron Man, comes to an end. It also feels right that Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury is the first voice we hear as the camera scans over an empty Avengers headquarters BASE.
“Heroes. It’s an old-fashioned notion,” says the man who first appeared in the Iron Man post-credits scene and tipped us off to the much larger galaxy that exists beyond Jon Favreau’s 2008 film.
Hazy flashes, that are visually similar to the Quantum Realm disorientation in Ant-Man, take us through the Captain America and Thor films before hitting two sub-franchises that showed us worlds and realities beyond Earth, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. The recap continues as we go through every movie leading up to the great Thanos snap in Avengers: Infinity War.
With such little footage released from Avengers: Endgame, one popular theory has gained more and more traction in the weeks leading up to the April 26 premiere: time travel by way of the Quantum Realm may somehow play a part in the Avengers’ last-ditch effort to reverse Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet attack. Certain scenes from the various teasers showing familiar settings and character costumes abound, in addition to the new suits that appear apt for Quantum Realm travel.
Whatever the plan may be to defeat the Mad Titan, Vision’s words remind us, “A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.” This story, too, will end.
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