YMMV / Avengers: Endgame

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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• Memetic Mutation
• Moral Event Horizon
• Narm

A to E

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Thanos mentions destroying the Infinity Stones because after having used them to enact his culling of the universe, they only exist as a temptation now. Did he mean solely as a temptation for the heroes to set things right, or was he feeling tempted to try and reverse what happened out of a belief that it wasn't worth what it cost him? Or, was he feeling tempted to use the Stones to further exert his will upon the cosmos and destroyed them to prevent himself from sullying his "noble" mission? Also, if he recognized that his plan went badly, would the Stones have presented a temptation for him to go further down the slippery slope and try to destroy and recreate the entire universe according to his desires, like alternate Thanos planned to?
  • With his last breath, Thanos thanks Nebula for admitting he is not a liar and ponders aloud if he treated her too harshly. Is Thanos sincerely rethinking his treatment of her, or is he just trying to weasel his way out by trying to manipulate his abused daughter into possibly turning on the Avengers and giving him a chance to escape? None of Thanos' previous behavior indicates he has ever reconsidered his abuse towards Nebula, strongly suggesting the latter, but his unconditional love for Gamora (who he has also abused) shows he's not incapable of showing love and kindness to his victims. It's also possible that losing the rest of his children gave him a Jerkass Realization of how he had taken Nebula for granted. Plus, Nebula did say her father is anything but a liar, so that does make it harder to dispute his sincerity, and Nebula does know her father well. His 2014 self also shows genuine praise for 2014 Nebula... after Nebula has completed her mission, of course. Is he going for a bit of both options? All in all, it's hard to get a 100% fix on Thanos' approach in his last moments.
    • Was 2014 Thanos' better treatment of 2014 Nebula a legitimate attempt at being a better father, or was it merely a strategic move to prevent her betrayal? Or perhaps also taking advantage 2014 Nebula's obvious desperation to prove her loyalty?
  • 2014 Thanos' motivation. He tries to present resetting the entire universe as the ultimate mercy, having come to realize erasing half the universe will leave the remaining half utterly miserable. Is he honestly thinking that? Or is he trying to salvage his initial idea of helping the universe through death by taking it to next level? Is it simply a knee-jerk reaction for how ungrateful everyone seems to be for his future sacrifices? Is he simply going more mad because he can't accept his entire life work to be a colossal failure?
    • In relation, how much of 2014 Thanos's personality is the character's true colors overall, and how much of it is a result of the diverged timeline brought by the Avengers' meddling? Would 2018 Thanos have agreed with 2014 Thanos's plan to restart the universe, or would his experiences in Infinity War have left him with a different worldview? Word of God says more of the former is in effect, and a line uttered by 2018 Thanos to the Avengers ("You should be grateful!") seems to indicate this, but it should be noted that 2014 Thanos specifically came from the time right before Gamora and Nebula left him, which served as catalysts for the Character Development he would receive in Infinity War.
  • The conclusion of Thor's story arc raise a question: Did Thor ever personally want to be the king of Asgard, or was it a role he was groomed to assume no matter what? His first solo movie established he would have been a terrible ruler, and he seemed almost relieved when told Odin will keep on ruling for a while. The Dark World then shows him explaining to "Odin" that he dislikes rule and the only time he ever actually takes the crown is in Ragnarok, which is thrust upon him. Now, he is outright leaving the remaining Asgardians to be ruled by Valkyrie. Going by all the events up to now, finding someone who could rule instead of him seemed inevitable.
  • When Thor retrieves Mjolnir from 2013 Asgard, does he do so purely for himself, to prove that he is still worthy of wielding it? Or did he do so intending for Captain America to wield it as well? Given that he's already got Stormbreaker, the probability is most likely the latter.
  • 2014 Nebula's Redemption Rejection. What makes it odd is that present Nebula was quick to betray Thanos at the given opportunity, yet 2014 Nebula still chose to side with him. Was it wholly out of fear of Thanos as she reasons, or something else factored in as well? Earlier, 2014 Thanos affirms his trust in her when Ebony Maw deemed her a traitor and later on commends her for successfully bringing him to the present. It's possible that finally getting validation from her adopted father (possibly for the first time in her life) fully reinforced 2014 Nebula's loyalty to him, which could explain why she's much more unwilling to betray Thanos than her present counterpart, who had never gotten the same praise.
  • Cap finally wielding Thor's hammer has reopened the debate that began with the party scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron - was he always worthy? Or, like Thor himself in his first solo film, did he have to go through character development before becoming worthy? Even the Endgame creative leads disagree, with Feige and the Russos stating the former while screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely believe the latter.
  • General Ross' presence during Iron Man's funeral. Despite his opposition towards the Avengers, he makes no attempt to arrest them and appears to be sad due to Tony's passing. Has Ross let go of any hatred he had towards the Avengers for saving the universe (and resurrecting him, his daughter, and half of the universe) or does he still hate them but knew that Stark's funeral wasn't the time and place to threaten any legal action against them, aside that he respected Stark for being on his side during the Avengers Civil War? And if the latter, is it out of respect for the dead, or simple pragmatism given that he's surrounded by lots of powerful people whose opinions of him range from neutral to extremely antagonistic? Or both?
    • For that matter, is he there out of genuine respect for Tony, or just because, as Secretary of State, he's there to look good?
• Americans Hate Tingle: Just like what happened with Infinity War, the film got eclipsed by Case Closed's 23rd Non-Serial Movie Fist of the Blue Sapphire in Japan despite Endgame premiering on the former's third week.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • During the holographic conversation with Natasha, Okoye holds herself pretty well despite losing her king and princess as well as many of her people. Her queen still being alive might have helped her to cope. For comparison, Natasha is barely holding up even after 5-year-Time Skip and eventually breaking into tears after ending the conversation.
  • None of the un-dusted heroes seem to have any qualms about the fact that they were dead for five years until they weren't. It's at least partially justified in that, according to Peter Parker, the experience was simply like passing out and then waking up. Notably, Peter does have an emotional reaction to meeting Ned again, suggesting that the lack of angst over the situation at the time was because they had more important things to worry about, like a massive battle to fight with the fate of the Universe at stake.
  • Star-Lord, after being gone from Earth since he was a child, finally returns there for the movie's climactic battle and its aftermath, but isn't shown to have any significant emotional response to being back on his homeworld for the first time in more than three decades. Which makes sense, since he's had the capacity to travel back to Earth for years before he ever met the Guardians; he quite obviously doesn't give a damn about Earth anymore. In vol.2, he also offhandedly mentions that he doesn't want to return to Earth because it's where his mother died (a feeling that has likely been intensified given what he learns in that film about his mother's death). He was also caught in the midst of a massive battle for the sake of the Universe, so it's not like he could just stop and watch. And, even after the big battle, he's still reeling from not just his Gamora's death (which to him, happened a couple of days before), but being rejected by another Gamora from an alternate timeline who has clearly went her own way.
    • Related to this, Captain America is one character he would be familiar with, given he was a World War veteran and his grandmother apparently was a fan. Yet he not only does say nothing about him, the two of them never interact at all.
  • Morgan is definitely unsettled by Tony's final message to her, but after all's said and done, she's mostly just hungry and in the mood for a cheeseburger. Justified rather heartbreakingly in that while she's implied to be a genius, she's still only 4 years old and thus doesn't possess the capacity to truly comprehend the concept of death on an emotional level yet. Given that she knows cheeseburgers were her father's favorite food, it's not unbelievable to feel she purposely chose that food because of that connection.
  • In striking contrast to all the other surviving heroes at the beginning of the film, Captain Marvel acts almost completely unfazed by the fact that half the universe has been wiped out overnight. It's especially jarring because The Stinger of her own solo movie seemed to indicate that she would be hunting down Thanos as revenge for Nick Fury's death, which ultimately never actually happens in this movie.
  • WandaVision confirms that Monica Rambeau got snapped during this time period, and Maria survived only to die during the Time Skip. Despite this, Captain Marvel is shown to not be grieving over this loss (which, granted, may not have been reported at the time), instead rather focusing on avenging Fury.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Thanos himself at the beginning of the film is subdued pretty easily by Captain Marvel, the Hulkbuster and War Machine then killed by Thor... although this is a clear tip-off that this isn't the final battle with him. It helps that Thanos was severely injured and weakened from doing the genocide snap and destroying the Stones.
  • 2014 Nebula goes down with a single shot through the chest by her prime timeline counterpart. Considering that she's the impetus for the entire third act of the film, that's a surprisingly quick fight.
  • Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian die pretty uneventfully during the final battle as Cull is stomped on by Scott and Corvus is quickly impaled by Okoye during the "girl power" charge before getting disintegrated along with the rest of his allies.
  • Thanos's flagship, the Sanctuary II. First, it turns its full broadsides on the heroes at Thanos's orders... and despite its guns being larger than battleship cannons, and firing at foes with no cover, it does very little damage and overall displays extremely pathetic firepower (near-misses impacting literal inches from regular humans — and Rocket — fail to make them flinch).^note For comparison, generic 155mm HE artillery shells have a kill radius of 50 meters against men in body armor Then, a few minutes later, Captain Marvel simply flies through it and wrecks it from within, setting off internal secondary explosions that cause the whole ship to go down in flames. This is especially bad because barely 20 minutes earlier, the missile armament of the same ship utterly annihilated the Avengers compound in a couple of shots, seemingly having firepower comparable to modern cruise missiles; they're never used again, possibly because the initial salvo was all they had.
• Ass Pull: The heroes' discovery of Time Travel relies on the idea that time flows slower inside the Quantum Realm. While a lot of the realm's properties can be handwaved by its generally strange nature, its Year Outside, Hour Inside nature is new to this film and arguably contradicts Janet Pym's plotline of having been trapped there for 30 years. In particular, Ant-Man and the Wasp generally goes with the idea that Janet had to take The Slow Path and has aged normally just like Hank - yet according to this film's rules, she would only have been trapped there for a bit longer than a normal day, which raises quite a few Fridge Logic moments about the age gap between the two.
• Award Snub:
  • Despite being highly acclaimed by both critics and audiences, as well as drawing favorable comparisons to past Best Picture winner The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the film was shut out of many major awards ceremonies. It wasn't nominated for any awards at the 2020 Golden Globes and was only nominated for visual effects for both the Academy Awards and BAFTAs, losing to 1917 at both. This gives Endgame the dubious distinction of being the first film to become the highest grossing of all time without winning a single Oscar.^note The last film to do this, The Birth of a Nation (1915), predates the Academy Awards and in any case has...other issues. A lot of this has to do with the consensus that 2019 was an incredibly strong year for movies, whereas a weaker year might have allowed Endgame to get wins. Robert Downey Jr. also declined to compete in the "Best Actor" category at the Oscars.
  • The 2022 Oscars' "Most Cheer-worthy Moment" category (which was determined by popular vote) included the film's big "assemble" moment as one of the nominated contenders. It lost out to the "Into the Speed Force" scene in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
• Badass Decay:
  • Thanos goes down ridiculously easy after the events of Infinity War, given that he's only capable of weakly limping after the toll of two snaps on his body; it certainly doesn't help that he can't even fall back on the Power Stone to bolster his strength anymore. The version of himself from the 2014 timeline, conversely, is even more dangerous than the original.
  • Thor, who goes from being able to take out Thanos's entire army singlehandedly and wiping the floor with Thanos with a single lightning bolt to being easily manhandled by Thanos even when wielding both Stormbreaker and Mjölnir. Sure, he's washed-up and very fat, but it's still disheartening to see him struggle. Then again, some have argued that it only makes him more badass that he's so willing to fight to the end even when clearly outmatched, especially given his attitude for most of the film up to this point.
  • Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian; in Infinity War they were able to beat Captain America and Iron Man respectively, but this time around they both die without fanfare, as if they were just any Mook. Obsidian is also the only Children of Thanos to fall before Iron Man uses the Infinity Stones to erase them from existence while Corvus is apparently knocked out and heavily wounded after he's impaled by Okoye with Vibranium spear and doesn't do anything else before getting disintegrated. Obsidian, unfortunately, can't exactly avoid a Giant-Man foot that squashes him like a bug; Glaive at least has the dignity of surviving until after Captain Marvel arrives, while Obsidian dies not long after the battle begins.
• Base-Breaking Character: There's a lot of discussing among fans in the social media about Smart Hulk. Some find him simply hilarious, others think it is a logical conclusion for Banner's character arc throughout the MCU to finally make peace with the Hulk and merging. Than there are fans who were disappointed as it robs Hulk of his own personality and makes a lot of Hulk's iconic comic arcs hard to adapt in the future. Some also feel like Smart Hulk hasn't enough to do in the final battle and are disappointed that he never got to have a rematch fight against Thanos (then again, the fact that his arm was injured after doing the Snap means the fight would have likely been pretty one-sided anyway). There are also fans that don't mind the new direction for the character, but feel that not showing Bruce's transformation into the Smart Hulk feels cheap.
• Broken Base:
  • The ultimate fate of Steve Rogers is highly controversial among fans:
    • Plotwise, most debates over the film's degree of success at utilizing the time travel plot device hinge on Steve's journey back to the past and what it means for him to appear back in the present as an old man, in a different location than when he first went back. The directors' and writers' wildly different takes on what exactly happened only fuel the fire, since the directors claim he created yet another Alternate Universe before jumping back into the main timeline... somehow, which opens up as many questions as it answers, while the writers interpret him as creating a Stable Time Loop which perfectly explains how he ended up at the bench but also contradicts the film's previous explanations of time travel explicitly and makes several scenes from previous movies nonsensical. For many fans that particular scene ends up demolishing all coherence to the film's logic while others insist it makes perfect sense (depending on which of the above interpretations one takes or neither) and that the idea of multiple alternate realities fits the Ancient One's exposition perfectly. The potential Fridge Logic is contentious enough for some people to treat Steve's ending as a Fanon Discontinuity to avoid the headaches, while others who aren't satisfied with the possible in-universe justifications nevertheless fully embrace it as an instance of the creators deliberately prioritizing emotional impact and thus playing loose with internal logic to create an important character beat.
    • Characterwise, whether or not Steve's decision at the end was a logical well-earned indulgence, or a nonsensical bastardization of the character. The former half loves it and and believes it's a thematically appropriate sendoff, in which Captain America is finally able to "come home from the war" to live out the rest of his life peacefully with the love of his life after being denied it for so long, that learning how to make a decision based on his own happiness was good Character Development for a character who had previously sacrificed every chance at happiness for the good of others, and that his desire to adjust to the modern era was more of a Running Gag than a sincere character arc. The latter half hates it and finds it a nonsensical betrayal of or at least poorly-justified shift in his characterization from previous films as a man who was learning to start anew and adjust to his new circumstances while remaining a timeless paragon, but threw it all away at the last minute, and that the creators' inconsistent attempts at justification contradict what the previous films established about his personality and motives, instead making his choice even more confusing and uncharacteristically selfish, particularly where Bucky, Sam, and Sharon are concerned.
    • Additionally, some fans believe that Steve going back to be with Peggy undercuts her decision to move on at the end of the first season of Agent Carter and robs her of the agency to make that decision (on top of rendering her a prize Steve had to "win"), while other fans argue that Steve being frozen in an iceberg is actually what took away Peggy's ability to decide what she wanted her future to be, the fact that she moved on when she had to doesn't mean she wouldn't have preferred to be with Steve (as is implied by her keeping Steve's picture on her desk thirty years after his supposed death), and that the other side's framing of Steve and Peggy getting together as something he did to her rather than something they decided on together is actually what robs her of agency. Proponents of the latter argument tend to subscribe to the aforementioned time-loop theory, while proponents of the former argument tend to subscribe to the alternate timeline theory, which leaves the events of Agent Carter intact.
  • Bro Thor. Fans are divided in various camps over him. Some considered it fat-shaming as a lot of jokes were made at his expense, particularly targeted towards his weight gain. Others were more positive towards it, considering a realistic response to dealing with trauma and depression. And then there is a third camp who agrees with the second camp, but like the first camp felt that the jokes overstayed their welcome once Thor snaps out of his Heroic BSoD.
  • A lot of people like Clint better as the vengeance-seeking archer-samurai Ronin than he was as the superhero agent Hawkeye. It even extends to his Ronin costume, which as many would say it's an improvement in coolness factor over his standard Hawkeye gear... Although a lot of fans could do without the new hair. However, plenty of others, especially those who liked his portrayal in Age of Ultron, hate it, as they find Clint's transformation cheesy and clichéd, and his new personality to be full of Wangst.
  • The "girl power" scene during the final battle where every female superhero on the battlefield joins Captain Marvel in her race to get the second Infinity Gauntlet to Ant-Man's van. Many see it as an excellent representation of many of Marvel's female superheroes working together to fight the biggest threat. Others find it contrived and pandering, with the set-up to the scene and the heroes involved raising lots of Fridge Logic. A third camp feel that rather than serving as representation, it actually highlights the MCU's lacking of representation since with how many heroes are present, the fact they could fit all their living female heroes into one shot says a lot about how few there are compared to the men, especially considering several of the ladies only had maybe one or two film appearances beforehand (or in Pepper's case, was not until now shown to be a hero). And then a fourth camp simply question the logistics of the scene and how it shouldn’t be possible.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Those who were angry at Quill for (seemingly) wrecking the plan to stop Thanos in the previous movie will likely be satisfied by the scene in which 2014 Gamora kicks him in the balls. Twice.
  • The Wakandan armies laying the smackdown on Thanos's children is satisfying, especially knowing that they are a Badass Normal group. M'Baku in particular looks thrilled that he gets to avenge his Jabari tribe members.
  • At the end of the film, all the scenes of the Avengers landing a blow on Thanos, be it Captain America pummeling him with Mjölnir, Wanda ripping his armor from his body while suspending him in the air, or Captain Marvel bending his fingers backward and taking a headbutt from him with no reaction whatsoever, are all extremely cathartic after seeing Thanos almost always getting the last word.
  • Thanos' 2014 self gets the Gauntlet and makes a second snap... only for his smug look to disappear when nothing happens and he realizes that Tony has transferred the Stones to his own suit of armor. Tony then makes his own snap, and this time it is Thanos, his children, and his entire army that are dusted. After all that the Mad Titan has done, it is immensely satisfying seeing him bow his head in utter despair and defeat before being utterly dusted himself (it certainly helps that he sticks around a minute longer than everyone else, so he can fully absorb the impact of seeing everything he's worked for utterly destroyed).
  • Watching Ebony Maw fade as he pathetically reaches out for his father-figure (echoing Spider-Man's dusting) and Proxima Midnight cradling her beloved's dead body as she too drifts away (exactly mirroring Wanda's dusting while cradling Vision's body) are both magnificent to behold.
• Character Rerailment:
  • Clint had been the Memetic Loser of the MCU for years on end for his perceived uselessness, which even seeped into the narrative itself with his teammates mocking him at times. Here, after his whole family died, Clint dons the identity of Ronin and proceeds to show the world why his comic counterpart is considered one of the toughest Avengers even with no powers. Ronin slaughters Yakuza left and right, and holds his own in every encounter like a champ. In fact, opposite of being a Memetic Loser, Ronin is The Dreaded in the criminal underworld.
  • Thanos gets two cases of this.
    • He loses most of his Adaptational Nice Guy from the previous film by the end of this one, more closely resembling the megalomaniac from the comics. His plan goes from "destroy half of the universe to save the rest" to "destroy the entire universe" when he learns that the Avengers aren't grateful for his "sacrifice", and are looking to do something to undo it.
    • While he was praised in Infinity War, there was criticism that Thanos relied too heavily on the gauntlet to a fault, which made some wonder if he had power without it. This time around we get to see what he's really made of, going one-on-three against Iron Man, Cap and Thor while easily being on the winning side, all without him having to use it. In fact, he only uses the Power Stone once, and he had to take it out of the gauntlet to do so as Captain Marvel was holding the gauntlet open on his hand.
  • 2014 Gamora's introduction and actions in the movie seem to indicate that she'll be closer to her comic book characterization as being "the deadliest woman in the galaxy" going forward, instead of being the Team Mom for the Guardians... Which, if anything, makes her prime timeline counterpart's demise even more tragic.
  • Fans of Scarlet Witch no doubt enjoyed seeing Wanda finally get to fully cut loose against Thanos as the awe-inspiring queen of mutants she is in the comics.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The Hulk seen in this movie is never referred to as "Professor Hulk" and Word of God refers to him as Smart Hulk (with characters In-Universe just calling him Dr. Banner). He also draws more from Bill Mantlo's take on a smart Hulk instead of the Merged Hulk from Peter David's run in the comics which is the Hulk persona that's more commonly known as Professor Hulk.
  • A lot of people think the time travel in this movie only creates alternate timelines due to the Infinity Stones being taken out of the past and being brought to the future. However, this isn't true. The movie established that going back in time and changing the past at all results in alternate timelines. However, the film has Bruce Banner explain it in a very confusing way if you don't pay very close attention to what he's saying and there's no visual elements to go with his words or a proper dumbing down of things to properly explain things to the audience, or even the characters, as they just seem to get it. Not to mention that where the movie does give a visual to help explain how something works is during the Ancient One's explanation of how removing the Infinity Stones from the universe will bring about catastrophic consequences for them, so people can (and have) easily mix up these things as being connected.
  • Then there's also the way Captain America goes back to the 40s to live out his life with Peggy and people believing it's part of a timeloop. Due to the production teams and writers never explaining who Peggy's husband is, as well as never showing who her husband is, this also gets muddied. It was actually stated to be fully intentional by them, as they set it up as far back as Civil War, as well as even the directors and writers disagreeing how the time travel works in the movie. To be fair, the movie never states if Steve traveling back is a part of a timeloop or not, but context clues would lead you to think it might be. However, due to how the time travel works in other instances, it has to be that he created an alternate timeline by replacing Peggy's husband, not to mention how problematic it would be for him not being proactive and preventing some of the things he knew about from happening since he knew he'd be creating an alternate timeline by going back anyways.
• Contested Sequel: Fans are split over whether Endgame is superior or inferior overall to its direct predecessor Infinity War. In general the film is highly controversial among MCU enthusiasts, with vociferous debates about whether they make for appropriate developments and conclusions to a great deal of characters' stories or not, whether all the Fanservice came at the cost of telling a coherent story or not, and whether its takes on many heroes are perfectly in-character or massively out-of-character.
• Continuity Lockout:
  • The movie is so full of Brick Jokes and its plot is dedicated to revisiting whole scenes and subplots from across the entire MCU with references to practically every single film before it, that it's the least newbie friendly movie of the entire franchise. To get maximum investment out of Endgame, you really do need to have seen every single film leading up to it, or at least its predecessor. Heaven help you if you've never seen another MCU movie before this one.
    "And then all of a sudden Black Panther and all his horde of people coming out of the woodwork... are they the Avengers too? Like, why didn't they just help them the entire time, and then none of this craziness would have happened?"
  • Captain Marvel had only been released in theaters a month or so prior to this movie's release in theaters, so it didn't get to hit home video until way after said release. If you didn't see it then, good luck understanding Captain Marvel's character, why she's in space, or anything else about her before seeing this one if you saw this movie in theaters^note At least in this case, her movie was still being shown around the time Endgame was released so it wasn't so bad.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Support for a Peter Parker/Carol Danvers pairing popped up following the release of this movie, due to Peter looking more than a bit flustered upon seeing her and their one exchange having a suggestive-sounding line. This may also partly stem from the fact that in the comics, Peter and Carol did briefly date once, even if the age gap was nowhere near as big there as in the MCU.
    Captain Marvel: Hey, Peter Parker. Got something for me?
  • There are also a subset of fans who believed that Hawkeye should have sacrificed his life for the Soul Stone, and that Black Widow should have married his widowed wife.
  • Also, Thor and Carol, based on the scene from the trailer and the movie where Thor says he likes her.
    Thor: I like this one.
  • Rhodey and Nebula also have a few fans, they have a surprisingly tender moment on Morag when retrieving the Power Stone, bonding over their shared issue of needing artificial parts to function, and in general seem to get along with their snark over seeing Quill dancing and off-key singing.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Rhodey suggesting infanticide by using the time machine to travel back in time to strangle baby Thanos somehow loops back to being hilarious thanks to his nonchalant and serious tone, pointing out it's Thanos. Bruce's horrified reaction makes it even more so.
  • Thor also dips into this trope a few times:
    • Him freezing up while recapping the events of The Dark World when he remembers the death of his mother and his breakup with Jane is tragic. Him recapping the events of TDW in a way ^note a foreign entity went inside Jane's body, so because Thor was dating her at the time, he took her home to meet his parents whereupon it was decided that they needed to remove the thing from her body that makes it sound like a thinly-veiled "Jane needs an abortion" joke is utterly hysterical.
    • Him having fallen into a deep depression because he failed to save the universe from Thanos is heartbreaking. Him delivering a snarling, graphically violent threat to a (possible) child over the phone for repeatedly killing Korg in Fortnite is side-splittingly hilarious.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Rhodey got a bit of this from Carol/Maria and Carol/Valkryie fans after Carol wishes him "good luck" in the beginning (a Mythology Gag to the time the two were a couple in the comics and the fact that both are members of the Air Force), as "lesbian Carol" is an extremely popular Fanon and supported by her actor, although there's no implication that scene was meant to be romantic nor is Carol's canonical sexuality indicated any which way.
  • Peggy Carter got a little bit of this in a roundabout way from Steve/Sam or Steve/Bucky shippers, but in that case it was more like "let Peggy stay dead so that Steve and them can be together" (since Steve had to go back in time to live out his life with her). Fans of Steve/Sharon are similarly incensed, which is only exacerbated at how one of the biggest criticisms leveled at the MCU was the constant underutilization of Sharon, and the fact that early drafts for this film featured her and Steve living in an unhappy relationship together, which many felt was a case of the creators subjecting Sharon to an in-universe version of this trope.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The rat that accidentally let Scott free is a Memetic Badass. As is noobmaster69.
  • Though her role is pretty minor, Cassie Lang was welcomed by the fanbase in part because she welcomes her father back in open arms five years after thinking he died, and is now a lovely young lady. One of the biggest criticism regarding her reappearance in the next movie is the decision to recast her with a well-known actress rather than one that is previously unknown like her.
  • By a similar token, Morgan Stark as the daughter of Tony and Pepper. She's also cute as a button and a Daddy's Girl, endearing her to the fanbase.
  • Frigga's appearance in this film is well-liked, in part because the first two Thor movies barely used her before killing her off, and in part because she's able to get Thor back in the right mindset of being a hero in spite of his failings.
  • Howard Stark has only a brief role, but his unknowing conversation with his future son has caused many to see him in a new and better light.
  • James D'Arcy makes a brief appearance as Edwin Jarvis, to the utter delight of Agent Carter fans, in the first time a character/actor who originated in one of the MCU TV shows has migrated to the movies.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The title itself, given the secrecy behind it, was the subject of a lot of speculation. Popular candidates for the movie's name included Avengers: The Infinity Gauntlet,^note which was Jossed shortly after the release of Infinity War Avengers: Infinity Crusade, ^note the name of the sequel to the original Infinity War comic Avengers: Secret Wars,^note which the directors heavily implied was not the case when they mentioned a desire to adapt such a story in case Disney acquires Fox Avengers: Secret Invasion, Avengers Disassembled, Avengers Forever, ^note which the directors stated was the closest guess to what the actual title was, considering that Avengers Endgame was an actual guess at the time, however, this appears to have been misdirection in hindsight Avengers: Annihilation, and, naturally, Avengers: Endgame.^note Ironically implied not to be the case at the time because the directors stated that the title of the fourth Avengers movie was not spoken in Infinity War... which, of course, later turned out to actually be false.
  • The set photos showing an older Tony Stark and Scott Lang interacting with Steve Rogers as he appeared in The Avengers, along with some other set photos showing characters in costumes that they wore earlier in the continuity, led to the theory that Avengers 4 is a movie based around Time Travel. Adding to this is that Kevin Feige mentioned that the Grand Finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation ("All Good Things..."), which prominently featured characters jumping through time, was a key influence on this story, along with set photos showing Scott interacting with Gamora and Nebula as they appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). Of course, Endgame did turn out to be a Time Travel movie.
  • The fact that (A) Clint returned as Ronin rather than Hawkeye, his future Disney Plus show was announced involving him training Kate Bishop, and the fact that Clint begins the movie training with his daughter; (B) a casting call was leaked for baby twin boys who are believed be those of Scarlet and Vision; (C) Patriot was originally planned to appear in Black Panther before being cut due to the large cast; and (D) Cassie Lang has been aged up to a teenager (in line with her comics counterpart) has a number of people suspecting that a Young Avengers movie is being set up by the MCU for Phase 4, starting from here. Like the Guardians of the Galaxy, they wouldn't exactly be expected compared to other big names with longer histories, seeing as they were only introduced in 2005. After the movie's actual release, the debut of Morgan Stark and the return of Harley Keener have added fuel to the fire.
    • Then there's the confirmation that Phase 4 will include LGBTQ characters which added even more speculation — Wiccan and Hulkling are among the most well-known of Marvel's gay superheroes. And the fact that Phase 4 will introduce more Legacy Characters, again fitting with the theme of Young Avengers. And then Feige outright stated that Cassie was introduced as a child in the Ant-Man movies to "plant seeds" for the future. By this point, Young Avengers fans are really hoping for there to finally be a young superhero team movie that's never been made before.
  • There's also the theory that the day that Marvel took the "class photo" was the day that they filmed the big sequence with forty characters that has been confirmed to appear in this film. The actual movie casts a very dark shadow over this, as the only scene that most likely involved all these actors, without having to green-screen them together like a Big Badass Battle Sequence would need, is the funeral of Tony Stark.
  • As his actor was allegedly been spotted on set, the acquisition of Fox by Disney granting Marvel the X-Men film rights, and the theories that the movie will involve time travel, many believe that Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver will be brought back to the MCU after his death in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sadly, this turned out to not be the case, though given that the movie involved Time Travel, this would not have been a bad guess if one of the places the Avengers returned to were the Battle of Sokovia.
  • Some believe that the franchise's new status quo will revolve around an older Cassie Lang rebuilding the world years in the future, with any reversals to Thanos wiping out half of the universe's life being fairly minor. It turned out to be incorrect, but the movie does keep an older Cassie Lang around that leaves her role in future movies open for exploration.
  • A contingent also suspect that with the reshoots taking place, and neither it nor any concept art seen so far showing anything past-related, that the idea of Time Travel being part of the plot was a smokescreen intentionally made to fool the audience and cover the real plot of the movie, the bulk of which filmed in reshoots rather than the original photography. Adding to the theory, Word of God confirms they've filmed fake scenes specifically to provide fake spoilers and keep the film under wraps.
  • The fact that Clint will be appearing not as Hawkeye but as Ronin has led many fans to assume that his wife and kids were killed in the Snapture. This is confirmed in the opening scene of the film.
  • After Chris Evans posted this on Twitter, the theory that Captain America is going to be Killed Off for Real spread like wildfire. When it came to deadpools Cap would be at the top of majority of them. Although he comes this close to biting the dust, this turned out to be misdirection, even though Cap's story more or less ends with this film.
  • The first official trailer showing that Tony and Nebula were trapped, adrift in space in the Guardians' spaceship, the Benatar, had prompted some suggestion that they'd be rescued by Kraglin. Others have theorized they'd instead be picked up by Korg, Miek, and Valkyrie (along with any Asgardian survivors). They are ultimately rescued by Carol in the film.
  • A leaked photo suggested Pepper would be suiting up as Rescue. She does.
  • Some speculated that Drax's dusting would be permanent due to Dave Bautista's objection to the firing of James Gunn and publicly expressed his doubt for returning for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, before the latter was re-hired. This ended up being Jossed as Drax ends up living.
  • 2012 Loki escaping with the Tesseract and never appearing again provoked some suspicion that rather than being a prequel, his series on Disney+ would about this Loki's adventures on the run. They were right, though probably didn't foresee the TVA.
  • Quite a few people guessed the briefly mentioned underwater earthquake is foreshadowing for Namor the Sub-Mariner. While the writers stated that the earthquake was not intended to be related to Namor, he did in fact turn out to be the main antagonist in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
  • With time-travel being a key factor in the movie, a lot of fans began speculating that Kang the Conqueror may play a role in Phase 4. Some fans even theorise that due to Tony Stark being the first to successfully pioneer time-travel, Tony Stark may be Kang's ancestor in this continuity as opposed to Reed Richards or Doctor Doom in the comics. For the former case, the confirmation that Kang will appear in the sequel to Ant-Man and the Wasp after first appearing in the Loki show has added more credence.
  • There are a few people who think the homosexual man in Cap’s support group is the MCU version of Arnie Roth — a gay man who was Steve’s best friend and pre-serum protector in the comics.
  • Some fans like to believe that a few of the non OST tracks heard in this film (i.e: "Supersonic Rocket Ship" by The Kinks, "Hey Lawdy Mama" by Steppenwolf, and "Doom and Gloom" by The Rolling Stones) are songs from Peter Quill's Zune, due to them all being artists from the seventies.
  • In another one from people impatient to get the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the MCU, several people started insisting that Captain Marvel telepathically tells Thor "I have telepathy" when he summons Stormbreaker past her head, thanks to some random weird voices in the soundtrack.
  • Due to the Broken Base over Steve's actions and how a good portion of the fanbase saw it was vehemently Out of Character, a fair number of them tried to resolve the contradiction by claiming that the Steve Rogers at the end of the film was actually a Skrull imposter, bolstered by statements that the MCU were planning to adapt Secret Invasion.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: One might suspect that the ending we got is not the one variant where the Avengers win.
  • The heroes undo the snap and wipe out Thanos' army, but they stop at only undoing the snap, and the way it works essentially results in all those wiped out just suddenly appearing, five years after disappearing, having not aged. Ignoring the long-term psychological effects for people who lost five years, the damage their time missing would have on their loved ones, and the dissonance that will arise from trying to fit back into their old lives, this indicates that anyone who died indirectly from the snap, either beforehand as a result of Thanos' conquest (IE, Loki, the Asgardians, the original Gamora, Vision), or after as a result of those people disappearing (IE, passengers on planes whose pilots were snapped away, people in medical crisis after doctors are snapped away, people who couldn't handle the loss and committed suicide, etc), wouldn't be returned. Indeed, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier spend a fair amount of their time exploring these negative repercussions.
  • The conclusion to Steve's arc, in the minds of some. After years of trying to build a new life for himself, getting Bucky back and forming new friendships with Sam and the other Avengers, he decides to go back in time and live out his life with Peggy. The explanation of how timelines work by the Ancient One has given rise to two theories; the first possibility, supported by the directors, is that Steve went to an additional timeline to live his entire life with Peggy, coming back at the end to give the shield to Sam, which adds another wrinkle to the already-confusing time travel in this movie... and the other, supported by the writers, that Steve came back to the past and ignored everything that happened for the sake of the space-time continuum^note Between the many things that he would be required to ignore, you would have HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD, the organization Peggy founded, Bucky being used as a weapon and tortured for over 70 years, the murder of Tony's parents, etc. Not helping matters is the fact that it was confirmed back in Winter Soldier that she married and had a family after she moved on from Steve, so his action here indicates that either he supplanted another man's life, or that Peggy was talking about him this whole time, which leads to a great deal of Fridge Logic. While the former sidesteps a lot of the Fridge Logic of the latter, it still comes with some additional issues of its own, like Steve knowing Sharon since she was a baby, knowing his past self would go on and be romantically involved with her, having another Steve frozen in the Arctic while he stays with Peggy, and the fact that he comes back to Peggy with a metric ton of emotional baggage and trauma. Another issue taken with the ending is that learning to adjust to the modern era was a running subplot of Steve's previous movies; his choosing to return to the past renders it all for naught at best and an utter failure at worst.
  • There's also the other damage unintentionally done to the alternate timelines as well. While all the Infinity Stones are indeed returned to their rightful, respective timelines and locations, other things go wrong as a result. These things include, but are not limited to: Loki escaping with the Tesseract, Crossbones and Sitwell targeting the Cap when the other one made them believe he was HYDRA and got the staff from them, the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility going into a panic with the Tesseract disappearing there too, Cap having questions about Bucky as well as how or if Loki knocked him out while disguised as him, Mjölnir going missing at a crucial time Thor could have needed it, whatever crazy (but probably very comedic) thing might have happened when Jane had the Aether pulled out of her by Rocket and so on. Just one of these things alone is sure to bring about even more problems as well.
• Even Better Sequel: Considered by some critics to be better than the first three Avengers movies, and better than all MCU movies other than Black Panther (2018)^note  BP has a Rotten Tomatoes score 97% while Endgame has a 94% .

F to N

• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • The Russos’ statement that Cap was always worthy of Mjolnir and just pretending not to be able to lift it in Age of Ultron to spare Thor’s feelings is a bit controversial, with several fans saying it makes for a much less interesting story than his having to work to be worthy of it just like Thor himself. Joss Whedon at least stated that this was his intent with the scene in Age of Ultron after the movie was released, so it's at least consistent with what was established. It goes in the other way too, with other fans vehement that if Thor, with all his flaws, is still worthy, then there is no way that Steve Rogers isn't too.
  • There's also contention about their reason for Steve giving the Captain America mantle to Sam rather than Bucky, which is that Bucky isn't completely deprogrammed yet and wouldn't want to risk falling back on his programming while acting as Captain America. Fans pretty much ignore this since it undermines both Bucky and Sam's characters, and rather blatantly contradicts Avengers: Infinity War and the stinger of Black Panther (2018) (and later, the fourth episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), which all depicted Bucky being completely freed from his HYDRA programming. Instead fans hold that the shield went to Sam simply because he fits the necessary attitude better than Bucky, or that Bucky had other more personal reasons to reject it, such as being used as a soldier (willingly and unwillingly) for decades.
  • Both official interpretations of the ending of Steve's story, on top of the issues taken with the ending itself. The Russos' statement that Steve went to a parallel timeline is divisive due to the Fridge Logic needed to understand it in light of the film's explanation of time travel. Meanwhile, the screenwriters' interpretation that Steve created a Stable Time Loop and ignored everything that happened in between is very unpopular for having Fridge Logic worse than the former as well as making Steve come off as incredibly Unintentionally Unsympathetic. And also for having much less Fanfic Fuel potential than the former.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Having overtaken Titanic (1997) and Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation), fans of Avatar and Avengers: Endgame are having heated arguments over which movie deserves to be at the top spot over the other. The comments James Cameron made about "superhero fatigue" a year prior only further fueled the flames. However, after Avengers: Endgame beat out Titanic at the box office, Cameron himself has gone on record to praise Kevin Feige and his team for the achievement with no hard feelings.
  • There is a significant rivalry with fans of The Lord of the Rings when it came to comparing their respective Final Battles, with the Ride of the Rohirrim being a second contender. However there is also a case of Friendly Fandoms here, with a crossover video for the Black Gate and this for Ride of the Rohirrim.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The combination of After the End, Time Skip, Nothing Is the Same Anymore and the confirmed aversion of Status Quo Is God has given way to a number of speculation and fics of just how much the world has changed since the Snap, and how different the world will be in all movies afterwards.
  • Additionally, this give potential material for stories set in the alternate realities the Avengers created while traveling through time, like what happened to 2012 Loki, after he escaped with the Tesseract. And what would become of Cap when heard from his future self that Bucky's alive or fooled to HYDRA goons into thinking he's on their side.
    • And what happens to the Cosmic side of things when 2014 Thanos vanishes without any explanation, leaving a power vacuum. And what happens to 2014 Star-Lord once he wakes up and realises the Orb he tried to steal is gone.
  • How did Steve return all the Infinity Stones? How much did he change things in his other reality? How did he come back to this one? What happened when he went to Vormir and saw the Red Skull again?!?!
    • The directors state that Steve going back to marry Peggy created an alternate timeline from which he returned for the final scene. And he'd definitely want to take care of the growing HYDRA seed inside SHIELD and save Bucky in the meantime. Of course, if he lived out his life in an alternate timeline, this still raises the question to how he returned to the prime timeline to give his shield to Sam. On the other hand...
    • The writers state that Steve going back to marry Peggy happened in the same timeline (he was Peggy's husband all along). And their two children have somewhat super soldier DNA. This explanation makes less sense than the Russos', however, firstly because it violates the movie's own time travel rules, mostly due to the large Out of Character implications for Steve, and lastly because it would potentially create a huge continuity error with the events of the Agent Carter TV series (unless Steve returned to the past at a point after the events of that series). Resolving the continuity error created by this interpretation provides its own fanfic fuel, especially since the Agent Carter series itself ends on a Cliffhanger of its own.
    • Speaking of the above: Steve and Peggy have two kids, and they're both superhumans (if Lamarck Was Right, that is). That oughta make for some interesting developments down the line.
  • Since it's confirmed that he was at least still alive (and serving the Starks) into the 70s, when exactly did Jarvis die, quit, or cut ties with them, considering that Tony has never referenced him and Tony's parents were alone when Bucky killed them both?
  • During the Time Skip, considering that Wakanda nearly had a Succession Crisis when Killmonger beat T'Challa in Trial by Combat, as well as other tribe leaders possibly being Snapped too, it's highly possible that M'Baku became the king as one of the survivors of the Infinity War battle and that he ruled while Okoye became an Avenger and liaison for the team. (It would be a hollow victory, however, having lost half his people and the man he eventually considered a brother.) He would be the most physically adept of the tribal leaders, has experience running a tribal nation self-sufficient on a much smaller population given the Jabari's own isolation history within Wakanda's global isolation, and is good-hearted. Also, given his previous promise in Black Panther to protect T'Challa's mother and treat her kindly when the royal family was ousted, he would likely take care of the queen mother again knowing Ramonda also lost both her children. All this combined would mean that should those Snapped be able to return, M'Baku as king would be more likely to happily give the throne back to T'Challa upon seeing him and Shuri alive.
  • Just what was Captain Marvel doing while the Avengers were busy with the Time Heist?
• Fan Nickname:
  • Thor post-Time Skip became known as “Fat Thor”. Sensing the negative baggage around the character’s new direction, Marvel gave him the official designation “Bro Thor”, but by that point, “Fat Thor” had already stuck.
  • With Sam Wilson taking up the mantle of Captain America, some fans have dubbed him "Captain Falcon", as they did when it happened in the comics.
  • The Credible Hulk, already a classic meme pun, became a popular moniker for Bruce/Hulk's "Smart Hulk" persona that came about in the films five year Time Skip. It is also common to see fans refer to him as "Professor Hulk" after a popular persona from the comics, although the movie's incarnation adapts a different version.
  • The haircut she has later in the movie caused some people to christen Captain Marvel as "Karen Marvel".
  • "Gay Joe Russo" for the gay man played by Joe Russo in Steve's therapy scene, mostly because the film never deigns to give him an actual name, and because having Word of Gay and being played by one of the directors are his most notable traits.
  • "Joe Biden" for Old Man Steve Rogers due to his astounding similarity in appearance.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A good number of fans who disliked Steve's ending and don't hate the character himself in a Watsonian sense because of it often choose to ignore his trip back in time, instead depicting him as retired from active superheroics and living in the present along with all his friends.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: A lot of fans who weren't happy with Natasha's death and the reasoning behind it, upon discovering that the original idea was for Clint dying instead of her, felt that it would've worked better.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Natasha's new hairstyle corresponds with her being unable to start a new life after the Snap, and it's entirely possible she's keeping herself blonde despite having no reason to in order to avoid being recognised. Still doesn't stop it from looking gorgeous on Scarlett Johansson though.
• Fountain of Memes: Thanos has had even more memes coming from him and Smart Hulk has also had a number of memes as well.
• Franchise Original Sin: Hawkeye becoming Ronin and brutally murdering criminal organisations. Though the MCU never shied away from Heroic Bloodshed, rarely has any of the Avengers directly gone out of their way to kill criminals, and only killed supervillains in the name of saving the world; killing wasn't the goal, saving the day was, and the fact they took lives was an unfortunate circumstance none of them desired. Clint, while implied to have been an assassin for SHIELD, was only ever confirmed as actually killing anyone while under Loki's thrall, but even still he was ostensibly working for a legalised body, making his actions for SHIELD no worse than a regular soldier in the line of duty. By becoming a brutal Vigilante Man on a world-wide kill-spree, motivated simply out of anger, operating of his own accord, many feel Clint crossed a line and shouldn't have been forgiven so easily for his actions, especially considering the way Bucky was treated for what he did while Brainwashed and Crazy. Similarly, while the situation was extreme, some just consider it far too out of character for Peter Parker to ever consciously choose to kill, not when he's armed with a suit that likely has alternatives (even if the things he killed seemed to be nothing more than alien attack dogs). It doesn't help that, in the comics, Clint's time as Ronin was spent mostly just being a bit of a jerkass, nothing quite as extreme as the MCU version, meaning this was an invention of the writers/directors who decided to make Clint a mass murderer.
• Genius Bonus: While obviously the film doesn't have nearly enough dialogue to properly indicate how time travel actually works, some of the terminology thrown around is apt. For instance, Tony mentions that quantum fluctuation "messes with the Planck scale" and that their time travel experiments triggered the "EPR paradox"; both are terminologies that can broadly be taken as examples of quantum mechanics and the standard model of physics not being fully compatible without some unknown knowledge science has not discovered, which fits Tony warning the other Avengers that what they're trying is dangerous and unpredictable. However, Tony also mentions "the Deutsch Proposition"; it so happens that David Deutsch is a real physicist who studies quantum mechanics, and while he was amused to hear himself name-dropped, there's no such thing as "the Deutsch Proposition", that was just Technobabble.
• Gratuitous Special Effects: The Quantum Realm outfits used in the movie? Entirely CGI. As it turns out, the decision to have the Avengers wear the outfits came late into production, and since there wasn't enough time to fabricate the actual outfits themselves and reshoots weren't an option, the VFX artists decided to just composite them over the actors' original costumes.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • 2012 Hulk getting angry for having to take the stairs and 2012 Loki escaping was definitely a funny moment, but little did anyone know that this seemingly inconsequential moment for the present day Avengers would eventually lead to the rise of a threat that is potentially far worse than Thanos in Kang the Conqueror and the second Multiversal War, a cosmic calamity involving three other universes that ends with Aunt May dead and Peter erased from everyone's memory, a universe where the Avengers were killed and subsequently conquered by Loki, a Zombie Apocalypse universe, an Ultron that gained the Infinity Stones and attempted to destroy everything that exists, and a rampage from the Scarlet Witch spanning two universes that results in an Incursion heading the main MCU's way. They should have really let Hulk take the elevator.
  • Just one year after the movie's release, the COVID-19 Pandemic made the empty New York from Endgame's 2023 a very real sight, even if the situation was more Cosy Catastrophe than After the End. The fact that following the tragedy of the Snap, the ecology seems to be recovering was also true as the lockdowns reduced air pollution and other environmental impact.
  • The end of this film has Sam accepting Captain America's shield from an older Steve Rogers, despite his obvious discomfort in doing so. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier begins with Sam immediately donating the shield to the Smithsonian, partly due to feeling unworthy of the shield, partly due to Steve never bothering to discuss the matter with him at any point, and partly due to Steve's choice putting him in a dangerous position he didn't want to be in due to racism. And then, the government takes advantage of to bestow it upon John Walker instead.
  • Steve's actions at the end of the film in which he goes off to live his remaining life elsewhere leave Bucky very bitter, depressed, and lonely for much of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He eventually gets somewhat better by the end, but it's clear that, while he doesn't hold Steve's actions against him, Steve's sudden departure from his life has exacerbated a lot of his existing emotional issues.
  • Sharon Carter's complete absence in this film, and Steve having seemingly completely forgotten about her, comes off a lot worse after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier which reveals that because she didn't show up in the fight against Thanos, unlike the other heroes who went on the run after Civil War and who were able to receive a pardon for it, Sharon still has a warrant out for her arrest, and has had to become an international criminal just to survive, and is very bitter about it.
  • Natasha's controversial decision to sacrifice herself at Vormir instead of Hawkeye, with the justification being that Hawkeye had a family who needed him while Natasha didn't, rings hollow after the release of Black Widow (2021), which reveals that she in fact did have a family of her own all along who she had a close relationship with. Not just that, but they loved her enough that her adoptive sister Yelena is willing to hunt down and kill Hawkeye over his role in Natasha's death. The other justification used for Natasha dying in Hawkeye's place is that she wanted to clear the red in her ledger, something that also rings hollow when, in the aforementioned prequel movie, Natasha not only makes peace with and redeems herself for her greatest mistake - the attempted murder of Dreykov's daughter as collateral damage - but she also takes down the Red Room by undoing the brainwashing of the other Black Widows, more than wiping out the red in her ledger... just in case saving the world multiple times and keeping it together for five years hadn't already done that.
  • Wanda's interactions with Clint after Tony's funeral become even worse in retrospect after WandaVision makes clear just how much grief she was bottling up during their interaction over losing Vision.
  • Regarding the latter, for both Japanese viewers and Anime fans, Tony's Heroic Sacrifice is quite hard to see in hindsight, since this was the final role Tony's Japanese voice actor, Keiji Fujiwara, did as Iron-Man before dying of cancer at 2020.
  • All of Bruce's assurances to The Ancient One that they'll fix the timestream after setting things right comes to naught when the Loki variant who was accidentally created at the same time ends up dismantling the TVA's control of the Sacred Timeline and creating a full multiverse in Loki.
  • Natasha looking so depressed, crying and overworking at the beginning of the movie hits harder after Hawkeye (2021) revealed that her sister Yelena was one of the victims of the Snap. It's also explain why she was the first one to agree with Scott's plan.
  • Aunt May comforting Peter at Tony's funeral becomes much darker when Spider-Man: No Way Home reveals that Hulk's snap only gave her another year to live after she dies at the hands of the Green Goblin.
  • Tony's being primarily motivated by the death of Peter Parker becomes this after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Doctor Strange is forced to erase the existence of Peter Parker from the world to save the fabric of reality, although Spider-Man lives on.
  • The Time Heist and the Battle of Earth were awesome back in 2019, the former for being a testament to the surviving heroes' ingenuity and determination even after losing so hard, and the latter for being a culmination of the entire Saga. Then Loki would reveal that they were predetermined and organized by the TVA, an organization that suppresses free will and prunes trillions of innocents, and the heroes never had a choice in the matter, lest they get pruned and fed to Alioth.
  • Seeing T'Challa and his family celebrate together after he had been dead for five years goes from being a triumphant moment of happiness to a bitter moment of sadness after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever shows that T'Challa would only live for a few more years before passing away, leaving his family to grieve his loss for the third time in a row.
  • When Okoye mentions the underwater-earthquake in a meeting with the Avengers, Natasha wants to investigate, while Okoye handwaves it as probably being a natural phenomen. While that might be true at the time, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sees Wakanda come into conflict with an underwater-kingdom under the sea as well as the US government drilling underwater surfaces for vibranium. So maybe Natasha's idea to investigate what's under the sea near the location of Wakanda wasn't that bad of an idea after all.
  • When Tony first encounters Rocket, his first instinct is to say that he mistook him for a Build-A-Bear, with Rocket remarking that it's possible. After seeing how Rocket and his friends were created in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, that line hits a lot harder now.
    • Likewise, Rocket mourning the Guardians with Nebula after Carol brings the Benatar to Earth. This too becomes even harsher after the revelations of the third Guardians film. This is now the second time that Rocket's lost a Family of Choice. Worse, just as with Lylla, Teefs, and Floor, Rocket has lost the Guardians to a twisted madman who views himself as a Visionary Villain and who played God.
  • Rhodey criticizing Carol for not being on Earth for so many years and her subsequent offhanded response to it by pointing out that she had her hands full saving other planets is little more than a funny Hand Wave to justify why Carol has been absent from the MCU for over 30 years chronologically since her first film. Secret Invasion later examines how Carol's absence has affected the Skrulls living on Earth, which culminates in them executing several terrorist attacks to manipulate world powers into destroying the planet in a nuclear war. Rhodey had much more of a point than he probably realized, especially since he's shown to have been replaced by a Skrull during that show, meaning Carol's lack of action indirectly caused his fate. If one supports the interpretation that the Rhodey we see in Endgame was already a Skrull, him calling out Carol for her absence becomes even more poignant considering said Skrull was likely talking from experience.
  • Remember the infamous "Thanus" meme of Ant-Man crawling up Thanos's butt and exploding him from the inside by expanding? The directors themselves have jokingly pointed out that said method would not have worked because Thanos's Super-Toughness would have crushed Ant-Man had he tried that. The second season of Invincible (2021) proves the Russo brothers right in the most horrifying way possible when size-shifting heroine Shrinking Rae tried to expand while inside a supervillain.
• He Really Can Act: Paul Rudd's role as Ant-Man in previous films usually portrays him as a funny comic relief character who makes the audience laugh with his antics. In this film, however, he gets to work on his dramatic chops that has not been seen since his role as Tommy Doyle in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers as he participates in several serious scenes after coming back from the Quantum Realm and finds himself five years into the future. His frantic search through the memorial of those that perished from Thanos' snap hoping that he won't find Cassie's name on it, his tearful reunion with the now-teenage Cassie, to his serious attempt to convince Tony to help him in creating a working Time Machine to bring everyone else he lost back, all show Scott Lang at his most vulnerable moment yet, and Paul Rudd sells those moments perfectly.
• He's Just Hiding: Despite Clint's insistance that there's no way to bring Natasha back from her sacrifice, some fans had this attitude towards Black Widow. They argue that, rather than being a throwaway line, Bruce's attempt to bring her back with the stones could have potentially worked, and she just couldn't or wouldn't have revealed herself after the big battle was over, taking advantage of Death Faked for You to investigate into her past.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Spider-Man's return is this after Marvel and Sony managed to strike a new deal that would keep Spider-Man in the MCU, just as how his death in Infinity War proved to be Harsher in Hindsight during the two companies' split.
  • Captain Marvel's anger when fighting Thanos hits differently after WandaVision made it clear that her honorary niece, Monica Rambeau, was among the people that got snapped, while Maria herself died of cancer in the five-yeartimeskip. She's fighting so hard because she doesn't want that to happen again.
  • While meeting the merged Hulk for the first time in a diner, Bruce expresses pity for Scott that the three children who are fans of his aren’t interested in taking a selfie with Scott because he isn’t as famous as Hulk. Eventually, the events of Hawkeye and Ant Man And The Wasp Quantumania show that Ant-Man would become just as celebrated as the original Avengers, with people cosplaying as him and even depicting him in Rogers: The Musical despite not being present or active in the Battle of New York. This indicates that the world at large recognizes that the snapped half would never have been brought back if not for Scott.
  • Natasha's decision to sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone became this after Hawkeye revealed Yelena was a victim of The Snap. Natasha didn't just want Clint to be reunited with his family. She wanted to ensure she did everything necessary to save her sister.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Word of God says that Hulk made sure that everyone who was brought back by the Blip was somewhere they wouldn't be harmed when they came back. Spider-Man: Far From Home shows he wasn't entirely successful. When the Snap occurs, Peter's high school is in the middle of a pep rally and half the attendees disintegrate, including several members of the marching band in the middle of the basketball court. A basketball game is going on when the Blip occurs. Those same marching band members suddenly appear in the middle of the court and the players run into them.
  • Thor yelling at a Fortnite player on Korg's behalf became this when Thor himself was later added to the game as part of a promotion for Thor.
    • On the same subject, the true identity of Noobmaster69 would be revealed later as... the guy in the Apple store from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Which makes the removal of Fortnite from iOS look like petty revenge.
  • Korg playing Fortnite on a PS4 instead of a PS5 makes it look like the film predicted scalpers and the semiconductor shortage lasting until 2023.
  • Katherine Langford filmed a scene that later became a Deleted Role, despite the potential for a Star-Making Role in a Marvel movie. Instead, she's now the lead in Spontaneous 2020, where people are randomly disappearing for a more mundane and permanent reason...
  • Scott Lang's visible disgust at the 2012 Tony Stark's use of AXE Body Spray becomes funnier after finding out in Loki that Loki was able to deduce that the Avengers had travelled back in time because he smelled two colognes from two different Tony Starks. Apparently Tony was still using AXE in 2023, and makes his response to Scott look more like a deflective excuse than a justified emergency.
  • A Reddit post on March 30, 2019 suggested a wedding between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts during the events of Endgame. While this doesn't exactly happen in the movie, Tony's own funeral was given the production name of "The Wedding".
  • Scott is rescued from the quantum realm by a rat pushing the right combination of buttons on a console. One must wonder how many times the TVA had to reset time before the rat finally got it right.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home, the next MCU movie to be released after Endgame, brought the total running time of the MCU up to exactly 3,000 minutes. "I love you 3000" indeed.
  • Natasha, to emphasise how crazy her life has become, says throughout the movie that she gets emails from a raccoon. Clint insists that Rocket isn’t a raccoon: he’s an alien who resembles one. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would eventually reveal that Natasha was right.
  • Tony Stark calls Rocket "Ratchet" while the latter is working on the Quantum Tunnel. Come Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and what new gadget has Rocket invented? Gravity Boots!
• Ho Yay:
  • When Tony first person arrives back on Earth, it’s Steve, not Pepper, who is the first to run to Tony when he gets back and help him down the rest of the way — specifically, with a very intimate arm around his lower back for support.
  • Tony kicks off a Running Gag by blatantly checking out out Cap's large derriere and commenting on it in a way that suggests that he did this often. Scott, who we already know is appreciative of Cap's form, also gets in on the action.
    Tony: [drawling] Mr. Rogers, I almost forgot that that suit did nothing for your ass.
    Steve: No one asked you to look, Tony.
    Scott: I think you look great Cap! As far as I'm concerned, that's America's ass.
  • When Tony and Scott discuss how Scott will disable 2012 Tony’s arc reactor in order to distract HYDRA members, they casually throw around the phrase “go/going inside him”.
  • During the ending, when Steve goes back in time to live out the rest of his life with Peggy, Bucky makes it clear that while he is aware of Steve's true intentions and accepts them, he's also visibly and audibly heartbroken to a extent that is unusual and extreme for what's supposed to be a friendship/brotherly bond, and something he tries to hide from Steve. It makes him come off as having unrequited love for Steve and only begrudgingly letting him go because I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
  • At Tony's funeral Sam can be seen leaning onto Bucky for comfort in a way that is rather close and intimate.
• I Knew It!:
  • A lot of fans correctly guessed that the film's subtitle would be Endgame.
  • Many people guessed the first scene would be Clint's whereabouts when the Snap took place. They also correctly guessed that all of his family would be killed by the Snap, thus leading to him becoming Ronin.
  • Though it wasn't as widespread as the above, the news that Endgame would feature a five-year Time Skip was correctly guessed based on what little information that was given. Furthermore, the fact that it's permanent is another theory that became true.
  • Way back in "Thor's hammer" scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron, many people suspected Steve could actually lift Thor's hammer and was merely pretending not to.^note Alternatively, it's been theorized that Steve was not yet fully worthy to wield it because he was hiding from Tony that Howard and Maria Stark were killed by the Winter Soldier. As we find out, they were right in the most awesome way possible. Said word-for-word by Thor when it happens.
  • When the Russos refused to confirm whether or not Jane Foster had survived the snap back in 2018, claiming that it might be a spoiler, some fans theorized that this meant Jane would have a cameo in Endgame. The theory picked up more steam when Natalie Portman unexpectedly showed up at the movie's premiere. In the actual movie, Jane does indeed make an appearance when Thor and Rocket time travel back to Asgard during the events of Thor: The Dark World, made up of both archive footage from that movie and some new dialogue that Portman recorded herself. The screenwriters said in an interview that Jane originally was slated to do more, but that role was given to Frigga instead since it was decidedly more emotional that way, plus (as it was revealed shortly after) there was already a movie with a bigger role for Portman in the works anyway. However, Jane's fate regarding the Snap didn't actually end up playing into her role in Endgame, since the Jane we see in the movie is from a time before the Snap happens.
  • After an offhand comment in Ant-Man and the Wasp established the existence of time vortexes in the Quantum Realm, many fans guessed that they would be used to undo the snap somehow. While they didn't end up doing it directly as most theories assumed, they were instrumental in retrieving past versions of the Infinity Stones to handle the job.
  • Many felt that Bruce and Hulk's arc in Infinity War was building towards Professor/Smart Hulk.
  • It was believed ever since Spider-Man: Homecoming that Gwyneth Paltrow's return as Pepper meant that she would become Rescue in either of the following Avengers films.
  • After Tony brought up his dream of having a son named Morgan in Infinity War to Pepper, it was commonly theorized that if Morgan did come to exist they would end up being a girl.
• Inferred Holocaust:
  • The world after the Decimation has plenty of unpleasant things to think about, like how the absence of half of all of the planet's life would impact the environment, society, and the economy, not to mention that it would also likely lead to further loss of life that would result from the sudden absence of doctors performing operations and pilots guiding airplanes (although the Blip is said to have accounted for people displaced in that fashion by resurrecting them in safe locations)... And that's just on Earth. These sorts of events are happening across the entire universe.
  • But what may actually be just as bad is the undoing of such an event; given that the Earth (and other planets by extension) managed to adjust to five years of these changes, the sudden reversal to pre-Decimation numbers for all populations involved could result in similar crises. Now, there are a number of mouths to feed without the usual means in place to feed them with. Hundreds of millions are without jobs and homes due to the economic turmoil that's happened. And that's just the start... Indeed, some of these consequences are explored in Spider-Man: Far From Home, and likely will continue to be explored for several post-Endgame movies.
• It Was His Sled: The death of Iron Man. It was one of the most shocking things of this movie, but now it seems as if a lot of people know about the moment.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Sure, Avengers: Infinity War killed off a bunch of characters, but few fans expect most of them will actually stay dead. In particular, the resurrections of Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and at least some of the fallen Guardians are seemingly Foregone Conclusions, given that they all have sequels in development — one of which was officially scheduled for after the release of this film. (Although ironically enough, another character with a planned future film, Black Widow, actually did get killed off in this movie, with her solo film just being a prequel. Though there are still quite a few fans who think that even her death will be undone at some point.)
  • In a traditional example, an early part of the film tries to suggest that Tony is in very real danger of dying from running out of oxygen while stranded in space. Given this is the first ten minutes of the film, and this would be an incredibly low-key and undignified send off for the franchise's most important character, almost no one was buying it. It could be viewed, with hindsight, as foreshadowing for Tony's actual death at the end of the movie.
  • Wow, would you look at that! Thor chopped Thanos' head off fifteen minutes into the movie. When the trailer had more scenes with him, and implications of a massive battle, I'll bet that's the last of Thanos we're seeing, for sure...
• Memetic Badass:
  • The rat that unknowingly freed Scott from the Quantum Realm and set in motion the restoration of the universe is often joked to be no mere rat. Rather it is an alien or a Watcher or something.
  • Red Skull for knowing someone's parents' name even if said someone didn't know those parents, and her middle name is listed as Alianovna, not Ivanovna.
  • After spending most of his movies as the Memetic Loser of the MCU, Clint Barton's reputation has now swung back in the exact opposite direction. A common meme is the fact that the Avengers lost the only battle they fought without him, and are 3-for-3 on victories when he was there.
  • This movie did for Scarlet Witch what Ragnarok did for Thor and Infinity War did for Doctor Strange, thanks to the utterly spectacular ass-whooping she unleashes against Thanos in the final battle. To the point that even WandaVision had to acknowledge Wanda was probably the closest to defeating Thanos in the battle without using the Stones^note Note that Wanda's powerset includes powers equivalent to each of the Infinity Stones, and probably would have succeeded if not for his orbital bombardment.
  • Carol gets some of this too, given she no-sells Thanos headbutting her and withstands him punching her in the chest with a Power Stone-infused left fist.
  • A very popular joke theory (to the point where the Russo Brothers, Josh Brolin, and Paul Rudd have responded) was that Ant-Man could singlehandedly defeat Thanos by shrinking, climbing into his anus, and then expanding.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Continuing on from the last film, Star-Lord is still this for a few. He constantly gets screwed over throughout the film's climax, which includes getting kneed in the groin by 2014 Gamora. Not to mention that he's still being overshadowed by Thor, even when the latter's still out-of-shape. The poor guy just can't get any respect. Even his 2014 self gets the same treatment, courtesy of getting knocked out by War Machine for the Power Stone.
  • The Defenders (or other heroes from MCU TV series, in general) due to them not appearing in the final battle while someone like freaking Howard the Duck did. Memes usually depict them expecting Sling Ring's portals to appear in front of them, and the portals never appear.
  • Smart Hulk eventually fell into this category as well, with many fans complaining that his presence as one of the original Avengers was reduced to being a complete joke in this movie by acting goofy, referencing outdated pop culture and doing almost no actual fighting in contrast to his teammates. The fact that he barely gets any screentime during the final battle doesn't help. Making it even worse is that his number of awesome moments, contributions to the plot and memorable lines each can be counted on one hand unlike the others, leading to be mocked for being Demoted to Extra. He does have his defenders though, who note that Bruce played a key role in the Avengers' victory, even if he wasn't allowed as cool of a showing as his teammates.
  • After being hyped up as the hero who would curb stomp Thanos and win the day, Captain Marvel got a bit of this when she turned out to be a very small role and not the ultimate savior she was made out to be. The famous moment where she gets hit with an infinity stone powered punch to the face didn't help, nor did her becoming a Memetic Molester. However, all this is Downplayed by the fact that Carol's role in the final battle is an instrumental and undoubtedly impressive one where she had Thanos on the ropes before getting knocked out.
  • After having his most badass outing yet in the previous movie, Thor got this due to becoming a pathetic drunk whose far less powerful than he was back then. However, even though many fans mocked him over this, it's Downplayed by him starting to overcome his issues and proving in the climax that even when Thor's far from his A game, he's still a god.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Captain Marvel has gotten a fair◊ amount◊ of this◊ as a result of her single exchange with the canonically-16 Spider-Man ("Hey, Peter Parker. Got something for me?") coming across as unintentionally lascivious, not helped by the fact that the normally-stoic heroine is smirking when she asks him the question. Naturally, the fans immediately jumped on this one interaction, with all the resulting "Carol likes younger men" and "teen gives butch MILF the giant fist" jokes and fanart that this implies. Helps that the two did canonically date at one point in the comics.
  • For similar reasons, Spider-Man subsequently got hit with a sort of Memetic Molestee treatment, not only for his scene with Captain Marvel, but because all the female superheroes in the MCU^note including Valkyrie, 2014 Gamora, Nebula, Mantis, Okoye, Shuri, Wanda, and Pepper end up surrounding him before the big Action Girl sequence. Some have even joked that he's the superhero movie equivalent of a Harem Genre protagonist.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Rhodey suggests killing baby Thanos by going to the past.
  • Steve Rogers seemingly letting tragedies in world history play out as is in the new timeline, according to one of the interpretations of his actions, became an in-joke with fans.
• Misaimed Fandom: Clint Barton's five-year stint as Ronin in which he slaughters criminals across the globe, has many supporters, since he is only viewed hunting the Yakuza, a gang of morally reprehensible Japanese mobsters, to the point where these supporters believe that he was doing the right thing and that his murders aren't comparable to Natasha's under the brainwashing of the Red Room because "they're only criminals". This tends to ignore that Clint was killing all kinds of criminals all around the world, regardless of how or why they broke the law, and that his killing spree isn't because he's trying to help the world, but because he went through an experience countless others around the universe did and wanted to take out his anger on people he felt deserved it. The aforementioned justification of his victims being criminals also brushes past, as stated below, how most of the Avengers Clint works with on the time heist have criminal records in some form or another, by being bounty hunters, war criminals or previous employees of genocidal dictators - there's a reason not everyone who breaks the law immediately gets the death penalty. While the aforementioned Yakuza and other scum-of-the-earth criminals are beyond deserving mercy or a chance to change, there are undoubtedly petty criminals Clint would have come across in his rampage that justified his view of himself as "too far gone". Even Clint Barton himself, for breaking the Sokovia Accords by taking down threats in other countries, is a criminal, rendering this justification completely arbitrary.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Falcon calling Cap on the comms, kickstarting the awesome music that is "Portals".
  • Wakanda's call-and-repeat battle cry of "YIBAMBE!" returns from Infinity War—and it's utterly incredible to hear, given how not only is the dusted superheroes are back after five years of in-film time and one real-time year of waiting, but it shows that the Avengers will be gaining way more allies than just the named superheroes.
• Narm Charm:
  • A good chunk of the movie follows a grieving space-raccoon and a blue bald cyborg woman mourning the death of said raccoon's tree-son and said blue cyborg's green sister, as well as their other companions. And every dramatic scene with Rocket and Nebula still works.
  • Smart Hulk (badly) dabbing is totally cringe-y, but it also works pretty well. Partially because it's clearly meant to be funny, and partially because it absolutely works in terms of showing that despite his new Genius Bruiser body Bruce is still, y'know, Bruce.
  • Some versions of the film on TV edit out the swear words, making one scene where Tony's daughter says "Shoot." instead of "Shit." hillarious due to how out of proportion his reaction is. It makes an already amusing scene strangely hilarious, even if it wasn't intended as if even obfuscation of swear words is a huge no-no in the Stark family.
  • The scene where Nat and Clint both try to sacrifice themselves to get the Soul Stone, while preventing the other from doing so. The setup is downright comical, with both acting in the most melodramatic way possible and what essentially amounts to two adults racing to the edge of a cliff while attacking each other in increasingly improbable and over-the-top ways. But damn if this doesn't establish the difference between the scene in which Thanos was faced with the same situation and shows how selfless each hero is by leaving no doubt in how desperate they both are to stop their friend from dying. The fact that neither hesitates in offering themselves just goes forward in making it one of the most heroic scenes in the whole movie. Thanos was willing to sacrifice Gamora, but Clint and Natasha were both unwilling to sacrifice each other, preferring to sacrifice themselves.
  • The "Avengers... assemble" line is either incredibly awesome or incredibly cheesy. Or both.
  • The "all woman" battle scene during the final battle is so badass that the mountain of logistical issues behind it can be ignored.
  • Cap's initial leaping strike against Thanos with Mjölnir looks more than a little like something out of Super Mario Bros., but the rest of the sequence is so exciting that one is inclined to excuse it.
  • Pepper Potts shows up for the final battle in the Rescue suit with no explanation for how she managed to master the suit so effectively, but her Battle Couple moment with Tony is so epic and her reaction when Tony makes a Heroic Sacrifice is so moving that no one in the audience really cares.
  • Morgan asking for a cheeseburger and Happy's comment on her father loving cheeseburgers may seem a bit silly at first, but given that it is a Call-Back to Iron Man (when Tony asked for one after returning from captivity in Afghanistan) and it happened right after Tony's funeral, it makes the scene very touching that they can recall fond moments of him. Happy being played by the man who started the whole franchise by directing the first film also adds a good deal of subtext.
  • The Eye Lights Out in Tony's death scene. While there could be some fail-safe in place to make it plausible, there is no reason given why his life signs would affect the reactor. While for many it adds to the effectiveness of the scene, it can seem weird. One possible explanation is that the energy surge from Tony's snap burned out his reactor, among other deleterious effects.
• Never Live It Down:
  • On a more humorous example than usual for this film, the Hulk dabs exactly once in the movie, at the behest of some kids, and never makes so much as a single pop culture reference the whole rest of the three-hour film. Doesn't matter to the fans, who now think of the word "dab" in reference to the Hulk before the words "big" or "green", and portray him as constantly dabbing after every single event in the movie (i.e. killing Thanos in 2018, discovering the secret of time travel, giving Scott a taco, after learning of Natasha and Tony's deaths, etc...)
  • Does a baby exist in the MCU? Better keep it away from War Machine!
  • Captain Marvel says exactly eight words to Peter Parker, words whose vaguely licentious tone was entirely unintentional and only exists in the dirty minds of the fanbase, and yet if you listen to the fans she's the unquenchable Mrs. Robinson of the whole MCU and the reason she was absent from the rest of the movie was because she was too busy traveling the galaxy looking for younger men to hit on.

O to W

• Older Than They Think:
  • The concept of "Fat Thor", commonly thought to have been created for this film, actually has precedent in the original Guardians of the Galaxy books. The idea was also considered for a flashback scene in Thor: Ragnarok before it was scrapped.
  • The decision to rerelease the film two months after the movie came out was met with criticism from many as a cynical ploy to top Avatar... Ignoring that Avatar itself was rereleased multiple times, and that the initial run for Endgame already topped the initial run that Avatar had by the time that the slightly extended version hit theaters. In addition, the initial rerelease of Avatar was done for the sole purpose of promoting the film on home video, which is what the explicit purpose of bringing Endgame back to theaters was.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • A young Hank Pym only makes a brief appearance in the 1970s, but it’s a memorable one thanks to his rather humorous reaction to Captain America’s prank call, plus the fact that we get to see a de-aged Michael Douglas once again.
  • Similarly, Cassie Lang only appears twice in the movie, and only says a single word. Yet she leaves quite an impression for her heartfelt reunion with her father and having grown quite a bit since her appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Emma Fuhrmann's performance, not to mention that this would be her only time to play as Cassie, makes her scenes stand out even more.
  • Scott when he's briefly rendered as a pre-teen boy (played by Jackson A. Dunn from Brightburn), an old man looking to be in his 90s, and as a baby in the initial time travel run.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: Even though Tony, Bruce, Rocket and (due to his knowledge of Pym Particles and the Quantum Realm) Scott are intelligent enough to figure out a way to time travel using the Quantum Realm, it was mostly trial and error to start with and even then, the Ancient One from 2012 still had to clue in Bruce to what damage they could have done. Had Shuri (shown to be possibly smarter than the smartest people in the MCU up until that point) or Erik Selvig (the Theoretical Astrophysicist who has shown previous knowledge of quantum physics including the Schrödinger's Cat experiment as well as encountering the Infinity Stones in past films) been there to assist, the process would have gone a lot smoother. Cut to the list of missing Avengers and allies at the beginning of the movie where both Shuri (whose last scene in Avengers: Infinity War was being knocked unconscious by Corvus Glaive) and Selvig (who last appeared in the MCU in Avengers: Age of Ultron) are listed, implying that they too were victims of the snap.^note (A tie-in novel shows that Selvig was spared, but circumstances drive him underground which leads to "missing" status. Of course, the novel's canonical status is questionable.)
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Star Lord, who received much flack for messing up the plan to take the Gauntlet from Thanos in Infinity War, was forgiven by many fans after Endgame's release since Thanos was finally defeated and he becomes a Butt-Monkey to everyone else. It also probably helps that him being rescued from the heap goes hand in hand with the meme that Star-Lord should be thanked for screwing up the plan, because it allowed the epic Final Battle with Thanos in Endgame to happen.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Jack Champion plays the kid on the bike who Scott encounters after escaping from the Quantum Realm. A few years later he'd star as Spider in Avatar: The Way of Water.
  • Jackson A. Dunn, the star of Brightburn, plays the child Scott after his first attempt at time travel. One imagines producer James Gunn suggested his next film's star could work pretty well in the cameo.
• Ron the Death Eater: A specific subset of fans who already don't like Hawkeye have labeled the character as a racist because the two groups that he's mentioned or shown attacking — the Cartels in Mexico and the Yakuza in Japan — are made up of people of color... Ignoring that he'd been on a global murder spree for nearly five years, not targeting people for their ethnic backgrounds, but for their crimes against humanity. Furthermore, the script for the movie featured lines indicating that his war against crime also had him massacre criminals in France and Ukraine, dispelling any notion that Hawkeye's violence is racially-motivated.
  • There is also a flashback scene in Hawkeye (2021) where we seen Clint as Ronin slaughtering members of the Tracksuit Mafia, which is composed primarily of white Eastern European men.
• Salvaged Story:
  • Ebony Maw was the most popular member of the Children of Thanos in Infinity War, and fans weren't happy when he was the first to be killed off quite early into the movie. Here, Ebony Maw undoubtedly has the largest role out of the four members, assisting Thanos in analyzing 2014 Nebula's memories, and briefly battling Black Panther in the final battle. He also lasts all the way to the end, and only dying when he gets dusted by Tony using the Infinity Gauntlet Mark III.
  • Many fans of Captain America were angered by the fact that he did very little in Infinity War and his plotline took less prominence behind Tony's, Thor's, and Thanos's stories. This movie gives him a much bigger role in the plot, with equal importance to Tony (if not more so), and several of his scenes in this film are considered some of the best in the entire MCU. The very last shot of the film is even a close-up on him and Peggy Carter finally getting that dance they talked about.
  • Speaking of Peggy, Captain America: Civil War received some flak for what many fans considered to be an undignified close to the story of Peggy Carter, especially coming so soon after Agent Carter was cancelled. Now this movie pulls a Cosmic Retcon by returning Steve Rogers to the past and turning this movie instead into the Fully Absorbed Finale.
  • On a similar note, after years of chagrined Marvel TV fans bitterly lamenting that despite the "it's all connected" message that was pushed in the early days of the MCU, none of the TV characters ever actually got to show up in the movies. Here, an aging Edwin Jarvis shows up in the flesh as Howard Stark's driver, to the no-doubt delight of many Agent Carter fans.
  • There was much criticism about Thor: The Dark World giving Frigga very little screentime before killing her off, especially given that she was portrayed by an actress of Rene Russo's caliber. This film gave Frigga a Small Role, Big Impact to help Thor process his grief and frame her death to be a knowingly Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Some fans criticized the portrayal of Wakanda in Infinity War, particularly the fact that the entire Wakandan army seemed to be composed of a few hundred foot soldiers and approximately half a dozen vehicles. This time around, the Wakandan army stretches beyond the horizon and includes an entire fleet of aircraft and vehicles.
  • Scott playing a very important role in coming up with a plan to reverse Thanos wiping out half of life and having as much screen time and importance as the original Avengers seems to be an apology for not having Ant-Man be one of the founding members like in the comics.
  • Iron Man 3 was criticized for totally bungling the idea of an empowered Pepper not once but twice, first when she wore Tony's armor for all of five minutes during the fake Mandarin's attack on his house, and secondly when she got Extremis superpowers in the climax that were removed a scene later. This movie finally gives the MCU's first leading lady the honor she deserves by letting her suit up in full Rescue armor during the final battle, and even fighting by her husband's side.
  • Fans of the X-Men have long been disappointed with the MCU's version of Scarlet Witch thanks to her displaying only a small fraction of the awe-inspiring might she unleashes in the comics. She's in this movie for less than ten minutes, but in her epic vengeful confrontation against Thanos, suffice to say she makes up for her previous showings in a very big way.
  • Many fans were disappointed that Hulk was rarely present in Infinity War, only appearing during the prologue where he gets soundly beaten by Thanos and when Bruce tries to Hulk Out only for Hulk to pop out for a second to say "No!". Here, not only have Banner and Hulk merged and thus, Banner is primarily in control of Hulk's body, but during the Time Heist, we get to see The Avengers (2012)-era Hulk.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Captain Marvel and Peter Parker share about ten seconds of screen time and she says exactly seven words to him. Naturally, the fans pounced on this one reaction and immediately started shipping the two together, sometimes ignoring the age difference, sometimes not. It helps that they actually did date at one point in the comics, though there is a lot less age difference than in the MCU.
  • Harley Keener and Peter Parker ships already existed but became much more popular after the movie. This despite the fact that the two share exactly one scene together during which they don't interact or speak. The relationship is based on the two being Tony's mentees and Like a Son to Me.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The ending kicked off a lot of fierce arguments between fans of Steve/Bucky, Steve/Sam, Steve Sharon, Steve/Peggy, Steve/Natasha, Steve/Tony, Peggy/Angie, and Peggy/Sousa.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The directors indicated that this would be the movie that has the big sequence with a total of forty characters in a single action scene. The actual battle turns out to be even bigger than that — not only does it indeed feature almost all the surviving heroes going against Thanos and his Children, but it also includes both Thanos' entire army of aliens against the combined forces of Wakanda's army, the surviving Asgardians, the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and the Ravagers in a gigantic battle.
  • Natasha's sacrifice.
  • The scene at the end of the first act where the Avengers find the retired Thanos and literally butcher him in minutes with Thor hacking off his arm, and then chopping his head off for good measure.
  • Prime timeline Nebula shooting 2014 Nebula. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Captain America wielding Mjölnir properly in this film.
  • Thanos sending Captain Marvel flying with one Power Stone-infused punch. And before that, Captain Marvel no-selling a direct headbutt from Thanos.
  • Thanos attempting another snap... only to discover Tony now has the Stones.
• Signature Scene:
  • The scene where retired Thanos gets mauled by the Avengers looking for vengeance.
  • Likewise, Steve Rogers saying "Hail Hydra!" to the HYDRA crew from Winter Soldier and walking away with the Scepter with the biggest "suckers" grin on his face. Doubly so for comic fans, who greatly appreciated the Take That! to the then-recent HYDRA Cap storyline and its controversial premise of turning Steve Rogers into a Nazi sleeper agent.
    • And then immediately afterwards, fighting himself from 2012.
  • Hawkeye and Black Widow retrieving the Soul Stone, culminating in Natasha's death.
  • The lead-up to the final battle with Thor Dual Wielding Stormbreaker and Mjölnir, Captain America finally wielding Mjölnir and holding it next to his shield, Thanos smashing away Cap's Vibranium shield with his double-edged sword, and then the return of the dusted, complete with Steve saying "Avengers Assemble".
  • The entire Battle of Upstate New York itself.
  • Thanos getting the second Infinity Gauntlet and attempting another Snap, only for the Stones to have been stolen by Iron Man.
  • On that note, Tony declaring himself Iron Man and, even at the cost of his own life, doing his own Snap to disintegrate Thanos and his forces, while Thanos himself watches and sits down in silence.
  • And, of course, Tony Stark's death and funeral.
• Signature Song: "Portals", the soundtrack piece which plays when the dusted come through the portals to help the Avengers against the armies of Thanos.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: One critique of the film is that immediately after the Time Skip, the pace slows a bit to establish the state of the world and the cast; while there's a few lighthearted moments, there's not much action and the atmosphere is very dour and somber. Once Scott Lang explains his idea for the "time heist" and the heroes regroup to plan it, the pace starts to pick up considerably.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • As she chokes Thanos, Captain Marvel's head looks like it's on top of her shoulder. Her arms also look disproportionally skinny compared to her head.
  • Post-timeskip Thor is very obviously just Chris Hemsworth in a fat suit, which only contributes to the Narm factor in Thor's fall from grace.
  • Much like the shoddy integration of Mark Ruffalo's head over the CGI Hulkbuster in Infinity War, Robert Downey Jr.'s head looks off and out of proportion on the CGI Iron Man armor when Tony is about to do his finger snap in the Final Battle.
  • Thanos hacks Captain America’s shield in half before the portals scene. The shield is fully intact in the wide shot of the arriving armies (with Giant Man in the background) before going back to its broken state in the next close-up of Cap staring down Thanos.
  • When Thanos tries to snap his fingers before realizing that Tony stole the Infinity Stones, the fingers of the gauntlet clip through the palm. When Corridor Digital covered the film with WETA's VFX supervisor; he confirmed that no one, not even him, noticed this error until after the film was released.
  • During the Epic Tracking Shot of the Avengers and Thanos's forces clashing, you can see a group of Asgardians stop in their tracks and hold poses, clearly waiting so their footage can transition into VFX doubles and/or disappear out of frame.
  • At Tony's funeral, some characters pop out as obvious digital additions to the scene (it proved impossible to get the entire cast together for the filming). Benedict Cumberbatch especially stands out, with the light seeming to hit him differently and the fact that he doesn't look like he moves or even breathes.
• Spiritual Licensee: If you want to get a better idea of what the world is like post-snap, separate from the Avengers, watch The Leftovers. This was not lost on critics.
• Strangled by the Red String: Not the Steve/Peggy romance in general, which was mostly liked, but this film's handling of it. While it's recognized as an attempt to rectify the hugely unpopular and similarly-accused Steve/Sharon romance from Civil War and pull back from the Relationship Writing Fumble with Bucky, many fans felt it overcorrected in the opposite direction and was unconvincing because of it. Issues cited include Steve's Married to the Job characterization, the relatively brief amount of time he spent with Peggy, Peggy's wish for him to find a Second Love (said lines being quoted in Endgame trailers no less), and his attachment to her being contextualized as general mourning for his lost comrades rather than love alone, causing Steve's exaggerated fixation on her as his True Love to seem like Flanderization and his willingness to go back in time specifically for her to seem like a jarring shift.
• Strawman Has a Point: It's meant to show how far Clint has fallen without his family by murdering criminals, but he's not wrong when calling out yakuza members for having survived the snap and still committing organized crime. The one who fights with Villainous Valor doesn't even have a response before he's gunned down.
• Tear Dryer: After Tony Stark's funeral and a quiet scene of Clint and Wanda reminiscing about their own lost loved ones, we then cut to Thor ceding leadership of Asgard to Valkyrie before a humorous scene involving him and Star-Lord sniping at each other.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The reveal that Hulk and Banner were now a single identity, called "Smart Hulk", had some fans up in arms, with many arguing that the choice took away the Hulk's edge and personality in favor of making him yet another quippy superhero and a "weakling". The fact that Smart Hulk is very reminiscent of Banner in personality, with very little or none of the original Hulk remaining, just pours salt onto the wound for said fans.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Okoye has shockingly very little to do in the movie despite being one of the few heroes left behind after Thanos's snap. It's especially weird since they went to the trouble of putting her in a prominent position on the poster, causing some controversy over how the black actress was the only one on the poster whose name wasn't at the top.
  • The same goes for Nakia and M'Baku, who survived the Snap. Nakia isn't in this movie at all.^note Black Panther: Wakanda Forever would later explain where she's been Meanwhile, M'Baku only appears during the final battle to support his restored king T'Challa, with no mention of how he handled the past five years.
  • Meanwhile, Wong gets it even worse than Okoye, and doesn't appear at all until the final battle, even in the conference call between the surviving Avengers and the rest of Earth's defenders.
  • After all the hype for her character, Captain Marvel does shockingly little in the movie. Her interaction with the rest of the cast isn't explored in depth and she's not a major player for much of the film's plot (with the Avengers opting to recruit a potentially-insane Barton and washed-up Thor instead). Her personal stake of losing Fury is mostly glossed over as she's relegated to providing aid for planets that are struggling following the Snap. However, one could justify her absence on the grounds that Carol is Story-Breaker Power levels of strong that had she been allowed to be more involved, the battle might have been over in five minutes. It takes a direct hit from Thanos with the full might of the Power Stone to take her down; it's made pretty clear that without the Stones Carol might have beaten him, so Carol's involvement needed to be kept minimal to allow everyone else time to shine in the finale.
  • Nick Fury and Maria Hill did not play any part in the final battle at all despite pretty much every surviving hero comes Back for the Finale and only show up at the very end during Tony Stark's funeral. It's a little jarring that the person who's responsible for spearheading the "Avengers Initiative" does not return to see its ultimate conclusion. Fury is nothing more than a cameo; even in the extended finale, he doesn't even get a line.
  • Despite that both of them are very competent allies, only Hope Van Dyne shows up to aid Scott in the final battle; neither of her parents are anywhere to be seen until Tony's funeral. Especially disappointing in the case of Janet Van Dyne's exclusion from the "Girl Power" shot, as she's been a superhero longer than any of those women and the MCU tends to cast fairly young actresses for its heroines — Pepper, Okoye, and Gamora are the only characters in that shot played by women older than 40^note During principal photography, Gwyneth Paltrow was 46, and Danai Gurira and Zoe Saldaña were both 40.
  • In a way, 2018 Thanos. He's killed in the first 20 minutes with minimal fuss. As a result, the final battle is about the Avengers fighting a past incarnation of Thanos who had none of his present-day counterpart's Character Development, making said final battle feel incredibly impersonal as this Thanos had not killed anyone of importance, nor did he make the sacrifices that would make him particularly angry at The Avengers doing his hard work.
  • The Black Order had almost zero characterization in Infinity War (with the exception of Ebony Maw), but they have even less to do here. While Ebony Maw does get to appear in the flashback scenes with 2014 Thanos, he never gets an actual fight scene, and the other three do so little in the final battle that it's entirely possible to not realize they're even there.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Tony and Steve's conflict over the course of the Infinity Saga gets resolved after the five-year Time Skip. This is disappointing for some especially since the opening of Endgame shows that there is still bad beef between the two, and it all gets quickly resolved without trouble.
  • The Stinger of her solo movie set Captain Marvel for a personal vendetta against Thanos when she finds out that Nick Fury was one of those killed by the Snappening. Yeah, that never happens, and of all the Snap survivors in the first act, she appears possibly the least upset by what happened to the universe.
  • The post-snap World is described mostly by conversations between characters, about how they are sorry and how they can't move on. There was never really a chance to see what exact kind of damage erasing half of all life would have on the world. Fortunately, the later Disney Plus shows (particularly WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) were able to explore this topic in more detail.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Iron Man and Black Widow, two of the most culturally influential and guile heroes in the ever-spanning MCU, both make Heroic Sacrifices and aren't coming back.
  • Heimdall, Loki and Vision, who died in the preceding film, are amongst those not revived and stay dead.
  • Finally, there is Thanos. Thanos deserves a special mention because they kill him in the first 20 minutes of the movie. The Thanos we see for the rest of the film is a Past Thanos who had yet to/never underwent his future self's character development and comes across as far more of a Generic Doomsday Villain.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The return of Harley Keener, the Tagalong Kid for the middle act of Iron Man 3, was a surprise to most people, considering he was an unpopular addition to the most divisive movie in the franchise, who many neither expected nor wanted to see again. Even many fans who'd seen the film didn't recognize him during the funeral sequence since his actor was now a tall, lanky youth in his late teens.
  • Few were expecting Cassie Lang to appear in the movie, or moreover, an older version of her in line with her comic counterpart.
  • While Clint returning in this movie was expected, what wasn't expected was him donning the mantle of Ronin rather than Hawkeye. It was the identity he had in the comics after coming back to life when Civil War (2006) was over and his original identity was taken by Kate Bishop. Here, it's to show that he's become a violent vigilante and Death Seeker during the Time Skip after he lost his family in the Downer Beginning.
  • It's safe to say that nobody was expecting Crossbones to return like Frank Grillo revealed. He appears in the past alongside Jasper Sitwell, who is equally unexpected, to retrieve the Chitauri Scepter during the aftermath of the Battle of New York.
  • Given that her role in Doctor Strange's solo movie was relatively self-contained and was killed off midway through, very few people expected The Ancient One to make a reappearance in this film, especially during the events of 2012's Battle of New York.
  • Jane Foster's return took a number of people by surprise, especially since her actress, Natalie Portman, had reportedly been on bad terms with Marvel over disagreements about Thor: The Dark World, which is why the character was previously MIA during Thor: Ragnarok. The Russo Brothers confirmed they used unused footage from The Dark World. However they did have Portman record new dialogue to be heard off-screen. She also attended the movie's premiere, is billed rather high in the end credits, and has stated that she is now open to returning in future Marvel projects.^note In fact, the original script had her take the role of giving Thor a pep talk that lets him complete the mission, before they decided Frigga would work better. Marvel allowing more creative freedom for directors and actors in Phase 3 probably has a lot to do with this. Portman would later be confirmed to be reprising her role again in Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Similarly, many people were surprised that Rene Russo not only returned as Frigga, but shared a very important and plot-significant scene with Thor instead of a brief cameo like Jane Foster.
  • James D'Arcy reprises his role as Edwin Jarvis from the Agent Carter series, marking the first time ever that a character that originated from an MCU TV series appears in an MCU film.
  • Robert Redford's return as Alexander Pierce during the 2012 portion of the Time Heist was completely unexpected given his retirement from acting. (His cameo was actually his last day of acting, just before he officially retired.)
  • The most surprising participant in the Battle of Earth: Howard the Duck, who has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo with the Ravagers.
  • While Thanos appearing in the movie was of course a given, few could have expected that the main antagonist would end up being a younger, alternate timeline Thanos who takes the place of the version seen in the previous movies.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The movie presents Steve's choice to go back in time to be with Peggy as him getting the happy ending he deserves, but a substantial number of people saw this move as uncharacteristically selfish and irresponsible, as it basically shows Steve choosing to abandon all the friends he made in the present and willfully ignore all the horrible things that happened over the years to the people he cared about (including Peggy herself) after past films made it clear that he's the last kind of person who would do such a thing. Fans of Bucky are especially upset at what feels like Steve suddenly abandoning him after the main trilogy stressed the importance of their friendship and how much Steve regretted letting Bucky be tortured by HYDRA for decades, on top of Bucky being explicitly shown as saddened by the decision. The fact that the directors and writers had different interpretations of how Steve's choice affected the timeline doesn't help either, as the writers believed he created a Stable Time Loop while the directors believe he simply created an alternate timeline (both of which just opens up another can of worms full of Fridge Logic and Voodoo Shark). The latter interpretation comes with baggage as well, as it would make Steve a homewrecker (since, if Steve wasn't her husband all along through the Stable Time Loop, it means that Peggy may have married another man, depending on what time period he returned to). Some fans of Peggy aren't too happy either, as Peggy's scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and a large part of her arc in Agent Carter involved themes of her moving on with her life, and thus they see the retcon that Steve inserted himself back into her life like that as him being callously disrespectful of the wishes of the woman he supposedly loves, as well as rendering her into little more than a prize for Steve. The revelations in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier regarding how Steve's choice negatively affected Bucky, Sam, and Sharon, people he's known to care strongly about, only add more fuel to the fire.
  • Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on in regards to wether Thanos’s plan was right or wrong, what happened was undeniably a traumatic experience for everyone, however there is real discussion to be had about how unsympathetic the surviving avengers can seem with how they arrogantly decided that rather than accept their losses, move forward and heal. They instead decide that they have the right to to bring back everyone that was snapped away at the end of the previous movie and effectively throw the entire universe into chaos for a second time by not only upending the lives of everyone who had survived the Snap the first time, but also everyone who had been gone and has basically lost half a decade of time, yet the Avengers don’t have to answer for the consequences of this decision. Perhaps this idea is most embodied when Steve, trying to find a silver lining by pointing out that nature is recovering, says that he spotted humpback whales in the Hudson only for Natasha to respond with “…if you're about to tell me to look on the bright side - I'm about to hit you in the head…” showing an unwillingness to consider that Thanos may have been right and instead putting their own self-interests above the survival of life and stability of the universe.
  • Not to mention at the beginning of the movie they murder a now retired and unnamed Thanos for no other purpose than revenge, these are our heroes folks.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • While Thanos' presence is as impressive as it was in the previous film, Hulk in this film is also a grand case of motion capture. Hulk and Banner have fused into the same person now, and even though the audience is watching their favorite green bruiser, Mark Ruffalo's likeness comes through amazingly well.^{Furthermore...}There's also a good amount of differences between the Hulk in 2012 and Smart Hulk. 2012 Hulk has a darker shade of green for his skin color and looks less like Banner in the face, where Smart Hulk looks more like Banner and is a different shade of green, even in new shots made for this film set in 2012. Mark Ruffalo's voice also has a slower cadence to it and it's been pitch-shifted down a bit, contrasted perfectly when the Ancient One makes him astral project out of his body, where Banner looks normal and speaks faster and in Mark Ruffalo's normal voice pitch to differentiate the 2 forms of Banner really well.
  • The already impressive effects to create pre-serum Steve are brought back even better for the malnourished, emaciated Tony after getting back to Earth.
  • On the opposite end of the spectrum, Thor’s post-Time Skip look during his introductory scene also deserves props. Rarely does fiction portray weight gain as much more than a ballooning fat suit, but Thor spends an entire scene shirtless and he looks quite convincing. Hemsworth also committed to the transformation, demanding he continue to wear extra weight to convincingly portray Thor as several dozen pounds heavier even when he was fully clothed.
  • Old Man Steve Rogers is an impressive depiction of what Chris Evans could actually look like if and when he reaches his golden years.
  • Digitally rejuvenated Michael Douglas in the 1970 scene.
• The Woobie:
  • Clint was really put through the wringer in this movie. It starts off with him losing his family out of the blue, not realising what had happened to them until it was too late. He then becomes a murderous vigilante to vent his grief and anger, and he's clearly horrified of what he had become to the point that he's more than willing to sacrifice his own life for the Soul Stone. To twist the knife even further, his best friend chooses to sacrifice herself in his stead, with no way of bringing her back, and in a Deleted Scene after Tony sacrificed himself to defeat Thanos, he was the first to drop to one knee.
  • Black Widow starts the film a workaholic running the Avengers in order to distract herself from thinking about her failure to stop the Snap, the lives lost to it as well as helplessly watching her best fellow Avengers leave and/or spiral into self destruct habits.
  • Thor continues to be one from the last movie. Out of guilt, sadness and anger for his failure to stop Thanos, he becomes an alcoholic, obese, shut-in who's a broken shell of his former self. While he tries to put on a jolly facade throughout the movie, meeting his dead mother in the past causes him to break down out of shame and out of guilt for not being able to save her.
  • Even though a lot of his misfortune throughout the movie is Played for Laughs and Laser-Guided Karma for his screw-up in Infinity War, you can't help but feel bad for Star-Lord for all the crap he had to deal with in the film's finale. He's kicked in the groin three times by 2014 Gamora who had yet to meet him, while the Gamora he knew is still dead and lost forever. And he's still treated with no respect by the rest of the Guardians once Thor joins the team.
  • Scott Lang. After everything he's been through, he finally gets to mend his relationship with Hope, spend quality time with his daughter and be part of a successful business venture with the wombats. And then he gets stuck in the Quantum Realm after the Pyms are dusted off. Although he only was stuck in there for 5 hours, 5 years have actually passed. While thankfully, his daughter Cassie has survived, but now she is a teenager, while Scott has essentially become a Disappeared Dad (again, considering his time in prison in the first film). And while he does come up with a plan to undo the damage Thanos has done, he still gets almost No Respect from the other Avengers and ends up being a bigger Butt-Monkey than Star-Lord by virtue of being a main character this time. Thankfully, unlike Star-Lord, his Love Interest does come back to life and in the end he is seen spending time with Hope and a grown-up Cassie again.
• Woolseyism: In the hungarian dub the "I am inevitable" line had become "Én vagyok a Végzetetek" ("I am your Destiny").
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • A lot of people ridiculed the fauxhawk that Clint is donning in the film.
  • Some people think that the red-and-white quantum tunnel suits look stupid or even downright ugly. The suits shapeshift into time-appropriate outfits for the mission, so it's not that big of a deal, but it still sticks out since each Avenger gets their own slightly different suit. They're also not on screen long, since they just have them on when they're time-traveling, then they change them into other outfits or suits when they get to their destinations, making it even less of a big deal. Even more, the merchandise clothing line has the suits' design, making them for fans the official fashion of the movie.

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