Okay, it’s been about a month, the ‘ban’
on spoilers has been lifted for a few weeks now, and Avengers: Endgame is pretty dang close to being #1 highest grossing
movie in the world. IF you haven’t seen it but want to, I have no idea what you’re
doing and have no problem spoiling the crap out of it. Let’s get to part 2, shall
we?
The team consisting of Captain
America, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, War Machine, Rocket Raccoon, Thor, Nebula
and Banner in the Hulk Buster arrive on Thanos’ private Garden world. They’re
easily able to capture the mad Titan and disarm with, literally, with Stormbreaker.
Only to discover the horrible truth. Thanos, knowing the surviving heroes would
never accept his new world decided to use the power of the Infinity Stones to…
destroy them. All Six Stones, poof, gone. It was that energy spike that the
Avengers locked onto and lead them to this world. On the plus side, doing so
nearly killed Thanos and severely crippled his left arm, which made the capture
child’s play. Thor, in a fury, goes for the head, decapitating the Mad Titan.
Side note, the Stones are not, and can
never be truly destroyed. In the cosmic lore of the Marvel Universe, they’re
staples of reality, the physical manifestations of the force of creation they’re
named after. One cannot destroy the Space Stone, as it is merely a physical representation
of space. Ya feel me? The heads of Marvel Movies Kevin Fergie and directors the
Russo Brothers have since explained that what Thanos really did was reduce the
stones to Subatomic size. They still exist, but are lost in the Quantum Realm,
which is the next best thing to obliteration. Sure, they could potentially be
found later, but without an Ant-Man or Wasp to help out, the stones are gone
for all intents and purposes. Crap.
Five years pass. This may have shocked
Thanos, but, turns out performing a Genocide on HALF of ALL LIFE in the UNIVERSE
has some pretty awful side effects. Side note, no, Thanos did not Decimate the Universe. Decimate is a
word that sounds a lot worse than it is, as it means to reduce by 1/10. He devastated,
desolated and demolished half the universe, not a 10th of it. Sorry, I saw that Decimated was how the fandom was referring to the post snap and inaccurate use of words makes me salty. Back
on task. Much of the most populated areas are more or less in ruins, there is
massive civil unrest across known space, and the Avengers have been, well,
disassembled. Captain America is running support groups for survivors, Black
Widow is running a team of most of the surviving Avengers plus General Okoye of
Wakanda trying to keep things together, Tony and Banner seem to have taken a hands-off
approach to things, Thor is in seclusion and Clint… well, he’s not taking losing
his entire family well.
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| Considering Paul Rudd hasn't seemed to age since 1997, Yeah, I'd totally believe he'll still look like this in 2023. |
But hope arrives, in the form of an
idiot. In a storage facility out in San Fran, a tumbling rat activates the
Quantum Tunnel device in the back of an Ex-Con’s van. This causes a bewildered
Scott Lang to pop back into existence. He’d been lost in the Quantum Realm
after his girlfriend Hope Van Dyne and her parents were Dusted following the
Snap. He’d been there gathering particles to help out Ava Starr aka Ghost.
After confirming that things have been REALLLY bad in his absence, he sees a
bunch of the monuments that have been put up for the fallen and the bits of
debris and detritus scattered everywhere, and that at least his daughter is
okay, if a bit taller than he remembered, Scott Races cross country to the New
Avenger’s facility.
While initially skeptical, Cap and
Nat eventually accept this is Scott Lang, and hear him out as to where the
devil he’s been for the last half decade. He explains that he was within the
Quantum Realm, in a point of that subatomic universe where, while five years
passed for the rest of the world, only five hours passed for him. It’s the
Quantum Realm, time is less a constant and more of a neat idea in that place.
They agree to consult Tony.
Turns out, billionaire playboy
philanthropist Tony Stark has actually been doing well in this abysmal new
world. He’s spent his time tinkering with tech in a lakeside cabin and playing
with Morgan Stark, his and Pepper’s young daughter. When the others arrive, he
knows what they’re there to talk about, immediately says no, but is still
willing to hear the idea. Lang, having been brought up to speed on the last few
years, suggest the thing he does best, a Heist, but across time. He wants to
use the weird time aspects of that part of the Quantum Realm he’d been in to go
back in time, nab the Infinity Stones before Thanos does and fix things. Tony
is immediately dismissive of a plan clearly inspired by Back to the Future and
shows his friends the door. Obviously, family man Tony is TERRIFIED altering
the past could destroy the best thing he’d ever helped create, Morgan.
 |
| Wait, so was the Hulk angry because he wasn't able to see, or Did merging minds screw up his vision? |
Not willing to be deterred, they
look up Banner and see if the Avenger’s other super genius can help. Turns out,
Banner had spent the last few years perfecting his gamma research and himself. Hulk
and Banner have completely merged, allowing the physical power of the Hulk to
be tempered by Banner’s brilliance. Despite this, Quantum Physics isn’t Banner’s
forte, so while he’s hopeful about the idea, he can’t help.
Thankfully, the team forgot one
thing. They’d given Tony Stark a puzzle. Do you know what Tony can’t possibly
allow to exist? Unsolved Puzzles. That and being spurred on by memories of a
young man he’d mentored and failed, Tony begins running simulations at his
private lab. After like three failed attempts, he gets the math right with an
inverted mobius strip. He’s hesitant at first to reveal this info to the team,
but the women in his life convince him otherwise. Chalk it up to a wife telling
you what you need to hear, and a child inadvertently encouraging you to save as
many people’s lost kids as possible. He loves you 3000, too, Morgan Stark.
Back at the New Avenger’s Facility,
the team is trying to make the plan work on their own. Unfortunately, their experimenting
only succeeds in turning Guinea Pig Scott Lang into a child, old man, baby and
back again. Turns out, no Banner was not lying about being bad at theoretical
physics. Steve steps out to get some air, just in time to see Tony pull up. The
two chat, with Stark revealing that he’d figured out how to make the plan work,
and he’s willing to help, but only on one condition. IF they get the Stone’s
back, they only undo the Snap, not erase the five years since. Steve agrees and
the two old friends reconcile. Tony sums it up best by returning Cap’s shield
to him, saying that Howard Stark made it for Steve.
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| So do you think that this is the first time Cap has felt complete Since 2014? |
They call in the troops. Nebula, Rocket
and Rhodey are easy enough to get, as Natasha has them on speed dial. Captain
Marvel is currently out of contact, as she’s trying to do what all of the
Avenger’s are doing on Earth, but across the Milky Way Galaxy. Woman’s a hard
worker. They still have two OT Avengers to gather.
Hulk and Rocket travel out to
Tonsberg, Norway. Turns out, not all of the Asgard died in the destruction of
their Arc. A few, including Valkyrie, survived and built the new fishing village
of New Asgard. A bit of a step down from the Golden City, but you take what you
can get. Valkyrie warns them that Thor has not been doing well. Turns out, Thor
Odinson, God of Thunder, King of the Aesir and New Asgard, is suffering from a
serious case of depression. He’s spent the last five years hold up in his cabin
at the outskirts of town, drinking himself into a delirium and playing
Fortnight with Korg and Miek. You know, the Rock guy and bug thing from Sakaar.
Thor tries to pretend like he’s all Zen about things, but Hulk and Rocket only
need to do a little coaxing to convince him to stop using Stormbreaker as a
beer opener, suck in his gut and wipe the crumbs out of his beard so they can
save the Universe.
 |
| Hawkeye died with his family. Meet Ronin, the merciless. |
Natasha, meanwhile, tracks Clint to
Tokyo. Turns out, losing the four people he loved most in the entire universe
caused Clint ‘Hawkeye’ Barton to snap. Deciding to spend his days culling the
criminal element that existed in the remaining 50% of life, the newly
christened Ronin has been chopping up gangsters across the world. Yeah, this
might not have come up before, but the reason Clint prefers using a bow is
because it’s a weapon that requires a lot of skill to use well. In actuality,
Clint Barton is the single most deadly assassin and warrior of the last 100
years or so. He can kill with just about any weapon imaginable. And the only
four things keeping him from killing those he judged wicked are now just dust
in the wind. Sucks to be Yakuza. Natasha intercepts him after he killed the
local boss Akihiko. He tries to walk away, but she gives him enough hope to try
and get their families back.
A few days later, Bruce and Tony
have finished their new, improved Quantum Tunnel and new suits to travel
through Quantum Space. While working, Rhodey suggests taking things a step
further, instead of getting the stones, just go farther back in time and ax
Thanos before he could sit up. Bruce shoots down that idea, not for moral
reasons but causality reasons. I can go into more detail in another post, but
the movie is working on the Multiverse Theory of time travel. Meaning, going
back in time and changing something won’t fix their present, it’ll just create
a new, parallel universe. Or to put it another way, I get access to a time
machine. I go back in time and empty an assault rifle into Adolf Hitler before
he gets rejected from Art School. If I return to the present, nothing changes,
because my timeline is one that didn’t have a handsome red head from the future
go back and execute arguably one of the time five most evil men in history.
Instead, there would be a new timeline, separate Timeline that is Hitler less.
I’d like to think it’d be a better one, but movies have made me skeptical of
that idea. Anyway, the team has decided the only way to fix things is to bring
the Stone’s to their present and undo the Snap. No fuss, no muss. The only
hitch in their plan is that it’s heavily reliant on Hank Pym’s patented Pym
Particles. Since Pym was dusted with the rest of his family, and he intentionally
never wrote down his process, they have a limited supply of them to get to the past
and back again.
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| Would having brought a box for Rocket to stand on to be Level with everyone have killed the mood? |
The team discuss the stones, what they
were hidden as and where, and how best to reclaim them. Over course of several
days, a lightbulb goes off when they realize that three of the six stones were
in New York, 2012. Half the work, all in one place. They then chart out where the
other stones would be. 2012 New York had the Space Stone (in the Tesseract), Mind
Stone (Loki’s Scepter) and Time Stone (within the Eye of Agamotto). The Reality
Stone (the Aether within Jane Foster) was in Asgard circa 2013. And the Soul
Stone (Just the stone) and Power Stone (in a temple) were on Vormir and Morag
respectively in 2014. They decide to break into teams, each one responsible for
gathering one of the Stones. It breaks down as thus, Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man
and Captain America will go to New York. Three of them were there already so
they could blend into the crowd, and Ant-Man’s whole shtick is going unseen.
Rocket and Thor are going to go to Asgard. And Nebula, and War Machine, and
Black Widow and Hawkeye will go together to 2014 and then go to Morag and
Vormir respectively. Ready? Break!
Yeah, I’m doing this one in multiple
parts. It’s a three hour movie that I want to gush about in immense detail.
Obviously, I’m going to break it up so your heads don’t pop. My plan is to go
do each mission separately, and then cover the final battle. So next up will be
Team 2012’s antics during the Battle of New York. Followed by a drunk Aesir and
Rabbit in Asgard for Team 2013. Then a quick jaunt across space to cover Team
2014’s successes and failures. And then cap it all off with how the Avengers Saved
two timelines.
I must say that I really do love
this concept of a Time Heist. Remember back in like 2000 where Superhero movies
were largely just Bad Guy has plan, Hero finds out, Hero punches bad guy, there
is much rejoicing? While I still love the classic pre-MCU Marvel Movies, they
really pale in comparison to this much more complicated plot. It’s a scavenger hunt across time and space, each
with it’s own trials and complications. What’s not to love.
I was really shocked when I saw
that five years later time card. I was totally expecting this one to pick up
where the last one left off and have them, I don’t know, chase Thanos across
space to get the Stone’s back. I like this idea a lot more. It let us see how
the Avenger’s handle their first, honest to god major loss. Some kept trying to
soldier on, like Cap, Nat, and Bruce. Some were able to find the silver lining
and honestly move forward, like Tony. And some had something fundamental break
inside them, and found different ways to lash out, like Clint and Thor. Thor
spent most of his days yelling at a Troll named Noobmaster69 who kept heckling
the very gentle Korg.
The fact
their entire plan hinges on a hairbrained scheme that Scott thought up, that
Tony and Bruce made at least logistically feasible entertained me to no end.
For a guy that claims to be a reformed burglar, Scott still seems to fall back
into that “Let’s steal things to make our problems go away,” mine an awful lot.
If you’re wondering why Scott experienced five years as five hours, while Jan Van
Dyne experienced her time in the Quantum Realm as real time, it’s complicated.
Think of the Quantum Realm as having different rules about space and time
depending on where you’re standing. One quadrant of space may experience time
normally, another not far off on a relative scale could make time go in
reverse, or fast forward so a minute here is 100 years there. If you’re a fan
of the Dresden Files, and think that sounds suspiciously like the Spirit Realm
aka the NeverNever, then you’d be right. This segment is largely set up, so let’s
wrap it up and move onto Tony, Steve, Scott and Bruce take Manhattan.
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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