Avengers: Endgame has already begun shattering box office records and the film hasn't even been out for a month. Endgame is, of course, the follow-up film to Avengers: Infinity War, which saw the Mad Titan Thanos collect all six Infinity Stones and use them to wipe out half of all living things.
Avengers: Infinity War was an interesting film since it actually saw the heroes lose, but Avengers: Endgame shows the surviving members team together to reverse Thanos’ Snap, which has been dubbed “The Decimation.” The film stars the six original Avengers cast members including Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), and Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), as well as several other actors who have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the last 11 years.
Avengers: Endgame truly was a cinematic event that has gotten rave reviews from fans and critics alike. Even though the film has gotten great reviews thus far, there are still some things about the film that are sure to leave viewers scratching their head. On the other hand, there are also several fan theories about Avengers: Endgame that make a lot of sense.
Here is Avengers: 15 Things That Make No Sense About Endgame (And 10 Fan Theories That Do).
25 Makes No Sense: Cap’s Second Shield
One of the biggest spoilers from Avengers: Endgame is that Captain America doesn’t pass away, but is an old man at the end of movie since he traveled back in time to spend his life with Peggy Carter. This meant that the world needed a new Captain America, so Steve Rogers passes the mantle on to Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon. Steve gives Sam his shield, but where exactly does Cap get it from?
After his battle with Thanos, Cap’s shield was broken into pieces, so the one he gives Sam clearly isn’t the same one. Cap easily could have gone back in time to take the shield from another timeline’s Captain America, but then that means that there is a Captain America out there without his signature shield.
24 Fan Theory: Someone Else Will Take Over The Hawkeye Mantle
Hawkeye was one of the original six Avengers, but he was also the first member of the team to retire. Clint Barton was shown to be living with his wife and two kids during the events of Captain America: Civil War, so fans can’t really blame him for wanting to give up a dangerous part of his life.
The very beginning of Avengers: Endgame shows Hawkeye’s children and wife turning to dust, but what’s more interesting is that Hawkeye was training his daughter with a bow and arrow. Some people believe that Clint’s daughter could one day follow in her Dad’s footsteps, but even more people believe Kate Bishop will replace Hawkeye. Bishop is widely believed to be apart of Hawkeye’s Disney+ show, where Hawkeye could pass on the torch.
23 Makes No Sense: Thanos’ Pym Particles
One of the main things about time travel in Avengers: Endgame was that Pym Particles were crucial to traveling the Quantum Realm. The Avengers say in the trailer that there aren’t any second chances on their mission, which is because there are a limited number of Pym particles. That being said, Thanos also had a limited number of Pym particles, yet he was able to time travel with his entire ship and all those aboard.
Using the Pym particles he had gotten from Nebula to teleport himself to the future might have been realistic, but teleporting his entire ship is a different story. You would think that Thanos would have needed a lot more Pym particles to make that jump to the future, but apparently not.
22 Makes No Sense: Laura’s Phone Service
After the Avengers successfully obtain all of the Infinity Stones, a Gauntlet is constructed to wield the stones and reverse Thanos’ snap. Hulk is chosen to wear the Gauntlet since he is the only one who could survive the effects of all six Infinity Stones. Banner is ultimately able to reverse the Snap and bring everyone back, which is shown by having Clint Barton get a phone call from his wife.
While fans were relieved to see the Snap reversed, they probably weren’t thinking about Laura’s phone service. If Laura had been away for five years, it seems incredibly unlikely that her phone would still work, especially since Clint probably wasn’t paying the phone bill.
21 Fan Theory: War Machine And Captain Marvel Will Hook Up
Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, is one of the newest superheroes added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while Rhodey Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, has been there since the very beginning. Despite being introduced to the franchise at different points, Avengers: Endgame hints that the two characters might have a secret romance.
When Rhodey is about to tell Black Widow the news about Hawkeye over the hologram conference, Danvers wishes him good luck, which means they are talking outside of the Avengers meetings. In the Kelly Sue DeConnick comic run of Captain Marvel, which the movie was inspired by, these two characters have a romantic relationship, so it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine them doing the same in the MCU.
20 Makes No Sense: Valkyrie’s Pegasus
The climax of Avengers: Endgame saw almost all of the superheroes from the past 21 movies teaming up to battle Thanos and his army. Valkyrie, who was introduced in Thor: Ragnarok, was also included in this lineup. The character rode into the battle on a Pegasus, but where exactly did the flying horse come from?
Everything on Asgard was shown to be destroyed when Surtur destroyed the city at the end of the third Thor movie, with only the citizens finding time to escape. There certainly weren't any Pegasus’ on Thor’s ship before it was destroyed by Thanos at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, and the new Asgard on Earth didn’t look to have any flying horses. So, where did it come from?
19 Fan Theory: Mutants Were Created With The Infinity Stones
Even though the first X-Men movie under Marvel Studios won’t be released until 2021 at the earliest, some people are saying that Avengers: Endgame could have secretly laid the groundwork for the Mutants joining the MCU.
It has been theorized that when Thanos destroyed the Infinity Stones, cosmic energy was distributed across the galaxy, which could be powerful enough to activate X-genes in certain individuals. Since the Infinity Stones were used a few more times on Earth, this could mean that even more mutants were created from the Snaps when their X-genes were activated.
18 Makes No Sense: Limited Number Of Pym Particles
One of the things that made the mission in Avengers: Endgame so tense was that at the beginning, it was thought that the Avengers didn’t have any second chances. This is because each Avenger has a limited number of Pym Particles used to Time Travel, but that doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Eventually, the characters travel back to the 70s to steal more Pym Particles from Hank Pym, but shouldn’t that have been their first objective? Also, there are several times throughout the movie where Ant-Man is shown to use extra Pym Particles, which apparently he had hidden from his teammates.
17 Makes No Sense: Doctor Strange’s Plan
Doctor Strange witnessed 14,000,605 different outcomes to the Avengers battle with Thanos and the one where they succeed was seen in Avengers: Endgame. Strange knew what would happen, and what needed to happen, but in this one scenario his plan is almost entirely built on chance.
In order for Doctor Strange’s plan to work, Iron Man had to survive Thanos’ snap and a rat had to release Scott Lang from the Quantum Realm. Not only that, but Strange had to count on Lang actually being in the Quantum Realm at the time of the Snap.
16 Fan Theory: Endgame Was The Beginning of Captain Britain’s Storyline
Marvel has introduced several superheroes to the big screen over the years, but one that has yet to get his own film is Captain Britain. When Cap travels back to the ‘70s to collect more Pym Particles, he stumbles across Peggy Carter who is talking about someone named Braddock not checking in yet. She goes on to talk about how he is unresponsive and says a line that has something to do with lightning.
Comic book fans will immediately think of Brian Braddock, who got into a motorcycle accident and got superhero powers from Merlin. Fans believe that Peggy could have been talking about Captain Britain and that the “lightning” could have been Merlin giving him his powers.
15 Makes No Sense: Cap Returning The Tesseract
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos destroys the Tesseract since he knows it is a vessel for the Space Stone. Since Thanos destroyed the stones after performing his Snap, the Avengers traveled back to 2012 to collect the Tesseract once again.
Although it isn’t shown on screen, the team had to have broken the Tesseract to obtain the Space Stone, but then how did Captain America return the object to the 70s? Cap had to have just returned the stone and not the Tesseract itself since it was broken, but that likely puzzled a lot of people at S.H.I.E.L.D.
14 Fan Theory: RDJ Could Return As The Voice Of An A.I.
Many characters were expected to pass away in Avengers: Endgame, but only two main Avengers actually perished; Iron Man and Black Widow. Robert Downey Jr. kicked off the MCU back in 2008 with Iron Man and Avengers: Endgame was the end of his contract with Marvel. That being said, some people are already theorizing how he could return, even though he probably won’t.
Out of all the fan theories out there, the most likely option is that RDJ could return as the voice of an A.I. Given Tony’s ego and intellectual genius, it's possible he could have uploaded his personality to create an A.I. for the next person that dawns the Iron Man suit.
13 Makes No Sense: The Power Of Stormbreaker
While the Infinity Gauntlet is often considered one of the most powerful objects in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor’s axe called Stormbreaker is also incredibly powerful. The object was seen in Avengers: Infinity War deflecting a blast from all six Infinity Stones, but in Avengers: Endgame, Thanos was able to go up against Thor and Stormbreaker with his sword.
That leads to the question, how powerful is Thanos new sword, and more importantly, how powerful is Stormbreaker? Thor’s weapon has been seen in two movies with varying levels of power, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
12 Makes No Sense: Black Widow’s Sacrifice
One of the two Avengers that perished in Avengers: Endgame was Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. Black Widow sacrificed herself so that Hawkeye could live and so that the Avengers could obtain the Soul Stone. While it was a touching moment between two friends, Hawkeye and Black Widow shouldn't have been surprised that one of them had to sacrifice themselves to obtain the stone.
After all, Nebula knew that Thanos had sacrificed Gamora to originally get the Soul Stone, so surely she would have warned them what they were walking into.
11 Fan Theory: Namor Will Join The Avengers
Avengers: Endgame saw the return of dozens of superheroes, but Marvel Studios still isn’t shy about including Easter eggs to other Marvel characters. One of these characters is Namor the Sub-Mariner. Namor was first teased in Iron Man 2 when a location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is shown to be being monitored by S.H.I.E.L.D.
Avengers: Endgame could have also teased Namor since Okoye talks about earthquakes happening off the coast of Africa. It’s also possible that Namor could be introduced as a villain in Black Panther 2 since Wakanda and Atlantis are often at war.
10 Makes No Sense: Extracting The Aether
The Aether was one of the Infinity Stones that was introduced in Thor: The Dark World. When Thor takes a sick Jane Foster to Asgard with the Aether inside her, the Asgardians don’t really know how to help her. The Dark Elves are thought to be the only ones with the power to extract the Aether, but it was barely an inconvenience for the Avengers in Avengers: Endgame.
After listening to an intoxicated Thor talk about the Aether, the team constructs a tool that can easily remove the Aether from Foster. Extracting the Aether from a human was seen to be a huge hassle in Thor: The Dark World, but it isn’t explained why it is so easy in Avengers: Endgame.
9 Fan Theory: Sam Wilson Will Lead The Avengers
After the events of Avengers: Endgame, the exact roster of The Avengers team isn’t really known. Most of the superheroes are seen to be alive and in active duty at the end of the movie, but some people believe that Sam Wilson will lead The Avengers.
While Captain America was one of the six original Avengers, he was always kind of seen as a leader since he was the “first” Avenger after all. Steve Rogers passed his shield over to his friend Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon, at the end of Avengers: Endgame, so that could certainly mean that he could lead the next generation of the team.
8 Makes No Sense: Reversing Thanos’ Snap
The whole point of Avengers: Endgame was reversing Thanos’ Snap to bring back all of the people who turned to dust. Even though the Avengers end up succeeding at the end of the film, not everything would go back to normal as it appears to in the movie.
If half of the world’s population suddenly returned, there would no doubt be economic and social repercussions of this sudden change in population size. The world would have no doubt began to adjust to half of the world’s population being gone after five years, but bringing this many people back in an instant could have caused more harm than good.
7 Makes No Sense: Captain Marvel Finding Tony
One of the biggest mysteries of Avengers: Endgame was how Tony was going to be saved. At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Iron Man was left in critical condition. In the Endgame trailer, the character was seen aboard the Benatar with Nebula, with fans uncertain how he would escape space.
In the film, Captain Marvel is the one to find Iron Man and Nebula and carry their ship back to Earth. While Captain Marvel seems like the most likely candidate to save them, it's highly unlikely she would have just stumbled across them in space.
6 Fan Theory: Cap Returned Mjolnir To 2013
One of the most epic moments in Avengers: Endgame is when Captain America summons Mjolnir and is actually able to wield Thor’s hammer. As fans will remember, Mjolnir was destroyed by Hela in Thor: Ragnarok, forcing the God of Thunder to forge Stormbreaker in Avengers: Infinity War. In Avengers: Endgame, however, when Thor and Rocket travel back in time to 2013, Thor summons his hammer and brings it back to the present day with him.
At the end of the movie when Cap goes back in time to return the Infinity Stones, he brings Mjolnir with him. Cap likely used the hammer in his dangerous journey, but also likely returned the hammer to 2013 so that year’s Thor would be able to use his iconic weapon.