It’s probably worth mentioning as we start off the closing part of the film that Nebula getting knocked unconscious and not returning at the same time as Rhodey was because Thanos, Gamora, Ebony Maw, Nebula and many other servants of Thanos were busy doing their own thing in space (Gamora and Nebula were either training or fighting off some invading force during which Nebula had to be saved by Gamora, reminding us all how much Nebula hated Gamora back in the Guardians of the Galaxy days), when Nebula began seeing things that our Nebula was seeing, and began experiencing memories that our Nebula had experienced. That’s because Nebula is part robotic and evidently the two of them being on the same ‘network’ at the same time meant that they could see each other’s memories, but importantly Thanos could tap into his Nebula’s head and see the memories of our Nebula, and thus see the future. He got to see that he won, that he got the gems, that he snapped his fingers and wiped out half of life in the universe, but also that the Avengers weren’t happy about it and that, ultimately, Thor killed him. He seemed surprisingly relaxed about the idea that Thor cut his head off, but I suppose he was given the fact that he also knew he won. However, now he also knew that the Avengers were going to undo his hard work, and he wasn’t best pleased about that.
That meant that they all went to Morag and took the unconscious Nebula, interrogated her, and that version of Nebula took her other-self’s place, returning to the point that our Nebula left and impersonating her. It isn’t revealed exactly how long it was that this detour took place, but presumably it was long enough for Thanos to figure out a plan, have his daughter execute it for him, and also to copy the Pym technology that he’d need so that he could be sent through the Quantum Realm as well. Yes, that’s right, this is where things get complicated, because Thanos is dead. He was killed by Thor, But, thanks to Nebula, while the others worked to build a new gauntlet and bring everyone back, Nebula worked to hijack their technology and bring Thanos, Gamora, Ebony Maw and the other Children of Thanos, and a whole giant army through the Quantum Realm to stop the Avengers. That brings us to the third and concluding act of the film, and while everything at this point was good and very immersive, this is where the film kicked itself up to eleven.
The Avengers didn’t have access to the gauntlet that Thanos used, and for whatever reason decided against going and getting a new one made, and instead they used one of Tony’s gloves for the job instead. It was one of the gloves that used his newest nano-tech, which meant that it could shift in shape to accommodate the gems, but also shift in size. Why in size? Well, that’s because they had a brief argument over which one of them would be the one to snap their fingers, and Bruce stepped up and revealed that part of the radiation given off by the gems was gamma radiation, and he was literally the only one of them strong enough to survive using the gems. So, he puts on the glove, it expands around his arms, we see the pure energy of the infinity stones running through him – a painful experience, but I guess not as painful as Star-Lord experienced because he had the armoured glove to protect him – and he snapped his fingers. And for a long, long moment nothing happened. It was a really tense moment in the film, and one where I found myself holding my breath for a moment, and then Clint’s phone started ringing and it was his wife. His wife was back. That, therefore, implied everyone was back, and everything was ok again. They’d done it. Their gambit had paid off. But they didn’t even get to let out a “woohoo” in celebration because at that point Thanos used his massive ship, now hovering just above the compound thanks to Nebula, to blow the compound to hell.
Quite how they all survived isn’t clear. Clint was standing near a window when the explosion happened, and he’s only human. He should 100% have been dead. But he did survive, as did everyone else. The glove fell all the way down to the sewers, where Hawkeye found it, only to get chased by a whole bunch of Thanos’s minions. Meanwhile others – Rocket and Hulk, who was badly wounded with one arm almost completely destroyed – were trapped and desperately needed help. Cue Ant-Man to go to the rescue. The three key players in the Avengers stories – Thor (with both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir), Captain America and Iron Man then headed outside to find out what the hell happened, to find Thanos sitting there waiting for them. Perhaps he was waiting for his minions to retrieve the gems. Either way, he was waiting. We then got one of the coolest fight scenes we’ll ever get in an Avengers film. For clarity, I don’t mean the WHOLE scene, I simply mean the fight between Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Thanos. This fight was very cool, with all three of them harbouring major grudges against him after the previous film, and yet this version of Thanos having never fought any of them before and, quite frankly, not caring about any of them. Thanos held his own in the fight as well. Meanwhile Hawkeye desperately escaped from the persuing minions, only to run into Nebula and, relieved thinking he’s won, hand her the glove. That, of course, was a bad idea and she immediately told her “father” that she had it. She was stopped, however, by our Nebula, who’d convinced Gamora to help her, and our Nebula ended up shooting dead her alternative self and reclaiming the glove.
The fight outside kept getting bigger however, with Thanos determined to get the glove, and revealing it was more than just him and his children who’d come through. It was his whole army. And I mean his WHOLE army. Not the version of his army we saw in Wakanda. He brought everything he had. He even brought the Chitauri with him, and they revealed the same ships we’d seen in the Battle of New York in Avengers (and again briefly in Infinity War when Thanos was killing Gamora’s people). This meant our heroes needed help, and on cue they got their help. All of the Wakandan army (including the now resurrected Black Panther and Shuri), all of Dr Strange’s friends, the resurrected Avengers, Dr Strange and the resurrected Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man, and everyone else you can imagine. It was a genuine pity, however, that we didn’t include the Defenders, the Agents of SHIELD, the Runaways or anyone else from the television shows here. It wouldn’t have taken much to have the Defenders show up in a line, or the Agents of SHIELD led by Quake showing up, but they didn’t go with that. We just went with the movies. A missed opportunity that we’ll never get again, and proof positive that the TV shows don’t really mean much in the MCU.
This was a pretty big, epic fight but, unfortunately, it suffered from the fact that we’d kind of already seen it before in Avengers: Infinity War. It did have a few cool moments. At one point, through pure convenience, we saw every FEMALE Avenger teaming up together, as Captain Marvel went to protect Spider-Man and was backed up by Shuri, Okoye, Scarlet Witch, The Wasp, Pepper Potts in an Iron Man suit (the RESCUE suit, but that was teased and never confirmed), and probably more I can’t think of off the top of my head. Again, a genuine pity we didn’t get Jessica Jones, or Karolina Dean from the Runaways, amongst them as well, which would have added even more “wow” moment to this, but this was a very, very cool moment in the battle and as a female viewer it gave me chills. Plus, I imagine there’s a ton of manly men out there who got very insecure to see all these incredibly powerful female characters uniting for one cool, ten second moment. That was one of the cool moments, another was Peter Parker coming to Tony and explaining that he just woke up and he remembered being dusted, and Tony just taking a moment out of this epic battle to hug him. Giant-Man smashing through the rubble and saving the others during all of this was also cool, as was the little moment where Ant-Man and The Wasp teamed up. For the most part, however, the main story elements here were all of them trying to keep the Iron Man gauntlet away from Thanos, and the fight between Thor, Cap, Iron Man and Thanos.
It’s that fight, during all of this madness, that also brought my other single favourite moment in MCU history as well. Thor is knocked down by Thanos, despite having both Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. It seems like all is lost. Then Mjolnir flies away from where it’s landed, and right into the hands of Captain America. And after a brief sheer fan-service power moment of Captain America, with shield in one hand and Mjolnir in the other, we get a moment of sheer hilarity where Thor screams out “YES! I KNEW IT”. It’s everything that we love about the MCU, and everything I love about this new version of Thor we’ve seen since Thor: Ragnarok, all in one beautiful moment. Plus, it’s such a wonderful statement that Captain America is arguably the only human on earth who’s “worthy”, and a fantastic call-back to that hilarious scene in Age of Ultron where he almost moves the hammer and Thor’s face is one of absolute stunned silence. It turns out that everything he’s been through has made Captain America “worthy” of Mjolnir, but even that’s not enough to stop Thanos. His ship rains hell on them all. He’s willing to kill his own troops to kill the Avengers. And then, in another great moment (if you loved Captain Marvel’s solo movie), she shows up to destroy the ship the same way she destroyed the Kree ship.
Ultimately, however, the battle is all for nothing. All this over the top action, mixed with all these personal and amazing moments for the characters individually, are all for nought when Thanos finally gets his hand on the glove. He slips it on. The power once again courses through him. Captain Marvel almost gets it off of him, but he takes the power stone off of it, holds it in one hand and smashes her with a massive punch which knocks her flying and out of the battle. He then returns the stone and knocks away Iron Man as Iron Man tries to stop him and, in a call-back to his words when he found out he’d won earlier in the film, he looks at Tony and tells him “I am inevitable” and he snaps his fingers again. And nothing happened. Yes, nothing happens because Tony wasn’t trying to stop him. It’s then revealed that Tony had another plan. He didn’t try to stop Thanos, instead he used his armor to take the stones off of the glove – his glove, don’t forget – that Thanos was wearing. His glove reshapes into the shape of the Infinity Gauntlet. Every stone slides into place. Thanos looks on in disbelief as the power overtakes Tony and he replies with a short, sharp comeback of his own: “I am Iron Man”. And he snaps his fingers.
I actually have tears in my eyes again as I write about this, because not only was it a perfect moment, but it was THE perfect Tony Stark moment. In his snap he finally did what he’s been trying to do since Avengers. He saved the world from the threat of Thanos. He turns all of the Chitauri, all of Thanos’s minions, all of his children, and even Thanos himself to dust in the same way that Thanos did to half of life in the universe in Infinity War. Thanos just sits down and watches his men all die before accepting his fate, but it’s not just them who die. The power was way too much for Tony, and he lays there dying. Peter rushes to his side, telling him that he did it, in another great moment for those two characters – the reverse of Infinity War, where Peter lay dying in Tony’s arms – but there’s nothing that can be done for Tony. Peter moves aside for Pepper to come in and say her goodbyes, and she does so in the most perfect way. Again, I get emotional just writing about it. She doesn’t tell him “I love you Tony” or “you’re a hero Tony” or anything like that. She simply tells him “you can finally rest now” as he dies, having completed his one mission through all these movies, having done what he was born to do in Iron Man, and Tony Stark dies in front of us in one of the single greatest moments in comic book movie – perhaps even in all of movie – history.
After that comes the funeral, and the world trying to piece itself back together, and we get a few endings. We get Hulk telling the others that he tried to bring Natasha back when he snapped his fingers, but he couldn’t. That’s the price the Soul Stone apparently takes (which again is odd, but let’s move on). Thor hands over the proverbial crown of New Asgard to a new ruler: Valkyrie. He isn’t meant to be its king, he isn’t meant to be Odin, he’s content to simply be whoever he’s supposed to be. The next we see of him, he’s boarding the ship with the Guardians of the Galaxy – Star-Lord, Rocket Racoon, Groot (teenage version again), Mantis, Drax, Nebula, but not Gamora. Peter is looking at a screen which states it’s ‘searching’ for Gamora, and we have a genuinely hilarious moment between Star-Lord and Thor where Star-Lord is still trying to convince everyone that HE’S the captain, much like when they first met Thor in Infinity War. Looks like we know the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy 3: the search for Gamora. And it looks like we’re going to have Thor along for the ride, in the single best addition to the cast we could ever have hoped for.
And then, finally, we get the other ending of the film. Steve, with Mjolnir in hand, is tasked to go back through the Quantum Realm and return those stones to the places they took them from. They don’t explain how (and I’m going to do a blog talking about that too). Before he goes he has a moment with Bucky where he tells Bucky not to do anything stupid until get gets back, and Bucky tells him not to worry because “he’s taking all the stupid with him”, and then off he goes with a briefcase full of stones, and Hulk says it’ll be five seconds in their time before he returns… except he doesn’t. It’s immediately clear that Bucky knew he wasn’t coming back as well. We then see an old man sitting on a bench, and it’s Steve. Old Man Steve is wearing a wedding ring, and Bucky sends Sam over to talk to him. Sam asks him if he wants to talk about it, and Old Man Steve simply says he doesn’t. Sam says it’s a shame, because there’s no more Captain America, and Steve tells him he’s wrong, and hands him over the shield, officially letting Sam continue the legacy of Captain America. And then we see where Steve went, sort of, as the movie ends with THAT moment we all didn’t want to happen but secretly we all really wanted to see: Steve Rogers dancing with Peggy Carter.
The ending is all kinds of beautiful, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. If you read my blog (which may be up when you’re reading this, but I haven’t written yet… which seems a little like quantum realm madness in itself) then you’ll read why I don’t think this was time travel, and I don’t think Steve traveled in time and changed the past so he could marry Peggy, but let’s ignore that for a moment. Let’s just take this as a beautiful moment and a beautiful ending for Steve Rogers, one of the pillars and fathers of the MCU, just as beautiful as Tony Stark’s sacrifice, but a happy ending for him unlike for Tony.
And that brings us to the end of the summary of the film. As you can tell from my comments, there was an awful lot of “good” in this film. There was a little bit of bad, and lots of lots of missed opportunities, but then if they’d tried to cram in even more stuff it would have been even longer, and it was already three hours long. Maybe they’ll include some extra bits in the Blu-ray, as I’d love to see an extended version of the beginning, and I’d really love to see how Steve went about returning those stones to where they got them and the moment he decided to stay with Peggy, but I doubt we’re going to see that. All in all it was a hell of a ride, and one I want to take again very soon. Was it the best Avengers film? That’s hard to say. It didn’t have the simplistic beauty of Avengers, and it didn’t have the shocking twists of Infinity War – plus it had to handicap itself by having a happy ending, which Infinity War didn’t – plus it had the downside of feeling, in parts, like the typical sequel madness of “well, we had a fight last time, so this time we’ll have an even bigger fight”, but they made up for that by filling it with lots of smaller, personal moments. It was a fantastic movie, and fully deserving not of being called “Part 2” but for being the Endgame that the entire MCU was building to. However, it also feels like an end. As in, the last ever Avengers film.
I kind of hope it will be. We don’t need an “Avengers” anymore, after all. We have these individual heroes who are capable of teaming up when required, but I don’t think we need a “team” anymore. With Tony and Natasha dead, Clint retired and Steve way too old to get back into his tights I think maybe a Thor/Hulk team-up could work in the future, but we don’t need to call that “The Avengers”. So, maybe that’s it. Maybe this is the last of the Avengers franchise, and what we’ll get next time will be “Marvel’s Secret Wars” or “Marvel’s Secret Invasion” or any host of other possibilities that don’t include the name “The Avengers” ever again. Or maybe Disney won’t want to let a franchise this big go and in 3-4 years we’ll see another Avengers film with a new cast. Who knows. But for now this feels like an ending, and a damn good one at that.