Method To Madness: Ant-Man

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Make Mine Marvel: Some Underrated & Forgotten Marvel Cartoons To Check Out On Disney+

What was that? You didn't know there were other Marvel Comics based animation on Disney+ than the four iconic series shown above?

While you're racing to revisit X-Men: The Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and some of the other iconic cartoons from Marvel Comics' early animation efforts on Disney+ since it's official launch on November 12, 2019, I wanted to take a moment to point out these other often forgotten Marvel Comics-based series are also available on the platform for streaming.

Spider-Woman

When I saw this listed on Disney+, I had a legit gasp of surprise. I haven't seen this in any capacity since renting it when I was a kid and it ended up being eaten by the VCR at the time.

According to the title sequence, Jessica Drew (voiced by Joan Van Ark) was bitten by a venomous spider as a child; her father saved her life by injecting her with an experimental "spider serum," which also granted her superhuman powers. As an adult, Jessica is editor of Justice Magazine, with two other employees featured; photographer Jeff Hunt (a cowardly braggart who nonetheless fancied himself as a quick-witted and resourceful crime-stopper) and Jessica's teenage nephew Billy. When trouble arises, Jessica slips away to change into her secret identity of Spider-Woman.

The Spider-Woman cartoon should not be confused with Web Woman, a Filmation superheroine cartoon launched at around the same time, which reportedly prompted Marvel Comics into creating a Spider-Woman character to secure the copyright.

This version of Spider-Woman took a lot of liberties with her powers for the sake of animation and make her more comparable to Peter Parker/Spider-Man. He would appear in this series voiced by Paul Soles who previously voiced him in the 1960s Spider-Man series. The Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman would appear later in the Iron Man animated series in the 1990s, who was more comparable to her comic book counterpart.

Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends

This was a guilty pleasure of mine since it used to air in reruns on Disney XD when Disney first purchased Marvel. I remember watching this briefly when I was a kid, but I grew to appreciate the campiness of it all, much like the DC Comics' Superfriends era stuff that this was obviously inspired by.

Originally broadcast on NBC as a Saturday morning cartoon, the series ran first-run original episodes for three seasons, from 1981 to 1983, then aired repeats for an additional two years (from 1984 to 1986). Alongside the 1981 Spider-Man animated series, Amazing Friends was later re-aired in the late 1980s as part of the 90 minute Marvel Action Universe (not to be confused with 1977's The Marvel Action Universe).

Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Bobby Drake (Iceman), and Angelica Jones (Firestar) are all college students at Empire State University. After working together to defeat the Beetle and recovering the "Power Booster" he stole from Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) the trio decide to team-up permanently as the "Spider-Friends". They live together in Peter's aunt's home with her and a pet dog, Ms. Lion (adopted from Firestar), a Lhasa Apso. Together, the superheroes battle various supervillains.

Some stories featured team-ups with other characters from the Marvel Universe, including Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Sunfire, and the mid-1970s X-Men. This is one of the only series that comes to mind that has an animated appearance of Shanna the She-Devil to this day.

Angelica Jones / Firestar is one of four characters exclusively created for this cartoon who would later be introduced into the comic book continuity, much like DC Comics' Harley Quinn following her inclusion in Batman: The Animated Series.

Spider-Man: Unlimited

Often regarded as the "unofficial" sequel to Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Spider-Man Unlimited sees Peter Parker journey to Counter-Earth to rescue the estranged John Jameson from the tyranny of the High Evolutionary and his race of Bestials. This series provides a lot of interesting twists and redesigns on classic Spider-Man villains and allies, including the Green Goblin, Venom, Carnage, Man-Wolf, and Electro. It's only limited to 13 episodes and ends on a high stakes cliffhanger. Despite that, I'm still fond of this series for a lot of reasons. I like to mention that the Unlimited costume stands up there as one of my favorite Spider-Man costume re-designs of all-time.

I'm still pretty salty that we never saw that included in the PlayStation 4 exclusive Marvel's Spider-Man video game. Was that too much to ask? Like c'mon!

Iron Man: Armored Adventures

I never mentioned this show much at the time of it's release as it was honestly a guilty pleasure of mine. It aired originally on Nickelodeon's Nicktoons network, featuring a teenage reimagining of Tony Stark and his Ironman lore. As someone who grew up reading Ironman's early works, this was an interesting experiment. While I wasn't too crazy about the high school element - such as how hyperactive Pepper Potts is in this iteration (think Mako in KILL la KILL), Rhodey just the token black dude at their high school, Happy Hogan is a dumb jock, and so on - but I did love the re-designs to classic Ironman villains. The villains, along with Ironman's armor(s) that Tony constantly develops and improves upon throughout the series, get to shine in this computer-generated artstyle. One major, yet controversial change in this series is that the Mandarian is one of Tony's classmates, Gene Khan, who ends up with the fateful Makluan Rings after betraying Tony and his friends to get them.

The first season adapts the Makluan Rings saga in its own spin while featuring the introduction of Madame Masque too following Tony's feud with Obadiah Stane over control of his father's company.

The second season covers the Armor Wars saga and its own version of the Stane International story arc while following Gene's journey to obtain the remaining 5 Makluan Rings. By the end of this season, both Pepper and Rhodey have joined Tony as his partners in their own armors as Rescue and War Machine respectively.

The series features some guest appearances by the Hulk, Rick Jones, Thunderbolt Ross, Black Panther, Magneto, Professor, Jean Grey, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.

Avengers: United We Stand

As much as I have knocked this show in this past, I do want to state that there was some good in this show. The series features a team broadly based on the roster for the 1984 Avengers spin-off series The West Coast Avengers, composed of the Wasp, Wonder Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch (Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch were also both in the Iron Man animated series as members of Force Works), led by Ant-Man/Giant-Man, with the Falcon and the Vision joining in the opening two-parter. For undetermined reasons (perhaps due to their rights being tied up in planned movie projects), the Avengers' "Big Three" were not regular fixtures in the series – Captain America and Iron Man made only guest appearances in one episode each, while Thor did not appear outside of the opening titles. Captain America appears in one episode, "Command Decision". The story involves the Masters of Evil and a flashback to Captain America defeating Baron Zemo. Iron Man, meanwhile in the episode "Shooting Stars", helps the Avengers thwart the Zodiac's plan to send a radioactive satellite crashing to Earth.

The series features many of the Avengers' major comic book foes, including Ultron, Kang the Conqueror, Egghead, the Masters of Evil (consisting of Baron Helmut Zemo, Tiger Shark, Absorbing Man, Moonstone, Whirlwind, Boomerang, Cardinal, and Dragonfly), the Grim Reaper (this version wore full body armor and a helmet featuring a skull-like paint job; his ties to Wonder Man remained intact) and the Zodiac, as well as associated characters such as the Swordsman, the Circus of Crime, Namor, Attuma, Agatha Harkness, and the Salem's Seven.

The show made several fan-friendly references to aspects of the characters' comic book history that were otherwise not expanded upon for the uninitiated, such as the Falcon and Captain America's partnership, Hawkeye's partial deafness or Namor's half-breed nature. Beyond this, however, the series bore little in the way of similarity to the comics, mainly due to its wholesale redesign of the cast, characterized by asymmetrical costume design and the most infamous element of the series – Ant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye and Falcon all wore suits of battle armor, which they donned in Super Sentai-inspired "power-up" sequences. Also in this incarnation, Tigra is an athlete who underwent genetic treatments to give her a competitive edge. These treatments went awry, leaving her with the form and abilities of a cat.

I have raved enough about my fascination for the West Coast Avengers in one of my 30 Things I Like posts. This series plays off some of the issues and storylines present in their source material, such as Vision, Wonder Man, and Scarlet Witch's love triangle better than Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which completely ignored that relationship in most regards as Scarlet Witch wasn't present in that show, and the MCU completely rewrote attributes of it. The Falcon While I wasn't too crazy about the Power Rangers-style armor that they don for their missions, I thought the action was decent enough for the time period too. It's an interesting look at what could have been back before the MCU was a thing currently.

Also, I have to mention that a lot of the voices in this should sound familiar as most of the voice actors were in X-Men: The Animated Series too as a lot of the same team worked on this following the ending of that show. Much like Spider-Man: Unlimited it only lasted 13 episodes before seeing its unfortunate end.

Tentative plans for additional episodes featured Hawkeye's return to the carnival where he grew up, as well as an episode exploring how the Scarlet Witch discovered her powers were made. Plans also included guest appearances by the X-Men, utilizing the Toronto-based cast from the 1990s series as a few of them already worked on this show. Other proposed episode plots include Bruce Banner appearing to help the team when Ant-Man fell ill to gamma radiation exposure during a fight with the villain Egghead, Thor and his brother Loki in a two-part episode (there was even a Thor toy made for the show's line of action figures). However, all plans were scrapped when the show had stopped production.

Silver Surfer

As a fan of the old Jack Kirby run of Silver Surfer comics, I really appreciated this cartoon for the rare gem that it was back at the time. It has only gotten better over time and I think it's a tragedy that Marvel Studios nor anyone else has done anything with this character after all of these years. If you're looking for a much different take at Thanos before his MCU iteration, then look no further than this one.

Blending cel and computer animation, the series is rendered in the style of Silver Surfer co-creator Jack Kirby.

While inspired by various Silver Surfer comic book stories, the series alters the original mythos in some key ways. The most notable change is the removal of the Fantastic Four from The Galactus Trilogy, the story that serves as the foundation for the first three episodes of the series. In this version, the Silver Surfer, who has had the memories of Norrin Radd partially restored to him by Thanos, protects Earth from the hunger of Galactus because it reminds him of Zenn-La.

Many other characters from Marvel's cosmic stable appear in the series, including The Watcher, Ego the Living Planet, Pip the Troll, Drax the Destroyer, and Adam Warlock. Most of the characters featured in the series differ from their printed-page incarnations. For instance, Adam Warlock is an alien supersoldier designed to fight the Kree and, due to Fox broadcast standards, Thanos serves Lady Chaos rather than Death.

The series utilizes a serialized storytelling approach. As with many Silver Surfer comic book stories, episodes tackle a range of social and political issues, including imperialism, slavery, non-violence, and environmental degradation.

The series was cancelled after one season. Eight episodes were written for the second season before production was shut down. According to series creator Larry Brody, the cancellation was the result of a legal dispute between Marvel and Saban Entertainment.

Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes

This is the only series on this list that I honestly haven't seen in its entirety (mainly the last 5-6 episodes) and looking forwards to seeing to its conclusion.

In the United States, the show had an erratic airing schedule on Cartoon Network, having premiered as part of Toonami on September 2, 2006. It ran for only eight of the season's 26 episodes before being pulled. It subsequently returned to the network starting June 9, 2007, shortly before the release of the film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The second launch of the show aired only nine episodes, leaving nine installments not televised in the USA. The show aired on Boomerang for a brief time before moving to Nicktoons in 2009 for the final episodes.

Unlike the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series, this series didn't directly adapt (or slightly modify) any classic storylines from the comics. Instead, it offered its own unique spin on the Fantastic Four's adventures. Ben, Johnny, and Reed are mostly unchanged character-wise, but Susan doesn't come off as completely useless or pathetic in this iteration, so that's a major plus.

There's a lot of cameos in this series, including appearances from Ant-Man, Ironman, She-Hulk, Hulk, Namor, Peter Parker, and even Squirrel Girl. She-Hulk's lone appearance alone is worth the viewing for me along with the episode where Dr. Doom gained control of the entire armory of Ironman armors.

After all of these years, I never found out exactly why this series was cancelled, but I have no doubt that the erratic schedule across multiple television networks didn't help either in the ratings department.

X-Men: Evolution

I have a love and hate relationship with X-Men: Evolution as I felt that it was poor follow-up to X-Men: The Animated Series. At the time, I gave it a fair chance with the revising of the X-Men characters in a high school setting as it SHOULD work easily given the topics that those comics deal with but ultimately in a lot of ways it just doesn't click. I like to blame it to the early 2000s growing obsessed with teenage superhero narratives, ranging from Batman Beyond to Teen Titans. It felt like almost every other property was toying with the idea of the team of super-powered teens.

The first two seasons deal with more teen angst than traditional drama that the X-Men lore is known for while establishing the teams of both the X-Men and Brotherhood (and later Magneto's Acolytes) over the course of those episodes, with Mystique posing as the principal of their high school. In season two's finale, the existence of mutants is exposed to the world during a battle against a Sentinel that both the X-Men and Brotherhood are forced to work together to defeat. In the third season, the show notably begins to take a much more serious tone. After the battle with the Sentinel, the mutants are no longer a secret and public reaction is one of hostility. The show is brought into more traditional X-Men lore, dealing with themes of prejudice, public misconception, and larger threats. At this point, that's where I felt that it felt like a traditional X-Men show where a lot of moments before this point were cringe-worthy. It's final season dealt with the confrontation of dealing with the threat of Apocalypse, with the X-Men working together with every ally at their disposal to defeat Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen.

As a fun bit of trivia though, most people aren't aware that majority of the voices used in this series were the same voice actors used for Inuyasha, Vision of Escaflowne, Zoids: Future Century Zero, and New Mobile Report Gundam Wing that were all airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block or on Fox Kids at the time. Most of those voice actors were based out of Canada for a lot of English-dubbed anime and cartoons, so there was a lot of overlapping with voice acting talent in the early years of anime becoming popularized in the United States.

Wolverine & The X-Men

This series was the successor to X-Men: Evolution that came out a few years prior, but set in its own continuity.

What is interesting about this series is that during it's 26 episode season, it deals with two parallel narratives in both the present day timeline and the chaotic future timeline overrun by Sentinels.

The plot goes a bit like this... A mysterious huge explosion destroys the X-Mansion at the moment that Wolverine was leaving following an argument with Rogue. In the aftermath, Professor X and Jean Grey are mysteriously missing, and perhaps gone for good, causing the X-Men to disband. One year later, the task of reuniting the X-Men to take on the new threat of the MRD (Mutant Response Division) is left on Wolverine's reluctant shoulders since no one else is willing to take the leadership role following Xavier's disappearance. Without too much spoilers, Xavier is found shortly in a comatose condition with his mind communicating to the reunited X-Men from the future, urging them to do everything in their power to prevent the future being overrun by Sentinels and the MRD. It's an interesting twist to see Wolverine in the leadership role (at least at the time) instead of Xavier, Cyclops (who is still distraught over Jean Grey's disappearance), or Storm (who is commonly understood as the X-Men's second-in-command in the comics continuity) while this series juggles a time travel plot similar to the popular Days of Future Past storyline.

While the X-Men don't sport their iconic costumes inspired by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont's period working on the X-Men comics for Marvel Comics like in X-Men: The Animated Series, all of the characters in this series are inspired by their appearances in the Astonishing X-Men comics. Looking back at this series, I still fondly prefer this style over what came before it in X-Men: Evolution.

One more thing to note about this series is that the voice acting cast assembled for this series still regularly voices the X-Men in just about all of their modern animated and video game appearances following the cancellation of this series, from those characters' appearances in the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Marvel Anime: X-Men, and Black Panther animated series along with the characters' appearing in the X-Men: Destiny, Marvel Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 video games.

Steve Blum, Tom Kane, Kate Higgins, and Kiam O'Brien reprise their respective roles as Wolverine, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, and Nightcrawler in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. Fred Tatasciore also reprises his roles as Hulk and Beast in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order.

While the original X-Men: The Animated Series voice cast will always be the definitive voices of those characters when I'm reading X-Men comics or lore in my head, this entourage of voice talent aren't bad at all.

On November 4, 2008, a second season, consisting of 26 episodes was confirmed as being in production by Toonz Entertainment and Marvel Animation. During Comic Con 2009, images of season 2 were shown, consisting of Bastion, Cable, Colossus, Deadpool, Havok, Jubilee, and Magik. It was announced that these characters were to appear in season 2. Colossus was set to receive a reintroductory storyline and would have been a regular character in season 2. Joshua Fine also revealed that Holocaust, Sunfire, and Unus The Untouchable would have made appearances in season 2.

On April 13, 2010, Comics Continuum reported that (according to an inside source) a second season seemed very unlikely. On April 15, 2010, Marvel Animation Age confirmed the recent report that Wolverine and the X-Men would not be returning for a second season. The reason for this was due to financial problems with their financing partner due to Disney purchasing Marvel while Fox owned the movie rights to the X-Men.

Marvel's Ant-Man (Shorts)

These six episodes premiered on Disney XD back in June 2017 and pretty much flew underneath the radar for most people. They manage to capture the old school feel of the classic Ant-Man & The Wasp comics while adding charm found in the MCU version. I think it was a darn shame we didn't more episodes than just the initial six episodes.

Josh Keaton voiced Ant-Man and Melissa Rauch voiced The Wasp.

Surprising Omissions on Disney+

Note: I stand corrected on some of these entries as they could be hidden/tucked away or I'm just getting bad results from the in-app search client.

Black Panther (BET aired this series and produced it actually)
Dr. Strange (animated film)
Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles (Shows up as Season 3 of Gargoyles actually...)
Iron Man (animated film)
Marvel Anime: Blade
Marvel Anime: Iron Man
Marvel Anime: Wolverine
Marvel Anime: X-Men
Spectacular Spider-Man
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series
The Pryde of the X-Men (just a pilot episode but still...)
Thor: God of Thunder (animated film)
Ultimate Avengers
Ultimate Avengers 2

I think a lot of these series are locked up behind continued legal woes between Disney's current acquisitions following the Fox buyout and they still don't have the rights to everything, such as the Hanna-Barbera made 1967 Fantastic Four animated series that strangely enough, DC Comics owns the rights to since they own the studio that produced it. At the same time, I understand that Disney can't give us literally EVERYTHING with this thing and have to hold back something to keep in rotation to keep people interested and to continue investing in this service.

REVIEW -- Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to 2012's The Avengers, 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron and 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and features an ensemble cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, and Josh Brolin. In the film, the surviving members of the Avengers and their allies work to reverse the damage caused by Thanos in Infinity War.

The film was announced in October 2014 as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2. The Russo brothers came on board to direct in April 2015, and by May, Markus and McFeely signed on to script the film. In July 2016, Marvel removed the title, referring to it simply as Untitled Avengers film. Filming began in August 2017 at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, shooting back-to-back with Infinity War, and ended in January 2018.

Cast

Boy did we get the short end of the stick in terms of promotional posters for this film. All of the international posters that I've seen look fucking awesome.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Hulk
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye
Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes / War Machine
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man
Brie Larson as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
Karen Gillan as Nebula
Danai Gurira as Okoye
Benedict Wong as Wong
Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan
Bradley Cooper as Rocket
Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia "Pepper" Potts
Josh Brolin as Thanos

Several actors whose characters died during the events of Infinity War reprise their roles in Endgame, including Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange, Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther, Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne / Wasp, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw, Vin Diesel as Groot, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Michael James Shaw as Corvus Glaive, and Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian. Monique Ganderton provides the motion capture performance for Proxima Midnight.

Also reprising their roles from past MCU films are Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Rene Russo as Frigga, John Slattery as Howard Stark, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Taika Waititi as Korg, Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell, Callan Mulvey as Jack Rollins, Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, Ross Marquand as Red Skull, and Kerry Condon as the voice of Stark's suit AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. Natalie Portman appears as Jane Foster through unused footage from Thor: The Dark World and new voice over that Portman recorded for when Foster appears talking in the distance. James D'Arcy reprises his role as Edwin Jarvis from the MCU television series Agent Carter, marking the first time a character introduced in an MCU television series appears in an MCU film.

Additionally, Hiroyuki Sanada portrays Akihiko, a Yakuza boss operating in Tokyo who opposes Barton. Emma Fuhrmann portrays an older version of Cassie Lang, Scott's daughter, while Lexi Rabe portrays Morgan Stark, Tony and Pepper's daughter.Avengers co-creator Stan Lee has a posthumous cameo in the film, appearing digitally de-aged as a car driver in 1970; this is his final cameo appearance in film. Two of the stars of the Russo brothers' work on the television series Community, Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown, cameo as a storage facility guard and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, respectively. Co-director Joe Russo (credited as Gozie Agbo) has a cameo appearance as a man grieving the sudden loss of a loved one, which is the first time an openly homosexual character has been portrayed in an MCU film. Joe's daughters Ava and Lia respectively portray Barton's daughter Lila and a fan of Hulk. Thanos creator Jim Starlin also appears as a grieving man.

Plot: (SPOILERS!!!)

Three weeks after Thanos used the Infinity Stones to disintegrate half of all life across the universe, Carol Danvers rescues Nebula and Tony Stark from deep space. They return to Earth and join the remaining Avengers—Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Rocket, Thor, and James Rhodes. They find an injured Thanos and intend to take the Stones to reverse his actions, but he has already destroyed them to prevent further use. An enraged Thor beheads Thanos.

Five years later, Scott Lang escapes the quantum realm and meets Romanoff and Rogers at the Avengers' compound. Only five hours have passed for Lang instead of years, and he theorizes that the quantum realm can allow time travel. The three ask Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past so they can revert Thanos' actions in the present, but he rejects them out of fear of losing his daughter, Morgan. Stark relents after reflecting upon the disintegrated Peter Parker and works with Banner—who has merged his intelligence with the Hulk's strength—to stabilize travel in the quantum realm, a process that expends Pym Particles. Banner and Rocket recruit a drunken, overweight Thor in Norway, while Romanoff recruits Clint Barton, now a ruthless vigilante following the disintegration of his family.

Banner, Rogers, Lang, and Stark travel to New York City in 2012. Banner visits the Sanctum Sanctorum and convinces the Ancient One to give him the Time Stone when he tells her that Strange gave the Stone away, too. Rogers overcomes undercover Hydra agents and his 2012 self to retrieve the Mind Stone, but Lang and Stark fail to retrieve the Space Stone after Loki escapes with it. Rogers and Stark use the last of their Pym Particles to travel to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in 1970 and steal an earlier version of the Space Stone as well as vials of Pym Particles from Hank Pym so they can return to the present.

Rocket and Thor travel to Asgard in 2013 to retrieve the Reality Stone from Jane Foster, and Thor obtains his former hammer, Mjolnir. Barton and Romanoff travel to Vormir in 2014 and learn from the Soul Stone's keeper, the Red Skull, that it can only be acquired by sacrificing someone they love. They fight over which of them should die until Romanoff sacrifices herself. On Morag in the same year, Nebula and Rhodes steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill can. Rhodes returns to the present with the Power Stone while Nebula is unable to return due to her cybernetic implants interfacing with those of her 2014 self. Through this connection, the Thanos of that time captures present-day Nebula and sees her memories. He then secretly sends 2014 Nebula to the present.

With all the Infinity Stones collected in the present, Banner uses them to restore those whom Thanos disintegrated. 2014 Nebula uses the time machine to transport Thanos and his ship to the present day, and he attacks the Avengers' compound. Rogers, Thor, and Stark confront Thanos, and Rogers proves worthy to wield Mjolnir. However, Thanos overpowers them and summons his army to lay siege to Earth. Present-day Nebula convinces the 2014 version of her sister, Gamora, to turn against Thanos, and later kills the 2014 version of herself. Now restored, Stephen Strange arrives with his fellow sorcerers, the other restored Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers, and the armies of Asgard and Wakanda. They fight Thanos' army alongside Danvers and attempt to return the Infinity Stones to the past. Thanos seizes the Stones and plans to destroy and recreate the universe. Stark steals the Stones back and disintegrates Thanos and his army before dying from the Stones' energy.

Following Stark's funeral, Thor appoints Valkyrie as the king of New Asgard and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy; Quill begins searching for 2014 Gamora. Rogers returns the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir to their original places in time. He remains in the past to marry Peggy Carter and live out the rest of his life. In the present, an elderly Rogers passes on his shield to Sam Wilson.

The Verdict:

Putting this up again in case you didn't get the memo the first time...

Once again, if you've made it this far into the review, this is your FINAL warning before 100% spoiler territory as I discuss my thoughts on the film in its entirety.

It's been a few days now since the premiere screenings on Thursday evening (April 25th) that I had the pleasure of attending immediately after work that day and I've had time to reflect and think about this film that is appropriately referred to as "the end of an era" for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is a whooper of a film, clocking in a 3+ hrs. runtime, but not for a single moment that it felt any of that time was unnecessary nor squandered. As a result, I had to outline (more than usual) how I was going to discuss this film. Normally, I'd split these reviews up into casting, narrative, and effects in terms of discussion. With this film, it won't work that way at all. We know the principal cast of the MCU's Avengers and their supporting characters whether you love or hate them, so there's no need to discuss that. The meat and bones of this review will be entirely focused on this film's narrative that serves as the conclusion of a lot of narrative threads that began with the original Ironman that kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe in full swing.

Thor Loses His Thunder?

From Thor: The Dark World to Thor: Ragnarok and finally Avengers: Infinity War, Thor has lost everything - his parents, his adopted brother Loki, his homeland of Asgard, his hammer Mjolnir, and majority of his fellow Asgardians - only to top that off with his failure to stop Thanos from performing the Snap and eradicating half of the universe's population. He had one more chance to make things right when the Avengers were able to confront Thanos again after being joined by Captain Marvel, but wasn't able to do much more than remedy his mistake of not going for Thanos' head after Thanos revealed that the damage that he did to the universe was irreversible after he destroyed the Infinity Stones. To see Thor let himself go and drinking himself into obesity isn't a stretch at all, even though it was hilarious to see Thor out of shape. Seeing him looking like that and still wielding the Stormbreaker made me think of Volstagg as the War Thor not too long ago in the comics continuity.

One of Thor's best moments in the film was his conversation with his mother, Frigga. I wished that he was able to get to share a moment with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster too (for some damn closure on that), but I guess it was enough that they were able to pull her back onto the saddle to even appear in this film as brief as her appearance was. Like only a good mother could do, Frigga lifted Thor’s spirits and reminded him that he is capable of great things, even if he stumbles along the way. Thor had the foresight to retrieve Mjolnir from the past to use in the present. This film presents a wonderful message concerning dealing with depression and anxiety here with Thor as well. No matter how low one may think they have fallen from their "greatness", that doesn't diminish one's worthiness. In Thor's case, it didn't make him any less worthy to wield Mjolnir.

If I may add, I thought it was a nice bit of role reversal when Thanos was trying to force Stormbreaker through Thor’s chest like how Thor did when he intercepted Thanos briefly before he did the Snap in Infinity War.

I have to give the Russo Brothers and Marvel Studios as a whole props where it’s due. For a character that is commonly known for being bland, boring, and one-dimensional from his classic comics continuity counterpart (at least in my opinion from reading Thor's comics from the '70's to early '90's...), they definitely made me care about his character’s journey up to this point, especially from Ragnarok to this film.

Professor Hulk

As much as I was thoroughly entertained by Bruce Banner and Hulk's compromise in this film to settle into this new form, I hated that we got that whole exposition/explanation into one conversation. In the back of my head I kept saying that this was Doc Green 2.0 from the comics, without the agenda to take Banner out of the equation.

I was rather underwhelmed that Hulk was kept out of a lot of the fighting here, especially when he was majority on the sidelines in the last film after getting thrashed by Thanos in the opening or reduced to having Banner use the Hulkbuster armor during that film's climax. I keep hearing mixed stories from various sources online, but it seems that Marvel Studios either does or doesn't have the rights back to Hulk from Universal Studios (along with Namor the Submariner, who was oddly referred subtly by those "quakes from Atlantis" that Okoye was reporting on), so we can't even rely on a solo Hulk film to expand upon what's been going on with him between each of these films. It just makes it feel like we were robbed in terms of a climax for his narrative here.

If Hulk’s out of commission for good after getting his arm screwed up after using the Infinity Stones, I wonder this means that we’ll have a proper replacement for him on the team in the form of She-Hulk down the road? I personally wouldn't mind a She-Hulk show on the Netflix/Disney+ end of things with the Defenders stuff or over on Freeform with Cloak & Dagger or The Runaways, but I understand that character isn't for everyone with her niche following.

Ant-Man: Back to the Quantum Realm Part III?

In comparison to the other Avengers, Scott Lang's journey has been nearly nonexistent here. He's merely in this film to serve as the introduction to the main plot device that will undo the damage that Thanos did at the end of Infinity War with the Snap. Simply put, Lang is here to prove that all of the nerds that theorized that the Quantum Realm and time travel would have a pivotal role in this film were correct in their early predictions of this film's plot. The funniest thing is that Lang wouldn't even be there in the present time (five years following the Avengers' last encounter with Thanos) if a rat (or rather a mouse to make Disney smile from ear to ear...) didn't happen to walk across the controls of Hank Pym's Quantum Entanglement device. His time in the Quantum Realm is like mere hours for him while years have passed in the real world. Lang is the one who comes to the Avengers and suggests that they find a way to manipulate the Quantum Realm to perform what he refers to as a Time Heist. We'll talk about that in-depth in that section later.

Scott Lang is portrayed as a bit of a goof/loser here. Tony Stark ends up getting all of the credit for the time heist concept when Lang was the one who brought up the subject of manipulating the Quantum Realm for their needs to the table. As usual - and per Hank Pym's warnings - Stark's ego gets in the way and he took all of the credit. I'm surprised that Stark didn't steal and improve the tech on Pym's Ant-Man suit while he was at it.

I was left wondering how in the hell are they going to explain Cassie Lang aging up - along with all of the people who have survived the Snap and moved on with their lives in the post-Snap environment. It's going to make for a lot of "awkward" reunions, especially for the individuals who got Snapped that were returned to life haven't experienced any passage of time at all while those who survived had to move on with their lives. This whole time skip thing coupled with the Dragon Ball Z-esque revival of the casualties of battling Thanos is going to make everything remaining in Phase 3 (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and the landscape in everything afterwards (Phase 4 and beyond) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe a tad problematic, that's for sure. I'm guessing that they aged up Cassie just for they could explore her being a sidekick to Scott and Hope in another Ant-Man and Wasp sequel as she does acquire similar powers to Scott and Hope in the comics.

Nebula's Redemption

Avengers: Endgame is the story of two Nebula's. As a result of the Avengers' "time heist", both Nebula's from the year 2014 share the same memories on their hardware, causing Thanos to interpret the Avengers' plans to undo what he did in the future. Mind you, the Nebula in this time period was still loyal to Thanos as she and Gamora were still his loyal servants and "daughters" so to speak. Peter Quill hasn't even acquired the Power Stone yet at the point where Nebula (present day) and War Machine went back in time to intercept him and get the Power Stone first. The Nebula from this time period ends up replacing the present day Nebula on the Avengers and uses their time travel technology to bring Thanos and his forces to that point in time in the future after the Avengers have obtained all of the Infinity Stones - thus doing Thanos' work for him. This is all for Nebula (past) to prove her loyalty to her "father" since her and Gamora haven't made up and bonded as sisters at point of the timeline yet. Gamora immediately sees the error of allowing Thanos to obtain all of the Infinity Stones and frees Nebula (present) to assist her in stopping her past counterpart.

Karen Gillan absolutely shines in this role as this character. This film has been my favorite performance of hers to date. She's allowed to juggle multiple sides of this character - snarky, yet friendly with her fellow Avengers and Guardians while cold, calculated as her counterpart from the past with her self-doubts cranked up to eleven. I can tell Gillan did her homework in terms of researching on how to portray Nebula's mental instability during this point of the Infinity Gauntlet saga in the comics. I'm glad the Russo brothers didn't recycle and rehash Nebula getting the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos and using it herself to disastrous results, but instead, they had her as the catalyst that kickstarts the film's climax and final battle.

Nebula is forced to confront who she was in the past and help her see the error in her ways for she won't take the time she had left with Gamora for granted like she did in the current timeline. More importantly, Nebula (present) and Gamora helped her see the error in continuing to aid a tyrant like Thanos as well. Gamora and Nebula wasted so much of their lives at each other's necks instead of bonding like sisters should. Nebula (present) was able to convince the 2014 Gamora to abandon siding with Nebula's past counterpart and side with the forces opposing Thanos.

Nebula's road to redemption and confronting everything she hated about herself and her journey from the original Guardians of the Galaxy to Infinity War and now currently with Endgame was the story of female empowerment that the MCU needed to tell. Nebula proved her worth as both a Guardian post-Snap and justified her inclusion to being named an Avenger in what followed afterwards. She didn't give into the temptation of wielding the Infinity Stones like her psychotic comic book counterpart did. I absolutely love that the Russo brothers didn't paint her into that corner and left her character as boring as it was there. To this day, Marvel Comics hasn't done anything interesting with Nebula for decades following that turn of events and it's cool to see that the Marvel Cinematic Universe won't follow the same trend.

One thing I'm not sure about on after Ironman's Snap to erase Thanos and all of his minions and underlings is that whether or not the past Gamora was included in the disintegration with the rest of his forces. I suppose Gamora will have to reunite with all of the Guardians all over again and fall in love with Peter Quill/Star Lord as a do over if she's still out there alive somewhere.

Thanos' Triumph

In shocking fashion, this film kicks off shortly with Nebula revealing that she knows where Thanos would retreat to if his master plan ever came to fruition. The Avengers are joined by Captain Marvel, who all storm the secluded planet that Thanos has made to be his home. What is shocking here is that the Avengers are forced to deal with loss once more as Thanos reveals that he used the Stones to destroy themselves, nearly killing himself in the process. Thor remedies his past mistake by instantly removing Thanos’ head from his body after chopping off his arm to boot out of frustration.

I love this storytelling as Thanos has forced the Avengers to experience the pain of losing not once, but twice over the course of two films. Audiences haven’t even collectively gotten over the lives lost at the end of Infinity War and we’re forced to see this hollow victory over Thanos where the casualities as a result of the Snap were irreversible. The Avengers were forced to live with those consequences - for FIVE years no less, thanks to his actions.

Thanos is once again the single most influential (or rather powerful - in more ways than one...), yet terrifying foe that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced to date. It’s going to be a tough act to follow for whoever steps up to oppose the Avengers after this. I thought it was a little nuts that Thanos was just as - if not moreso in some cases - formidable here as he was in Infinity War when he obtained all of the Infinity Stones. I thought that was a bit of an stretch, but at the same time, I remembered that this dude is from Titan - a warrior race of intellectuals and he was devoted his life to battle and conquering everything laid in front of him. More importantly, he will probably retconned like in the comics continuity to be a descendant of the Eternals (especially after that film comes to fruition) to explain his scale of power. Even without the Stones, he would have been a more than a match for the Avengers and this film proved that on several occasions.

When the Avengers were forced to face Thanos (from 2014) in 2023, he abandons his mission of balance for the universe for a new sense of balance - complete annihilation of everyone and everything in the universe. I thought this was a subtle nod to Thanos' attempts to court Death from the comics without saying as much. I'm sure Jim Starlin (Thanos' creator) has to be blushing that Marvel Studios hit almost every major ideology that he set on the table for this character back in the day.

Time Travel Fuckery & Head Scratchers

It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of time travel in works of fiction. It tends to create a lot of plot holes and more questions than answers. In this film’s case, it’s no different. The Avengers give loose rules on how this “time heist” as how Scott Lang put it was supposed to work and the film just makes an endless joke of how the Avengers went about breaking said rules. They weren't supposed to interact with their past selves and they weren't supposed to tamper with any events either. Nebula and Captain America both interacted with their past selves while Ironman and Ant-Man’s antics allowed Loki to get away with the Tesseract (Space Stone) while he was in captivity. Captain America got Loki’s scepter (Mind Stone) away from Jasper Sitwell, Agent Rumlow (Crossbones) and his fellow S.T.R.I.K.E. team members by whispering “Hail Hydra” into Sitwell’s ear got a laugh out of me for sure there. That was one hell of a nod to the comics’ Secret Empire storyline.

That was one hell of a nod to the comics.

What was that about we wouldn’t never hear Chris Evans utter those words as long as he was playing Steve Rogers/Captain America? He sure as hell proved us wrong there on that one.

In the Battle of New York, Professor Hulk meets with the Ancient One on the rooftop of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York to acquire the Time Stone. She explains that the removing the Infinity Stones would result in creating alternate timelines separate from their own, but Bruce Banner assures her that they plan on bringing all of the Stones back to their exact places in time so nothing would be unchanged. The Ancient One continues to refuse to offer the Time Stone until Banner mentions that Dr. Strange said that this was the only option left. After that revelation, she hands over the Time Stone willingly, stating that Strange is the best of them in terms of Sorcerers Supreme and she respects his judgment. My issue with this exchange is that it still doesn’t really reveal what Strange knew what was going to happen out of all of the possible futures he looked into while meditating in Infinity War. He just happened to give Ironman/Tony Stark two cryptic clues (one in the previous film and one in this one during the film’s climax) that they all were betting all or nothing that were going to pay off. In a crazy sense, we could explain all of the possibilities that Strange saw were all of the outcomes where that rat (who we'll just say jokingly that was Master Splinter from TMNT pre-ooze mutation and this film's unofficial MVP) just happened to release Ant-Man/Scott Lang from the Quantum Realm when he did. I guess all of those other outcomes Strange saw didn't have the rat hit the button EXCEPT for this one.

So, umm... Where did Loki go with the Tesseract? My guess there is that is going to be covered in his solo series on Disney+, Disney's upcoming streaming service that's going to be a potential rival for Netflix since it's going to carry majority of Disney, Fox (from their recent acquisition), Lucasfilm, and Marvel Studios' content, along with exclusives. I saw Loki disappear off with the Tesseract and went, "Y'know what? That explains how he's around for his own side story series. Marvel Studios can easily write that off as him existing in an alternate reality splintered off from the main canonical timeline/reality."

I'm sure people are going to be after me with spears and torches, but seriously, I threw my hands up on how Wakanda just moved on like nothing happened. Five years pass and Wakanda didn’t usher in a new Black Panther? I get it - Killmonger ordered all of the Heart-shaped Herbs to be destroyed, even though Nakia saved one to use on T'Challa to bring him out of his coma, so any further Black Panthers would be "powerless" in a sense, but the Dora Mijale are more than capable warriors without it. I would like to assume that they would be worthy candidates in the Post-Snap Wakanda. Seemed odd that they just had Okoye in charge of their remaining forces until T’Challa and his sister were revived. While we're on the subject of Black Panther, allow me to remind people that Marvel Studios did that character and everyone associated with Wakanda a huge service as I repeat: (Claps) BLACK PANTHER (Claps) DID NOT (Claps) HAVE SHIT (Claps) TO DO (Claps) WITH THIS (Claps) STORY (Claps) IN THE COMICS (Claps)!! I dunno how much more ratchet (shout out to Bianca Belair's UN-DE-FEAT-ED mess on WWE NXT...) can I say that to make people understand that. I wasn't bothered at all on the lack of him and the warriors from Wakanda in this film. We got Phase 4 and beyond for more Black Panther stuff. It was a blessing that we got him into the MCU before Phase 4 anyway, especially after Sony gave up the ghost on their stranglehold with Spider-Man. I'm sure there's going to be one hell of a story to hear about how Wakanda rebuilt everything better than ever following Thanos wrecking up the place in Infinity War.

The whole final battle with the all of the portals opening by Strange to bring all of their allies together to join up against Thanos for the film's climax needed to be slowed down a bit for me. Whenever this releases on home video, I'm going to slow down every portion for that sequence for I can spot exactly who all was there as it was pure sensory overload for me in the theater. I was too busy geeking out to survey the landscape. I think that was major instance of way too much awesome things happening too fast, especially after we barely had time to recover from Captain America wielding Mjolnir minutes prior to this. That's not a complaint (unless you absolutely loath these huge scale CGI battles like this), just I minor gripe I had with that part that's going to require another viewing to digest all of what was going on.

Polygon went out it's way to explain the entire time travel concept in this film in explicit detail. If you couldn't wrap you head around it then this is a great article to read.

Not to mention that Stan Lee's final MCU cameo was a clever nod to Stan Lee's political stance on keeping politics out of comics.

A Widow's End

It shouldn't come to be a surprise for Natasha's self-less behavior. She's been throwing herself into the line of fire for the majority of her tenure in the MCU if you go back and think about it.

I'm going to be perfectly honest - I didn't give a rat's ass about Widow sacrificing herself for the Soul Stone. It felt like a dick move on Nebula's behalf to tell them where it was but didn't inform them that the Stone required a sacrifice. I didn't see the point in Hawkeye sacrificing himself when he already lost everything. Widow sacrificing herself just felt like a palette swap for what Gamora was forced to do in the previous film without any of the substance behind it.

I will say this much. Seeing Widow lose all of her confidence following the Snap was jarring in a sense. Since her debut in Iron Man 2, she's been sure about everything she's done in the MCU up to this point when it came to her actions. This is the first film where it was painted all over her face that she had no idea how she would go on. From all of the training and behavioral conditioning she had as part of the Black Widows churned out by the Red Room program, you would think she would know how to deal with PTSD. Sure, she still had enough composure to keep the remaining Avengers focused on dealing with keeping the peace in the years that followed as the new Nick Fury in a sense, but it was written all over her face in that scene with Steve Rogers that she was losing her composure and self-confidence completely. Seeing them bond there was a nice nod to the conversation they had back in Winter Soldier that sticks out to me to this day as something they never went back to address/follow up on. That was the main reason I couldn't fully trust Widow either until the Skrulls were formally introduced in Captain Marvel.

In the end, her sacrifice was a noble one. She gave up her life for her friends could be reunited with their families and loved ones. She couldn't have that herself since she couldn't have children - something she revealed about herself back in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I suppose that's why it hurt her so much to see Clint Barton in so much pain following the loss of his entire family. She never could have that in her own life while his own family was stripped away from him unceremoniously. She gave up her life for her "family" - the Avengers - could have theirs.

Why couldn't she come back when the Avengers brought everyone back from Thanos' Snap? For two reasons: 1) the sacrifice for the Soul Stone cannot be undone. The Gamora from 2014 only existed because she was taken out of the timeline BEFORE she was used by Thanos to sacrifice her for the Soul Stone in the Avengers' current timeline for their reasons for having to resort to time travel in the first place would have come to fruition. 2) If Widow wasn't sacrificed, then the Avengers would not have had all of the Infinity Stones to bring back everyone that Thanos snapped away. Even after Cap returned the Stones to their proper places in time where they were pulled from, her sacrifice cannot be undone. Gamora is on borrowed time herself until they place her back into the timeline where she belongs.

Hawkeye No More - Enter: Ronin

That brings us to Hawkeye's transformation into Ronin. Well, he's never referred to as much in the film, but savvy comic book fans called that out since the initial trailers for this film, so yeah. The opening to this film served as the origin of sorts of why Hawkeye took this darker turn and went Punisher-style (sans the usage of firearms) onto criminals in the years that followed the Snap, eliminating them with extreme prejudice. Too bad we didn't get to see more of this darker turn for Clint Barton. We got like one scene/sequence and a tidbit of exposition from Rhodes on his activities in his mission report to Natasha after the five year time skip.

When him and Natasha were on Vomir to obtain the Soul Stone, I thought it would have been stupid to have him sacrifice himself, especially when he was absent from the previous film. I was like what sense would have made if to say that he wanted to be reunited with his family from what they were doing the time heist for in the first place.

"Don't give me hope..."

Goddamn that was a chilling line. I was thinking that the Avengers would have been forced to fight Barton before convincing him to return to the team and assist in the time heist. They still haven't told us what him and Natasha did in Budapest... I guess they are saving that for the alleged Black Widow solo film on the way. I can't speak for everyone else but killing off that character isn't going to make me more intrigued to see her solo film.

I was mildly entertained at their fight though on Vomir, even though it pales in comparison to Widow and Hawkeye's fight in the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "Widow's Sting". Out of all of the heroes hurt by Natasha's sacrifice, Clint and Banner were hit the hardest. After all of this time, I wouldn't call them lovers in this continuity either, they just seem like two best friends who have been through a lot of shit and share that common wound as they lean on each other for support.

Seriously though, where does he go from here following the events of this film? He's got his family back so I doubt he's going to continue his Punisher-style escapades as Ronin, but he's one of the few close friends that Scarlet Witch has left following what happened to Vision and post-Snap. Someone has to be around to make sure she doesn't go all "House of M" on everyone in this continuity.

A-Force?

Not exactly the line-up I wanted if they were ever to make a film for this, that's for sure...

For a while now, the female actresses of the MCU have been banding together - Tessa Thompson has been notorious for this - and trying to sell everyone onto the idea of an all-female Avengers team-up film featuring all of the women of the MCU. I could list all of the reasons why I personally don't think they have the star power nor marketable characters to carry that film, but that's a subject for another day as it just doesn't need to happen right now. As far as I'm concerned, I don’t want to hear anymore talk about an A-Force movie anytime soon. The Russo Brothers gave us that here with Rescue/Pepper Potts, Okoye, Shuri, Captain Marvel, Valkyrie, Scarlet Witch, Mantis, Gamora, etc. all working together against the wealth of Thanos’ forces as Captain Marvel rushes the line to get the Infinity Stones back into the past.

Speaking of Scarlet Witch, I was a little underwhelmed from her rematch against Thanos. I thought we were going to get a glimpse of potential House of M tier Scarlet Witch who has lost everything and about to unleash all of her hex powers onto him. What I had envisioned for this rematch between them versus what we got was tame in comparison. Where the HELL was Vision? You can’t tell me that no one didn’t think to salvage his body and at least attempt to repair him in the years that followed after Infinity War.

I would say the same about Thanos’ confrontation with Captain Marvel, but that went exactly how I pictured it would until he snatched out the Power Stone out of the Infinity Gauntlet and used it to knock her back. I don’t understand how people aren’t understanding exactly how powerful she is. Captain Marvel is arguably in a class of her own, potentially outclassing Thor and Hulk at their best in some scenarios. At the same time, I feel like her inclusion to this narrative was required since Marvel Studios didn’t have the Silver Surfer (nor Adam Warlock for that matter...) on the table to use to close the gap between power of these cosmic beings going head to head. On top of that, Captain Marvel was there to hit home the fact that Earth isn't the only planet that needs protection as not every planet has their own set of Avengers too. The Guardians took heavy losses in the wake of Thanos' actions as well, so I can only imagine that the universe is a much more dangerous place as a result.

Captain Marvel with short hair isn't anything new, even though I was hoping that we were a few films down the road before she debuted this look in the MCU.

For the record, I absolutely hated that they went with Captain Marvel's short hair look. I have seen people make criticisms that this change confirms that the character is lesbian and I'm just ignoring that right now to be honest. Have fun arguing about her sexual orientation when that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the narrative here. If she's lesbian or not doesn't matter to me when I think her character is cool regardless. In terms of her hairstyle though, I thought we were at least a few movies down the road before they went with that. On the other hand, Rocket's wise crack about it was well worth it. I guess I'll get used to it in time, but I was perfectly fine with Captain Marvel's look in her solo film and in the teasers of her joining the Avengers to set the stage for this film.

The Man Made of Iron Laid to Rest

We all had a feeling that this was coming. Ironman's been narrowly avoiding death in almost every one of these ensemble films. His number finally came up.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe started off following the story of a man who created a suit of armor to protect himself but later used that very same armor to protect his loved ones and better yet, the world as a founding member of the Avengers. We have come to know this man as Tony Stark, portrayed by the multi-talented Robert Downey Jr. For a long time, this cinematic universe was carried solely on his shoulders until the ensemble Avengers films brought all of the solitary Marvel heroes together as a team.

This film started off with Tony Stark being forced to return back to Earth, a broken man - physically (from the "infection" that's never specified from his wounds from battling Thanos on Titan) and mentally from his nightmares coming to life after Thanos wiped out 50% of all life in the universe. He failed - and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In the five years that followed, Stark settled into moving on. He actually accepted defeat and settled into moving on and living with his failures.

I thought it was rather odd to name Tony and Pepper's daughter, Morgan, especially after the comic book history of Tony's evil cousin from the comics of the same name. Morgan ends up being the reason that Tony's not sold on changing anything. His failures gave him this second chance at happiness. He and Pepper were able to start a family, but he quickly realizes that not everyone else weren't that lucky post-Snap. Stark's motivations are to undo his failure to stop Thanos in the past, but at the same time, maintain what he has obtained in the present tense.

Throughout the MCU leading up to this point, we've seen fractured portions of Tony Stark's troubled past with his father and here we are allowed to see an older Tony Stark meet a younger version of his father, Howard Stark, in the past. Tony's choked up to see a lot of himself in his father - namely his unsure nature about the future, especially his pending fatherhood. I think a lot of this chance encounter with his own father motivates him to make the noble sacrifice in the end, to provide a better world for his daughter to live in.

If this is Gwyneth Paltrow's last MCU appearance, then it was cool that we were able to get her on board here and in costume as Rescue.

If this is the last time we see Gwyneth as Pepper Potts, I'm glad we finally saw her in costume for once.

I was really happy with the decision to allow Ironman finish Thanos off in the end, closing his path/mission of always wanting to protect everyone. Tony's had nightmares of this scenario playing through his head since after the original Avengers and everything he's done after that was to prevent that scenario from happening and it happened anyway no matter what he did. This was the icing on the cake to his journey to undo his mistakes and prove Thanos that he was wrong.

When Tony was at the end of his teether after besting Thanos with the Infinity Stones, I thought it was appropriate that he was surrounded and comforted by his best friend in James Rhodes/War Machine, his surrogate son in Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and the love of his life and wife in Pepper Potts/Rescue. I loved Pepper’s line about “We’ll be alright, Tony. Go ahead and finally rest.” Tony was so tired of fighting. It was evident in the film's opening moments as he was drifting in space with Nebula and even more so after he had settled down into a simple life with Pepper and his daughter, Morgan. He just wanted to rest - much like Thanos after his mission was done. That was Tony Stark's final gift to the world.

For everyone wondering who the teen was at Tony's funeral, it's him from Ironman 3.

Tony Stark's funeral at the end of the film screamed the same vibe as Superman's impromptu demise during Justice League Unlimited, where just about everyone under the sun from the start of the MCU to everyone that Tony Stark's presence had touched was there to see him laid to rest. I was glad to see Jon Favreau reprise his original MCU role as Harold "Happy" Hogan with the sweet promise to Morgan Stark that he would get her all the cheeseburgers that she would ever want. That was a clever nod back to the original Ironman where Tony wanted the same when he was freed from captivity. That goes double for Pepper Potts' gift of "Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart" arc reactor being buried with him.

Unlike most people, I'm not upset that Robert Downey Jr. wants to finally step down from playing this character after eleven years. It's a similar situation like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in the X-Men films. Let the man rest and walk away from this stuff, especially if you don't want to be typecast as that character forever for the rest of his acting career. RDJ did more than enough for the MCU and I thank him dearly for his contributions to making this cinematic universe into the success that it has become. He has a lot to thank the MCU and Marvel Studios for too as it turned his career around. Besides, I doubt this isn't completely the end of him appearing in these films in some fashion. He can at least come back to do cameos and what not.

Captain America's Legacy

"I can do this all day..."

If Ironman was the suit of armor that protected the entity of the universe that makes up the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then Captain America would be considered to be the heart and soul of that fighting spirit to stand up against injustice and fight for the people. Much like Steve Rogers himself, I'm guilty of expecting the core Avengers to play these characters until the end of time, but these people have limits. I can't fault Chris Evans for wanting to hang it up as well. Not to mention, he was on borrowed time anyway because his contract with Marvel Studios expired with Infinity War. He wanted to wrap things up properly by being a part of this film. I don't mind seeing him pass the mantle of Captain America to someone else to continue the good fight.

“AVENGERS… Assemble!”

Two words uttered by Captain America that I waited a decade to hear - at least in a live-action film. This was the first of two moments where I found myself crying tears of joy watching this film. For the longest time, I thought I would never get to live to see the day of this stuff that I grew up foldly reading about from my childhood come to life on the silver screen. This might not be a big deal for everyone else, but the idea/notion of Marvel making live action films into a connected cinematic universe was a fool’s errand a few decades ago. Then to see them do it with their heroes that were regarded as C and D tier at best in comparison to their moneymakers in the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and Spider-Man. Only hardcore Marvel Comics fans were familiar with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy were even more obscure to people back then. To see them become household names still moves me to this day and blows my mind in retrospect.

Here I got that moment where all of these heroes that we’ve seen individually with all of the friends that they have made on the way up to this point, uniting on a common front to oppose Thanos together. This was as iconic as the first time the Avengers teamed up in the original Avengers film.

If that wasn’t good enough, we got to see Captain America wield Mjolnir against Thanos. How freakin’ awesome was that? They teased it enough in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a joke, but to see it happen here was amazing. Any Marvel Comics fan can tell you that Steve Rogers has been more than worthy enough to wield it in the comics continuity on several occasions, so this isn’t nothing new, but a first time for this instance for the MCU.

"Feels like it belongs to someone else."

Tears ran down my face for the second time watching this film when I heard Sam Wilson say that after picking up Steve's shield. That moment moved me as it took me back to when Sam was gifted with the mantle of Captain America in the comics when Steve Rogers was reduced to an old man after the effects of his Super Soldier serum (AKA legalized steroids...) were rendered useless by a new villain that he barely dispatched. Everyone doubted this move by Marvel Comics at the time - me included - but throughout the time that followed, Sam proved himself time and time again as not only a proper replacement for Rogers on the All-New, All-Different team of Avengers at the time. At the same time, he was a black Captain America, facing ridicule from all directions.

I'm confident that Marvel Studios will make the proper steps to make Sam Wilson a suitable replacement for Steve Rogers.

I know a lot of people aren't keen on the idea, but Sam Wilson proves his worth as Rogers' successor in the role of Captain America.

I cried tears of joy at this moment in the film because I have the absolute most faith in Marvel Studios of making the mainstream media and fans a firm believer in this new Captain America as well. They could have gone the easy route and given the shield to Bucky, but they had the balls to go this route when they knew it's going to cause a lot of controversy and angst among the fans. There's going to be a lot of people who aren't going to support the decision since Chris Evans has portrayed the role with such grace and dignity in and out of costume that we could regard him as the real life Steve Rogers from now to the end of time. For the unknown future for the Avengers, they have to start looking at the next generation and I'm glad that they are going to introduce a new generation of fans growing up to these films to a black Captain America. The ideal and principles will be same, but black children will have someone to identify with (outside of Black Panther) at the forefront of the Avengers - specifically as the team leader if Captain Marvel doesn't step up for the job.

As much as I enjoyed Comicstorian's take on the ending, I’m not going to knock the ending though. When you get caught up in all of the loopholes and what not in terms of trying to wrap your head around the concepts of time travel and very same rules that this film laid out and broke on MULTIPLE occasions - even jokingly at times, I’m not going to hold the film to uphold them at this point. Captain America’s journey ended on a happy note - he got that last dance with his favorite girl. Besides, who said that he married Peggy Carter and settled down with her in that time period? That’s the point that I think that a lot of people who are arguing/complaining about the ending are missing the point of. The film never specifies where/when exactly in time did Steve spend all of his time leading up to present day. That fact alone, coupled with this notion that he has abandoned his morals that made him Captain America to sit back and do nothing in the past, isn't specifically determined so I’m not going to chime into that debate. People are going to be debating and arguing about that until they are blue in the face - or until Marvel Studios explains/retcons it down the road.

EDIT: Forbes has shared an excellent article that made me shout, "HOLY SHIT!" after reading it at work just now. I absolutely have no complaints about this ending nor Rogers' actions now.

I just think the greatest takeaway from the ending of Captain America’s journey is that he didn’t die like Ironman and Black Widow - seriously, this film didn’t need another Avenger death anyway. Instead, Steve got to fulfill a promise he made back in Captain America: The First Avenger - he got that last dance with his favorite girl, Peggy Carter.

How awesome is that we got a bit of closure for the Agent Carter television series here too? As much as I wanted to see Hayley Atwell reprise the character for a few more seasons for selfish reasons, I’m fine with her story being closed with Steve Rogers’ here. The screenwriters for Endgame, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely respectively, were the minds behind the Agent Carter series as well. Seeing James D’Arcy back again as Edwin Jarvis was a pleasant surprise, even if it were for a few seconds.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The central theme that I got the impression of from Avengers: Endgame was the sense of paving the way for the future to be protected by new budding heroes. The remaining Avengers sacrificed so much for the world could continue going - some with their lives, others with limbs, and emotional and physical scars that may never heal. I think by the time the end of Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolls around we’re going to be looking at a much different line-up/roster of Avengers to defend the universe.

Maybe something along the lines of this...

All-New, All-Different Avengers:

Captain America/Sam Wilson

Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Barnes and Sam would be a buddy cop partnership that would play off their upcoming Disney+ series)

War Machine/James Rhodes (could possibly step in as the new Ironman as he filled in for Tony on a few occasions in their comic book history as well)

She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters (replacing Professor Hulk who would be in a mentor role like Hank Pym & Janet van Dyne)

Spider-Man (part-time, reserve member)

Captain Marvel (part-time, reserve member when she's not off-world)

Ant-Man/Scott Lang

Wasp/Hope van Dyne

Stature/Cassie Lang (newbie, reserve member - Possibly one of the younger heroes that will serve as the next generation for the Avengers, like how Ironman had faith in Peter Parker)

Black Panther/T’Challa

Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff

Vision (possibly rebuilt, thanks to Shuri and Wakandan science)

Ronin/Clint Barton (part-time, reserve member - Note that they never officially referred to him as that codename...)

Hawkeye/Kate Bishop (This is a stretch, but that's who I thought Clint was training until they said that was one of his children in the film's opening)

Asgardians of the Galaxy:

Star Lord/Peter Quill

Drax the Destroyer

Groot

Rocket Raccoon

Nebula

Mantis

Thor Odinson

Sersi (possibly might join after the Eternals film comes to fruition)

Moondragon (Dave Bautista said that him and James Gunn really want to work that character into the GOTG mythos in the MCU, so I wouldn't mind to see her join the Guardians or Avengers at some point. She was a really interesting character that would benefit being fleshed out in this continuity like Nebula was)

Adam Warlock (James Gunn said he didn't want to introduce the character to force the Russo brothers to "have to" use him in their conclusion to the Infinity Saga of the MCU like the comics. He left the breadcrumbs there to come back to that story at the end of GOTG Vol.2)

My choice for the MCU's next major big bad.

Who would be the big bad though? Here's an idea and since the DC Extended Universe is pretty much in the toilet in terms of long-term plans for the moment, we won't have to worry about stepping on any toes for suggesting this. How about Marvel's equivalent to DC's Legion of Doom with the Masters of Evil? Build up and establish a team of worthy adversaries in individual, solo films and have Kang the Conqueror (who has had his timeline screwed up, thanks to the Avengers' scheme to reverse the damage done by Thanos) recruit all of them - one by one - to join forces with him for battling the Avengers down the road. The fun thing about this is that they don't have to go with a set particular of members from their comic book iteration as there's been multiple different versions of this group of villains to challenge the Avengers over the years. Also, this gives Marvel Studios a chance to correct their previous mistakes of killing off certain villains and treating them as one-offs in every solo appearance.

My humble suggestions though since Kang can pull anyone out of time, though?

Masters of Evil:

Kang the Conqueror (No brainer there... He'd have a ton of disposable minions that you could throw at the Avengers in another large scale battle too)

Baron Zemo (Remember, he wasn't dead at the end of Captain America: Civil War. He was taken into captivity. This would be a great opportunity to give him a proper costumed debut in Phase 4.)

Ultron (Vision destroyed his last "body" from the Iron Army, but who said that he didn't have a copy of himself stored somewhere on the Internet that he uploaded himself that could be salvaged?)

Enchantress (They would have to introduce her in a Thor/Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. My choice to play her would be Chris Hemsworth's wife, Elsa Pataky)

Crimson Dynamo (They could recast Whiplash's role from Ironman 2 and not have him take the armor off like he was in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes or simply make him a new villain - Ultimo maybe? - altogether since Vanko in Ironman 2 was a combination of Whiplash AND Dynamo)

Wonder Man (This could give Marvel Studios the excuse to do the love triangle between him, Vision, and Scarlet Witch down the road...)

Super-Adaptoid (This would be the perfect reason to bring Justin Hammer back for or the Advanced Idea Mechanic/A.I.M. guys to develop)

Ghost (Yes, the same one from Ant-Man and the Wasp. There's no telling what her damaged psyche has driven her to do in the post-Snap time period. She probably thought the Pym family had abandoned her and sought out to "cure" her condition by resorting back to crime)

Baron Mordo (Don't forget that he was going around hunting down all magical users following the events of Dr. Strange. He could easily see this as an ends to a mean to eliminate Strange after all of his and the Avengers' tampering with the fabric of reality.)

On the other hand, I guess they could do Annihilus and all of that nonsense with Thanos again if they wanted to adapt that Annihilation storyline in some capacity, but in my honest opinion that would be redundant to bring him back after another decade. Thanos is done and over with. Let's move onto another threat to the universe. Korvac could be done too, but it's ultimately hits the same bells and whistles as the Infinity Saga, save the use of the Infinity Stones. That battle has an amazingly high death toll too, but everything gets reversed at the end, so yeah, that wouldn't be a good option either. The major selling point of that storyline was seeing the Avengers and Guardians (referred to the Ravagers in the MCU) team-up for the first time. We have seen that already in the MCU, so that won't be a novelty here.

I know a lot of people aren't too keen of this but from the way how Marvel Studios have ended the Infinity Saga, it opens the doors to a lot more stories for the future. They aren't necessarily tied to having them being comic book accurate either. Infinity War and Endgame both did a great job at respecting source material while offering their own unique spin on those events to create their own unique moments in these films. I want to see a lot more of that for the future. There's far too much of the films mirroring the comics and vice versa for my taste anyway. I think we're going to see a lot more of the Marvel Cinematic Universe bleeding themes from the past and present into their next decade of films, offering new stories for fans - old and new - to continue enjoy.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Definitely watch this - There's no question about it. This is the cumulation of 22+ films and eleven years of the hard work of the talented men and women of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - in front and behind the camera, bringing to life the multitude of characters that Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jim Starlin, and their peers have spent decades of their lives creating and devoting their lives to providing the narratives that these films are based off of.

For a lot of these characters, this is the end of their journey. For others, it's the dawn to a new beginning and all fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe owe it to themselves to witness this film for themselves. The Russo Brothers, along with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, took on the challenge of taking eleven years worth of content over the course of 22+ films (and some of their television exploits) and offering a satisfying conclusion to a lot of these plot threads that started all of those many years ago when Tony Stark uttered those famous words, "I am Iron Man." The Infinity Saga has come to an end. This film is a master class in its own in terms of callbacks, references, and homages to not only the films that led to it, but the comics/source material that they were derived from. I felt that this was well worth the wait and time and effort. I know it's a bit much to ask people to stay in the theaters for over three hours, but I firmly understand how the Russo brothers felt that they could have cut out anything for this film to work as well as it did.

Method to Madness Has a New Home!