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Avengers: Endgame made its name well and delivered a ton of ends – and most of them were in fact excellent, albeit tragic and satisfying, findings from a decade of work. One of them, however, was not there.
And that almost ruined the whole movie.
Consider this as a spoiler warning.
Steve Rogers ended his tenure as a main line hero by handling Mjolnir and surviving a brutal defeat by Thanos, but he also (apparently) offered himself to bring back the Infinity Stones to their respective points in the timeline. You know, to avoid all the branched deadlines on which the ancient Ancient put Bruce Banner on guard with the aid of his practical cosmic infographic. Steve does it completely alone for whatever reason, which does not make much sense either, but we'll let that slip for now.
The real problem is that Steve does not really succeed in his mission. He makes the Stones, of course, and makes the Mjolnir that he uses in Asgard, apparently, but then he decides to take a detour and lead a busy life with Peggy Carter somewhere in the past. This has the effect of making it reappear in the present, not by borrowing the quantum portal, but by walking (or perhaps taking a Uber? Who knows) to a bench about fifty meters to the left of the portal, returning like an old man who has lived a lifetime in the blink of an eye.
We even have a little flashback of Steve finally sharing his dance with Peggy in the 40s (or maybe the 50s, after the war) in what is obviously meant to be a very romantic and fulfilling coda for his story .
Or maybe it would be the case if it worked at all, in terms of Steve's thematic arc throughout his MCU term or according to the rules established by Endgame.
Become technical with the journey in time
Let's first take a look at the logic of the trip in the Endgame time. As stated explicitly, according to Endgame's own rules, you can not modify the present, you can only create new calendars – that is to say. If the Infinity Stones were not relocated to the exact locations at the exact moments they were extracted, the MCU would be confronted with a set of branching timelines where different characters and entire movies could not exist or would be utterly doomed. Some of these very diverse calendars still exist – an alternative 2014 where Thanos brought his forces to Earth years ago, an alternative 2011 where Loki escaped with the Tesseract after the end of Avengers 1, and so on. – but those who were taken care of, were managed by Steve. It was his mission.
But in the process of closing all potential branches, Steve has apparently created a new one. Or rather, he should have created a new one but did not do it. Steve changed his own past, and Peggy Carter's past, having been there for 70 years, which he had initially frozen and married – which, for whatever reason, allowed him to still exist as old man in the main timeline he left. – our gift.
If Steve had actually created a branch timeline, he would not have been an old man in our present. Its reformed existence in the past should have changed the events to the point that the news of the film would be different not only for Steve but for everyone. We would see a different calendar all together.
In the interest of mitigating the confusion here (and make no mistake – it's confusing), let's dissociate it. There are two potential possibilities.
Option 1 is that Steve created an alternative scenario where we never knew where he and Peggy were married, maybe became superheroes, prevented HYDRA from infiltrating the SHIELD, saved Bucky, prevented the Howard Stark's assassination and removed the need for the Avengers entirely. In doing so, he wiped out all the life that he knew without the intervention of Peggy, including her husband and the children that she had while he was in the ice. Pouf, gone.
Then, happy and old, Steve miraculously jumped on our timeline unaided, which should be impossible, and without any real reason, just in time to pass the shield to Sam. Seriously, why would he have bothered to back to where he was so confident that the present world no longer needs him? Why leave the timeline that he created, especially if it was really so much better? What incentive does he have to get through trouble?
What about option 2?
Possibility 2 is that Steve did not create a branched timeline by going back, he simply lived his life as quietly as possible throughout the post-war period. This would make him an accomplice to the knowledge of all the horrible things that were happening to the people he loved during those years. It would also mean, for the timeline to not be fundamentally broken, that our version of Steve would have always been married to Peggy, even though he did not know her until that moment. This contradicts not only the entirety of the TV show on Agent Carter and various parts of the MCU up to now (like Steve's meeting with Peggy dying after he escaped) it also means that Steve would be Sharon Carter's uncle – and, uh, it's pretty disgusting, even though he did not know it at the time.
Even ignoring the potential for involuntary incest, there are other major problems here. Do you remember when Steve said that when he saw a situation heading south, he could not turn his back? Remember how all of Steve's story revolves around his inability to sit still and let a conflict unfold without him? How he does not like bullies no matter where they come from? How is it literally subjected to a potentially lethal scientific experiment rather than not fighting in a war? How did he jump into the occupied territories by the Germans without an army just supporting him at random if he could do anything to help his friend? How can he "do this all day?" Started a war to erase the name of his ex-assassin bestie? You always acted like a hero while he was an international fugitive?
In which world Steve Rogers, even a beaten and jaded Steve Rogers, remains idle and lets the future deal with its own problems?
The answer should be none of them.
It does not even begin to address another uncomfortable subject. The people who came back from Snap had literally fallen into a future where nothing had escaped them – the miniature version of Steve's experience that was waking up from the ice in 2011. But apparently he's totally satisfied world undergoing a level of trauma for which he is particularly qualified to help.
"He has earned the right to be selfish!" You say? Sure. If anyone deserves a vacation, that's Steve – but that does not mean that he's going to take one. We have spent the last 8 years learning the ins and outs of this character in movies and the last 7 decades to get to know him in comics. Letting things happen is basically not something he would do. It's just not. He could retire, pass the shield to Sam and take a big step backwards, but there is no chance that Steve will simply give up the fight – and it literally happened in the comics. Steve has even been an old man, but he still does not stop participating in the superheroic world. It's just not in his nature to resign – it's like Tony suddenly decided not to be a just engineer for pleasure.
But let's say that the logic of time travel, crazy and esoteric, does not matter for you: there is always a problem. This has less to do with the mechanisms than with Steve's place in the MCU meta-narrative.
Ignore the trip in time all together
For a second, let's just assume that we do not have nearly 100 years of comics to watch and focus exclusively on the approximately 60 hours of film that we have received. Thematically, Steve is a guy who has lost a lot in these movies. It can be said that it's his most defining quality – he went into the ice 70 years ago and he thinks another guy came out – his words, not mine. The motive of not being able to return home is poignantly repeated over and over – and through all this, through everything, Steve has learned to keep going. And that's a good thing – or at least it was a good thing. By the way, Steve was doing exactly what Peggy Carter had hoped for him ("the world has changed and none of us can go back, we can only do our best, and sometimes the best we can to do is: start over from scratch. ")
Of course, some time ago in Endgame where it seems that he has finally reached his breaking point ("some people are leaving, but not us"), but that simply means that he was beaten, not eliminated. Hell, he even manages to muster the strength of will at the 11th hour to be worthy of brandishing Mjolnirmaking it the third and only mortal character of the MCU to do it. This is nothing to make fun of.
Steve can be defined by a loss, but the power of his character has just turned this loss into strength. Of course, he is a super soldier, he is fast and strong and can suffer a heavy defeat, but his real superpower is his indomitable will. If there is one thing you can count on in the world, it is that Captain America will not give up even when the situation is at its worst.
Except when he does, apparently. Giving Steve a time card without going out of prison may seem like a good idea on the surface, but in the end, all he does is retract all the way. What's the point of focusing on the perpetual motion machine that is Steve Rogers – the constant assurance that no matter how dark, no matter how much lost, you can always move forward – if the ultimate reward is to be exactly what he was told he could not do; that he spent his life and five movies going farther?
What does not mean nothing of the total loss that results is profitable every moment of his solo trilogy. Do you remember the importance of his chorus "I'm with you until the end of the line" with Bucky Barnes? I hope you do it – there is an official licensed product with this line printed on it. Fans have tattooed it on the body. It's rising a lot, and for a good reason. It was not quite subtle with regard to large symbolic gestures and it was an important part of not one, not two, but three individual films. It's funny like now, it looks more like "I'm with you until the exact moment I decide to stay out." Even more funny, how this line, perhaps the most memorable Captain America line of the entire MCU, next to "I can do it all day" – another thing that apparently is not true – does not receive any call or call. back in a movie that is about 90% screaming and remember memorable moments MCU.
It's cheap, not romantic, and an unnecessarily dull advantage to an otherwise powerful bow. The lesson that should be on the treatment of grief and filming into the future has become a wink of reckless eye to return to the past. At this point, Steve's journey is no longer about the recovery process, but a message about You are miraculously presented with a quick fix so that your hard work and effort will not count.
Who, frankly, it is zero.
And, really, none of this even touches the fact that Steve and Peggy's soul mate relationship has been fostered during, what about, like a week in 1945? Perhaps he should have recovered. She certainly did. There was a whole TV show about it.
They deserved so much better both.
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