#i'm not huge into analyzing and critiquing the mcu for the most part

[aparticularbandit]

What do you think would differ in the climax to CACW if everyone on Team Cap made it to Siberia with Steve and Bucky? As in, what if Sam, Clint, Scott and Wanda were in Siberia with Steve and Bucky instead of locked up in the Raft?

*It has been a while since I've seen this movie, so I did check plot summaries to make sure what I thought was correct. I don't tend to see MCU stuff more than once because, for me, at least, I just. don't like them that much. (Sometimes I go back to fact check stuff for fanfic, but like. probably not as often as I should, tbh.)

Well.

For the rest of Team Cap to be there, that assumes one of two things: 1) that they so completely defeated Team Iron Man that they all got to Siberia unimpeded or 2) Team Iron Man didn't make it to the airport in time to stop them (for any variety of reasons, which I don't want to get into because not necessary).

In either case, it assumes the rest of Team Iron Man chases after them, unless they got so beaten they couldn't follow for whatever reason, so like. let's be real, Disney doesn't want to pay that much money to do TWO mega battles, but we're having fun thinking things through here, etc. etc.

The first case means Team Cap doesn't get there quickly enough to save the Super Soldiers. The second supposes maybe they do. It also supposes that Tony doesn't end up finding out that Zemo framed Bucky (which he did post-airport fight. according to my plot summaries. because why would he have fought them in the first place if he'd known that. so).

We could go a really unfun route and assume that Tony and Team Iron Man see Steve and Bucky releasing the other Super Soldiers for rehabilitation purposes and battle over it, but I don't think Vis would go with that - and I honestly don't think Tony would go for that at this point either, which would really just lead to whether or not they listen to Steve and Bucky about Zemo - which. T'Challa is the one most likely to not listen at this point because revenge is his bag in this movie, but Vis could do some searching - or maybe did on the flight over - to figure things out. At which point, Wakanda would probably take Zemo and the Super Soldiers maybe, but you lose the whole punch Zemo wanted of Bucky killing Tony's parents and the betrayal of Steve knowing, which is really the crux of that last battle.

So I guess they wouldn't have much of a battle here, but it doesn't feel like a climax the way it should and would be not great story telling, if I'm honest. Also means this option - option two - would have no big battle between the two sides at all, unless we suppose the Super Soldiers activate immediately for whatever reason - maybe Zemo barks out the codes while the others are arguing - and then they fight them, but like. then you can get the shot from Tony in about this is why you wait and get all the info first with a quip back from Steve about how they hadn't been doing that in the first place - and it still doesn't feel like what the audience is paying for, which is the big fight between the two sides.

BUT if we're going more far-reaching consequences, they're all still together when Infinity War comes around, instead of scattered because half of them are fugitives, which would probably have helped with the whole Thanos thing. (Because Vis wouldn't have been offline! But then you don't have Vis clearly wanting to choose Wanda, the fugitive, over what he's supposed to be doing - and you also lose that he's still aiding and abetting a fugitive - like, you lose some of the weight of his decisions in their relationship because there would be no reason to be keeping their relationship secret, etc. etc. BUT also if they were all together, maybe he would have made it to Wakanda earlier and gotten the Mind Stone removed from him, so maybe he would have survived that, even though he likely wouldn't have survived the Snap. But that's me spitballing.)

Option One assumes that things progress more similarly to the movie, only Tony can't find out about Siberia from Sam because Sam's, you know, gone, so Vis would maybe have to try to track them, which means Vis at least would be with him (maybe), and like. at that point, even with the reveal about Bucky killing Tony's parents, there are too many people who could restrain him from that.

But you'd also have four people who have lived through their family being killed for no reason as a result of someone else in the room - Wanda, Zemo, T'Challa, and now Tony - so there's a possibility when it gets personal like that that Wanda, understanding where Tony is, might understand his desire for revenge and immediate want to kill Bucky, but like.

Again, you lose a lot of the weight of the moment. It's possible that Tony splits from the Avengers as a result of everything but that the rest of them continue as they had been, so you still have some semblance of a split while Tony mentally goes through some stuff, but that's different than the scattering we see at the end of canon. I still see his arc playing out roughly the same in Infinity Game, but you might get the added benefit of maybe Vis still gets to Wakanda early enough to not die - a lot of the Vis/Wanda differences you see as a long effect of Option Two would likely still play out here.