#like. the fucking hawkeye show put more respect on her character than endgame did

[ice-sculptures]

Imagine a world where the Russos decided that CA:TWS was their crowning achievement (because it was!) and stopped doing MCU movies. Or movies in general.

you are right & i think we would all be happier if that had happened

[atrophiedcompassion]

more avengers endgame character comments, this time with full explicit spoilers post my second viewing

let me touch on cap again. i still love and adore his arc, but this time knowing it’s the last time seeing evans as cap made me hella emotional. i watched him and his itty bitty waist, atlasian shoulders and bubble butt like a hawk. for sure i will miss evans as cap a lot. a lot. a lot.

onto his final plot: recall that cap takes 4 vials of pym particles (pp) from hank’s lab in the 70s. two for him and tony respectively to get back to 2023. then one for him to get back from the 70s on the return of stones mission TO the 40s, where he can be with peggy. obviously when bruce sends him back on stone return mission, he uses newly obtained pp from hank himself. it is implied that hank helped, seeing him at the funeral. so, cap chills in the 40s and onward with peggy - and he had always been peggy’s unnamed husband, stashing the time gps properly and when peggy dies, steve having aged with her, he dons the bracelet again and returns as an old man to 2023 with the final vial of pp taken from the 70s. it is clear that his decision to go back, should the mission work and the snap reversed was coined upon seeing peggy in her office. it was the best char arc possible and i think killing cap without him ever getting that dance....no. that would’ve sucked. and i say kill because evans’ contract with marvel is up and he had already said goodbye. it was the most fitting arc and i still love it. even if it means no more evans cap :(

now. tony...on the rewatch, i still couldn’t believe the poison he spewed on returning from space. he tells cap he’s a liar and that he broke his promise to be there when they lose as well as when they win....but who the fuck never made that call! in two years?? cap offered an olive branch at the end of civil war. that phone and the message. steve had always been the bigger man and he was this time too. but tony...tony, apart from randomly keeping the phone as object on him at all times, he never made that call. he let resentment fester and carried on his adventures, allowing former allies and friends to be on the run...oh tony. how dare you spew such nasty words when you’re the one who never made amends?

however, on the rewatch, i kinda mellowed my stance on tony’s initial refusal to help with the time heist. becoming a parent changes people, even tony stark. he had a lot to lose, should things not go right with the time heist. he thought like a family man and father and not like an avenger. and now i can understand that more. because at that moment, tony was the only one who had something tangible to lose. steve, nat, etc. had not moved on. if anything, thor could snap out of his depression because he had already lost everything, same hawkeye, he could get his family back.

but tony...tony had a lot to lose. and his stance feels right. it’s funny that when he returns, he makes 3 conditions to cap: to undo the snap, to not lose what he got and to possibly not die trying. two out of three, eh!?

natasha....oh man. i ugly cried this time. and i think she indeed had nothing else to live for, and this was her purpose. i see folk wondering why nebula didn’t warn them....some saying that nebula didn’t exactly know. but she knew. she put 2 and 2 together. and she didn’t tell them on purpose. because what would that achieve?? i think half the magic of the soul stone is making the decision on the spot, having just learned what it takes. and nebula signs off saying the coordinates to vormir are all set, all they have to do is not fight/argue on the way there. can you imagine them knowing what it entails. all of them knowing when they were making the plans and having to deal with it and decide then? it’d be like wanda not killing vision in time and all the other bs of not sacrificing 1 for the good of trillions. nebula knew that the only way to get the soul stone is this way, sending unsuspecting people who had a strong relationship there. this is why these two, the absolute mortals unpowered avengers were sent there. they were the only ones with the bond strong enough for the sacrifice to work.

as for carol. i think she was brilliantly used. just a bit, to do some heavy lifting, to show her strength, but also not too much to crap all over the others. allowing the original 6 to have their day. however, if binary carol can fuck up a ship or a number of ships like they’re rags, why the fuck can’t she overpower thanos? i get why she was knocked down when he used the power stone, but before then, she shoud’ve wiped the floor with him just like wanda did. and adding carol’s kree training, she was supposed to be a much better fighter than wanda too. ah well, in the end, it all worked out and the incel voices yelling overpowered overpowered aren’t as many as there’d be should carol really had smashed thanos to pieces.

in the end, i guess all the OGs got what they wanted/deserved. cap got to have his life back. natasha got to give her life for the cause. hawkeye got his family back. thor was relieved of leading duties and can enjoy an adventurer life. bruce/hulk got to balance themselves. and tony/iron man, he got to be the ultimate hero, making the final sacrifice, when this time everything, including his family was in play. a neat callback to the line cap tells him in avengers that he’s not the guy to make the sacrifice play, and lay down on the wire (i saw that on reddit and while IM did sacrifice himself at the very end of that movie, with the nuke and lived by sheer luck, i think overall the entire avengers series’ been plagued with tony’s bs selfishness, which he finally avenged now).