The Marvel Cinematic Universe (*Endgame Spoilers*)

Before reading any further, this post does contain spoilers for Endgame, so if you haven't seen it yet, do so before reading this. I have seen all the Marvel movies except for Black Panther and Captain Marvel. I didn't see them because I was told by friends that the stories in them are not necessary for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which I will from this point forward refer to as MCU. So, before I watched Endgame, I did look up who dies. I did this because I didn't really want the anxiety of waiting to know to hang over me throughout the entire duration of the movie. My three favorite characters are Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Only one of these three characters die. Spoiler alert: It's Iron Man. Spider-Man used to be my favorite superhero, but that quickly changed to Iron Man. My choice superpower has always been flight, and Spider-Man and Iron Man are the only two superheroes that I have actually dreamed about being. One of the things that I had to do research on is why Tony Stark/Iron Man is the one that's chosen to die. For those wondering how he dies, on the internet, it says that he uses the infinity stones to wish Thanos and his army out of existence, but dies from the overwhelming power of the stones. While this is accurate, there is a bit more detail to it. The entire plot of the movie is to go back in time to get the stones before Thanos does, come back to present time, make everything back to the way it was before Thanos' destruction, and then use the Infinity stones to kill Thanos. They are able to do this, but there was one rather large unplanned occurrence in the plot. To retrieve the stones, 12 split into 6 different groups and go back in time to three different time periods. War Machine and Nebula go back in time to the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie where Peter Quill aka Star Lord arrives on a certain planet to retrieve one of the Infinity stones because there is a monetary reward for it. Now, Nebula is mostly robot but does have human in her. War Machine warns her to be careful because there might be traps inside of the structure that holds the stone. Not seeming to care much though, Nebula just walks right up to the infinity stone, puts her hand through the protective barrier, and grabs the stone, while burns her hand and lower arm in the process from the protective shield guarding the stone. She doesn't really seem to care because she can't really feel it. This wouldn't have been a bad thing if she wasn't a damn computer....well, part computer. In movies and tv shows that feature time travel, one of the most common features is that when you go back in time, there will be two of you in existence. At this time, Nebula hadn't yet turned her back on Thanos, so "past Nebula" was still on Thanos' side. Well, Nebula burning her hand sent a distress signal to the computer in her. Being both Nebula's are kind of the same person, they both share the same computer network, therefore the distress signal was also sent to bad Nebula's computer. Not knowing what was going on, Thanos went into her memories which were also unfortunately shared with the Nebula that turned her back on Thanos. Seeing all these memories, Thanos figured out the Avengers' plan and warped through the time loop to present day. After an all-out war between Thanos, his Army, and the Avengers, Thanos gets the Infinity stones again, while the gauntlet is activating on Thanos, Iron Man flies over to Thanos to get in a few punches, but Thanos pushes him away. The Infinity gauntlet then stops activating. Assuming it's fully activated, Thanos snaps his fingers, but nothing happens. Turns out that Tony managed to take the infinity stones from the gauntlet while he was getting a few punches in on Thanos before being pushed away. What's more? Tony made his own infinity gauntlet. He then snaps his fingers and one by one Thanos' army begins turning to ash. Thanos, realizing he's been defeated, then sits down before turning to ash himself. Tony then falls to the ground against a rock and appears to be in shock. After he manages to get a few words in with Peter Parker and Pepper, he dies because apparently, you have to be as big as Thanos or Hulk in order to not die from its power. I was curious as to why they had gone with Iron Man to kill off, and I got my answer. Apparently because out of all of the Avengers, he has gotten the most screen time out of all 3000 minutes of the MCU. This is actually true. The MCU all started with the first Iron Man movie back in 2008. He is not the first Avenger, however. Captain America is actually the first Avenger. Captain America came out after Iron Man, however, Captain America takes place during World War II, but Iron Man takes place during the present day. Captain Marvel takes place in the 90s, however, because she has so little screen time in Endgame, with no appearances in any other MCU movies besides her own, many Marvel fans don't really find her of significant importance to the MCU, which leads me to the other major death in Endgame, Black Widow. Everyone remembers that in Infinity War, Thanos had to kill Gamora in order to obtain the Soul Stone. Well, Black Widow and Hawkeye were tasked with this duty, and, unfortunately, the same rules apply to obtain. After much argument between the two, Black Widow ultimately jumps to her death. Many Marvel and MCU fans have voiced that this feels like a disservice to the character and that Captain Marvel should have gone instead. I agree for one reason: She has had the least amount of screen time.

Another thing that I didn't understand is what happens at the end of Endgame when Steve Rogers hands his shield to Falcon and tells him that the shield is his now. For those wondering, at the end of Endgame, Steve Rogers goes back in time with the Infinity stones to destroy them, however, when he comes back he is an old man. This is because he decided not to stay the same age, but to live his life with his first love, Peggy Carter. He then hands the shield to Falcon as a sign of passing the role of Captain America on to him. Why I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that he came back as an old man, I don't agree with him handing the shield to Falcon. Captain America is Captain America because during World War II he was injected with a super-soldier serum that gave him super strength and was then frozen to stop himself from aging. Falcon does not have super strength. He gets his abilities from the suit that he wears. Besides this, Falcon is Falcon. He is not Captain America. What I would have done is had Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter have a child that could have had the Captain America duties handed down to him.