The first trailer for the fourth Avengers installment, Endgame, has finally hit the internet and we couldn’t resist breaking down some of the most exciting details from it.
Let’s face it, the ending to Avengers: Infinity War left the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a pretty bleak place. With Thanos snapping half of all living creatures in the cosmos to dust, our rag-tag group of heroes has suffered their biggest defeat to date.
As Steve Rogers so aptly stated in a voiceover during the trailer: “We lost friends, we lost family, we lost a part of ourselves.”
With so much to sift through and theorize about, we’re going to get right down to it. But first, we’re giving you a quick spoiler warning for any potential plot points and details we may have gleaned from the footage so far.
The most exciting details from the first ‘Avengers: Endgame’ trailer
Entering the Endgame
The title of Avengers 4, the last major team up movie where we will — presumably — see our core heroes together, should come as little to no surprise to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
We’ve heard the phrase uttered multiple times, after all.
Most recently, Doctor Strange told Tony Stark in Infinity War, just prior to being dusted by Thanos, that “we’re in the endgame now.” The title is a direct nod to that, and the movie being the only scenario out of over 14 million possibilities in which they won. That winning scenario, of course, required Tony Stark to survive. Which brings us to the next utterance of “endgame.”
In Age of Ultron, Tony tells Rhodey and Steve, “We’re the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That’s… that’s the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?”
Of course, Endgame has another meaning. In chess, the “endgame” strategy is when a player sacrifices several key pieces in order to win the game, placing their opponent’s King in checkmate. Which doesn’t exactly bode well for some of our favorite characters.
Where is Nebula?
When the trailer opened on the haunting footage of a stranded Tony Stark, drifting through space on the Benatar, waiting for the last of his oxygen supply to run out, we had one immediate question: Where is Nebula?
Nebula was on Titan with Tony, Peter, Doctor Strange, Star-Lord, Mantis, and Drax, though was the only survivor of Thanos’ snap, other than Tony himself. However, she is nowhere to be seen when the trailer opens. We do get a brief glimpse of her on the Benatar, touching her hand to Tony’s shoulder, but did she stick around after supplies and oxygen started to run out?
It’s equally as likely — at this point — that she stuck it out with Tony as her best means of survival, or that she managed to abandon ship somewhere along the way. The Benatar does have an escape pod.
Who will rescue Tony Stark?
Of course, it’s unlikely that Tony will meet his end at the beginning of the movie — which is where, we assume, the scene from the trailer will take place — so that begs the question of who will rescue him?
The most obvious answer would be Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel. Though we don’t know where in the universe she is, following the as-yet-unseen events of her solo movie, it is a pretty safe bet that she is somewhere in space — thus, the most aptly placed to pull off a rescue before Tony runs out of oxygen. Nick Fury did, before being dusted himself, manage to send off a distress beacon to Carol, so she at least knows that things are in a pretty dire place.
However, we’re going to throw out a wildcard option here. Could the recipient of Tony’s goodbye message, Pepper Potts, end up saving him instead? The clue could be in the name “rescue,” which is what Pepper’s own “Iron Man” suit is called. There have, after all, been sightings of Gwyneth Paltrow on set, sporting armor. Could the suits somehow be linked, and could Pepper suiting up ultimately save Tony? Only time will tell.
Farmer Thanos
Since snapping half of all living creatures from existence, Thanos has seemingly retired to a quiet life of farming on the “Titan II” planet he escaped to. The scarecrow, using his armor, is a direct nod to the Infinity Gauntlet comics — though Thanos’ retirement in those comics was due to a heavy defeat, rather than the victory we saw in Infinity War.
As he walks through one of his fields, we can see that Thanos still has his gauntlet, though it is significantly charred. When the Avengers regroup to try to reverse the effects of his snap, we could see Thanos back in action, but he may need to get some repairs done to the gauntlet first — or else, it may have one final “snap” in it. However, knowing the toll that it took on Thanos, it would be extremely unlikely that whoever managed to reverse it — potentially using the gauntlet — would survive.
Missing friends
Another shot that gave us pause during the trailer was one where Bruce Banner is despairing over their still missing allies. We know the fates of Scott Lang — trapped in the Quantum Realm after the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp — and Peter Parker — dusted on Titan — but Shuri is a whole other situation.
We last saw T’Challa’s sister in Wakanda, after Corvus Glaive attacked her facility, in an attempt to retrieve the Mind Stone from Vision. Though Shuri attempted to hold Corvus Glaive off, she was ultimately unsuccessful. Her fate, following that showdown, was a mystery once the credits rolled on Infinity War.
With Shuri’s “missing” status, it would be easy to assume she was dusted, alongside 50% of the universe, but the Russos have been tight-lipped on what, exactly, happened to her. Which leads us to believe that things might be more complicated than that. With the mantle of Black Panther left empty, Shuri could have taken that up in her brother’s stead, as she did in the comics, and gone rogue in an attempt to reverse things.
She wouldn’t be the only ally of the Avengers to have done so.
Ronin
Which brings us to the return of Clint Barton, formerly known as Hawkeye. Why formerly? Well, when Black Widow encounters him alone, in Japan, fighting off what appears to be the Yakuza, he is wearing an outfit that will be familiar to fans of the Marvel comics.
The outfit and weapon Clint has donned here is that of his Ronin persona, a mantle that he took on post-Civil War in the comics. It is distinctly darker, and Clint is looking far more haggard and haunted than when we last saw him in Civil War. So, there’s no doubt in our minds that Clint’s family fell victim to the snap.
Why Clint didn’t immediately seek out the surviving Avengers is a question that will likely be answered when Endgame debuts. Regardless, he appears to be on a mission. Perhaps he could have some information that will be key to reversing the effect of Thanos’ snap.
(And yes, we did notice that lingering glance from Natasha when she comes across him again. Before we discovered that Clint had his family from the Ultimates comics, most fans assumed that the movies would go down the road of exploring their complicated relationship. And, well, depending on how long Clint has to grieve, it might be something the Russos will look to revisit.)
‘This is going to work’
As the trailer comes to a close, we get our biggest hint yet at what the plan in Endgame to reverse the snap might be. (Well, if you haven’t seen some of the set photographs, of course.)
Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff share a moment between them, with Steve wearing his Winter Soldier stealth suit, and holding his compass — feat. Peggy Carter — from First Avenger. With so many nods back to Cap’s first few solo outings, could we be making a return to those timelines over the course of Endgame, in an attempt to change the future?
The ramifications of that could be huge, of course. Not only splintering the timeline — and look, we’re not saying we want this to result in 616!Hawkeye becoming a reality, but we want 616!Hawkeye to become a reality — but changing the outcome of the entirety of the MCU. We could see different characters taking on familiar mantles, the Sokovia Accords never coming to fruition. The possibilities are endless.
And, with this potentially being the last film in which we see Steve Rogers, it could also hint at a different fate for him, other than death: returning to his own time. Maybe Peggy will get that dance, after all.
‘Can you buzz me in?’
The trailer ends with the return of Scott Lang — a.k.a. Ant-Man — as he shows up at the new Avengers HQ, where Steve and Natasha appear to be holed up since the snap.
Scott, as we learned earlier in the trailer, was declared missing, due to getting stuck in the Quantum Realm. How he escaped, we don’t know yet, but both Steve and Natasha are as surprised to see him as we are. And that could be for good reason. In the top corner of the footage, the clip says “archive” with a possible date of 1983, potentially solidifying the time travel theory.
With the possibility of being able to use the Quantum Realm to travel through time, this could be another key to Thanos’ defeat. The van that Scott has in the footage does contain the quantum tunnel device. So, if he managed to escape, and drive across the country, it would stand to reason that the van could be somewhere close — though, admittedly, a few years older.
Could Scott communicate through archive footage across time to guide Steve, Natasha, and the other Avengers in reversing the snap? It’s entirely possible. (And could provide some much needed levity in a film that, at first glance, appears pretty dark.)