Avengers: Endgame

I expected a lot of spectacle from Avengers: Endgame but I didn’t expect all the emotional catharsis the movie delivered. This was a fantastic movie and it was so much fun seeing it in a theater where the whole audience was severely amped up. People were cheering and hollering at the screen during the rousing moments, and were dead silent during the sadder parts.

I was wary of sitting in a theater for three hours but the movie didn’t feel that long. The middle section, when the Avengers travel through time in search of the six Infinity Gems, was pure Marvel, where countless comic stories involve the heroes splitting up to find objects of value and combining them into one to defeat the villain. It was amusing watching the team parade through greatest hits in movies such as the first Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy.

There was a touch of sadness in the midst of all the fun. Half the universe’s population dying is of course unimaginable. I wish the movie had time to show more of the consequences of the halved population, as well as the consequences of what happens when those people reappear five years later. It was an emotional roller coaster up to that final confrontation with Thanos. The Black Widow’s death was tragic and more meaningful that it drew on her decades-long comic history with Hawkeye. It was moving to see Captain America, bloodied and broken, stand up to Thanos as he did in the original Infinity Gauntlet.

Then the cavalry comes in, via teleportation discs from Doctor Strange moving the resurrected heroes to the battle, and it’s on. Seeing little groups of heroes appear out of nowhere to take on the Big Bad is a classic Marvel storytelling moment. There were so many great touches to this sequence, each of which got a huge cheer:

·      Captain America wielding Mjölnir in battle, proving that he is as worthy as Thor to carry it (something the comics use to signal that the situation is a true emergency, and a moment that took my breath away)

·      Black Panther and the Dora Milaje reappearing with the “Wakanda Forever” chant

·      The Scarlet Witch staggering Thanos with her power, living up to her true potential (git it, Wanda!)

·      Iron Man’s emotional reunion with Spider-Man

·      The women of Marvel—Captain Marvel, the Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, the Wasp, Okoye (and, I guess, Mantis)—gathering together (which I think was a really subtle callback to an obscure comic moment)

·      Doctor Strange holding up one finger surreptitiously to Iron Man, a winking acknowledgement that this is the one scenario of billions in which they will win

·      Cap finally saying the old battle cry “Avengers Assemble”

It just went on and on. It was a huge, fun, thrilling catharsis.

Then Iron Man makes the ultimate sacrifice, in a scene that was an amazing sendoff for his character. Pepper tells him she and their daughter will be OK and that he can rest. Tony Stark, who had settled into a quiet life and wanted no parts of superheroing, saves the universe.

Captain America gets a happier ending, going back in time to live out a full life with Peggy Carter, coming back as a 100-year-old man and passing the shield to Sam Wilson. The last scene shows the two dancing to a song they never got to dance to in the original timeline. It was a lovely, emotional, perfect end for this character.  

Avengers: Endgame made me reflect on how visible comic book characters are now as a medium. I read my first issue of the Avengers in 1983 and since then, in one form of another, I have a good chunk of the original run of the series. Yet in those early years, not a lot of the general public would have known who most of these superheroes were. Now they’re everywhere, and it’s amazing to see so many other people getting joy out of what has brought me joy.

The great thing about seeing this movie in a theater was that we could all react together. Each sequence in the battle with Thanos had its own group of people cheering for it. Everybody had their own favorite character to root for. Someone was cheering for the Scarlet Witch (tied for my favorite character with Storm) and it just made me feel this stranger and I had something in common, a fleeting connection with someone I’ll never meet.