Captain's shield

[Psyren]

It's true that IM's snap was a much smaller alteration to the fabric of the universe than the other three.

With that said, Thanos and his army were at least a galaxy-class threat even without the stones. So anyone keeping on eye on his movements and those of his fleet would have noticed that (a) they all went to Earth and (b) were never seen again after that. I imagine that that, even moreso than the snap energy, is probably going to raise Earth's galactic profile considerably. On top of which, we are now the de facto base of operations for the remaining Asgardians, who themselves were a galactic power.



I'm curious as to the effects this might have on the setting going forward. Throughout Marvel Phases 1-3, Earth was viewed as a rustic and quaint backwater. Rocket's jabs in particular highlight this: "Take it easy, you're only a genius on earth pal." "The chitauri are the suckiest army in the galaxy!" Taking out Thanos and his fleet catapulted us into the Big Leagues. Could this be what, say, attracts Galactus? Will this get explored in Thor 4, Captain Marvel 2, Eternals, and Guardians 3?

[Cikomyr2]

It's true that IM's snap was a much smaller alteration to the fabric of the universe than the other three.

With that said, Thanos and his army were at least a galaxy-class threat even without the stones. So anyone keeping on eye on his movements and those of his fleet would have noticed that (a) they all went to Earth and (b) were never seen again after that. I imagine that that, even moreso than the snap energy, is probably going to raise Earth's galactic profile considerably. On top of which, we are now the de facto base of operations for the remaining Asgardians, who themselves were a galactic power.



I'm curious as to the effects this might have on the setting going forward. Throughout Marvel Phases 1-3, Earth was viewed as a rustic and quaint backwater. Rocket's jabs in particular highlight this: "Take it easy, you're only a genius on earth pal." "The chitauri are the suckiest army in the galaxy!" Taking out Thanos and his fleet catapulted us into the Big Leagues. Could this be what, say, attracts Galactus? Will this get explored in Thor 4, Captain Marvel 2, Eternals, and Guardians 3?

Anyone tracking Thanos and his fleet would just see it disappear in a time travel portal

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Anyone tracking Thanos and his fleet would just see it disappear in a time travel portal

For the timeline branch they came from yeah. But there were Ravager spaceships in ‘our’ timeline who witnessed Past!Thanos and his army getting dusted on Earth, and they’ve got no reason to keep quiet about it. So even if Tony’s Snap doesn’t leave galaxy-wide energy residue, people are still going to find out about it.

[Psyren]

Anyone tracking Thanos and his fleet would just see it disappear in a time travel portal

Well technically they only saw his flagship go into a portal. It was a BIG ship mind you, given how many Chitauri troops and vehicles they were able to cram into it, but still.

[Cikomyr2]

Well technically they only saw his flagship go into a portal. It was a BIG ship mind you, given how many Chitauri troops and vehicles they were able to cram into it, but still.

Then it's the extent of what was seen... No?

[Psyren]

Then it's the extent of what was seen... No?

What I mean is, Earth's reputation due to Endgame depends on what the rest of the galaxy know about Thanos' failed assault. His 2014 troops and anyone who was watching them from 2014 would be unclear. The 2019 world though, who's to say.

[Thrudd]

Has anyone else read Hickman's run on Avengers/New Avengers (should have been called Illuminati)? My guess is we're going to see something like that, eventually. It is a version of the "earth is the most important place in the universe" story, where the earth is the focal point around which the multiverse is collapsing. Like literally, different versions of earth are crashing into each other, resulting in both universes getting destroyed, unless one of the earths/universes can be destroyed first. Dr Strange (and Reed and Doom) plays a large role in this. The ultimate result is the total collapse of the multiverse, the creation of a world where pieces of different earths are combined via magic and preserved in its own dimension, and eventually earth and the multiverse being restored with some aspects/characters of different universes ending up on the same "prime" earth dimension (616). This is totally how we can get X-Men into the MCU proper.

Maybe after the multiverse is established a bit more in phase 4, I can see the destruction of the stones in our universe possibly being a catalyst for something bad happening, possibly the overuse of time/dimension travel being a problem, and possibly the fact that they brought stones from other universes to earth (even though Steve supposedly put them all back where they came from). In Hickman's story, it turns out that the Beyonders were behind everything all along, the multiverse is a big experiment to them, but it would make more sense for the MCU if they were rolled into the concept of Celestials, which I assume we'll be learning about a lot more in "Eternals". Maybe all the recent activity on earth just attracts their attention, and they start messing with things.

I strongly doubt most of the story would work for film, (since several important characters in it are already gone), but certain elements of it could totally work. Like another version of earth appearing, causing a crisis and characters traveling from one to the other; powerful cosmic beings messing with or trying to correct problems with the multiverse; Strange, Reed, Doom and other super-smart types possibly doing questionable things out of desperation to save their universe; the reveal of specific powers/entities that are present in each universe as a part of creating and maintaining it, that can become embodied in people (Shang Chi ultimately gets one of these powers in Hickman"s story. His intro to the MCU is another sign they might be considering this).

Of course, we've got Wanda out there, too, which means some sort of M-Day is probably around the corner- her rewriting reality on a large scale might cause a cosmic crisis, as well.

[Mordar]

Three times

I'm assuming Iron Man's snap was of big enough impact...but if Thanos' forces were just the one shipload, perhaps not.

- M

It is unclear if the Iron Man snap would impact the entire universe

What I mean is, Earth's reputation due to Endgame depends on what the rest of the galaxy know about Thanos' failed assault. His 2014 troops and anyone who was watching them from 2014 would be unclear. The 2019 world though, who's to say.

I assumed (yes, dangerous) that Thanos has/had a fleet (thus more than his flagship) and troops a-plenty, spread throughout the universe, and that IM's snap took all of them out. In my assumption, I would think that an awful lot of people would know/quickly learn that all of Thanos' forces were suddenly completely gone...and those attuned to the Stone's power would have put the two events together and reached a correlative conclusion.

Much like most everyone on Earth, though, I wouldn't expect but a tiny fraction of the beings of the universe to have such attunement. IIRC, the Avengers only found out about the second snap by specifically looking for the energy signature.

So cosmic powers, hyper-energy-conscious/sensitive individuals or cultures, and...anyone else that needs a plausible reason for suddenly coming to a backwater planet on the distal portion of a spiral arm.

- M

[Lvl 2 Expert]

For me, there is really only one probable explanation for the shield at the end of Endgame.

Universe A cap, is our cap. his shield is badly damaged. He takes the badly damaged universe A shield with him when he time travels to return all the infinity stones and Mjolinor to thier proper place in universe B|C|D.

universe B|C|D by the way, are the universe(s) that they harvested the replacement stones out of during the endgame time caper. It may have been one alternate universe, it may have been three (or four) depending on how you interpret it all.

After returning the stones, Cap either stays in universe B|C|D or a new alternate E. For the sake of this explanation, I'll call it Universe E.

Cap grows old with Peggy. At some point before intersecting with modern day, he must travel to the arctic, dig up the plane where Universe E Cap is entombed and salvage the Universe E shield. This is pretty awkward, as he probably leaves Universe E cap frozen. Who knows.

If you want to be charitable, perhaps he goes to Universe E Wakanda and convinces them to re-forge the Universe A shield, thus allowing the Universe E Cap to get un-tombed with shield at some point. I think its more likely, he just gets the shield from universe E.

Also, at some point in Universe E, he works with Universe E Tony or Universe E Hank or someone to make a pym-particle time machine like the one they used to send him back from Universe A.

He uses this time machine to travel to Universe A making sure to return in such a way to not interfere with his departure and hands over the Universe E shield (or re-forged Universe A shield) to Universe A Falcon.

Assumedly, he then returns to his point in time in Universe E to continue living his life there.

Too much work. While returning the stones, he just switches out his damaged shield for that of pre-battle Cap, who now fights the whole battle with a damaged shield instead of just the last part.

Or, you know, something something something during the last 75 or so years of his life. He may not be living in the future full of future tech, but a time in which people who originally worked on the shield are still alive is the next best thing. I'll even consider the option that this material has self repairing properties, given enough time.

But most importantly: this is a cinematic universe now spanning around 40 hours of so of cinematic content and more if you count the series'. If the writers almost explicitely tell me "yeah, you really don't need to know how this happened, it's kind of boring", I'll accept that. Apparently it did not make the list of the several hundreds most exciting and film worthy things to ever happen in the MCU.





As for the "other people can throw the shield" thing: Cap was a guy who could like, run twice as fast as a regular dude? I feel like much of the point of the character is that he is not Superman. He's a near regular dude who picks a fight with gods because "there's only one god mam, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that" (probably misquoting because I'm too lazy to look it up)*. He has strength, he has skill, he has moral character, but he ties it together with determination and hard work and all those words people want others to use while describing them. Even just the whole being an army captain thing: yeah, a captain is someone who has been successful. It's someone who became an officer and then got promoted. But they're still boots on the ground, they still eat dirt for a living, they're not beyond the grasp of mortal men/regular folks. If you want to be a captain you work hard, and you might make it. If you want to throw Cap's shield, same deal.





*= On a personal note: I feel like the Civil War scene where he beats up Iron Man is pretty weak precisely because of this. Yeah, he has some advantages in a small space and with Tony unwilling to use his more lethal ammunitions, but he still comes off as suddenly pretty darn powerful with little explanation.