Marvel Risks Making Endgame’s Cruelest Lie Even Worse In 2023

Marvel’s What If…? season 2 is Marvel’s final release in 2023, and one fleeting scene that features in the trailer seems to worsen one of the cruelest lies from Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War. The ripple effects of MCU Phase 3’s climactic Avengers movies have persisted throughout Phases 4 and 5, with the effects of Thanos’ Snap being foremost among them. While the Avengers emerged victorious as a result of their efforts, there were casualties among the team that, according to Doctor Strange, could not have been avoided in the MCU timeline. Except it appears that they could, after all.

After peering into 14,000,605 different timelines, Strange assured Stark that there was only one future in which Thanos would be defeated by the Avengers. Specifically, the one in which Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark lost their lives after half of the universe lost theirs (before being Blipped back). Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, however, proved that this was a falsehood, as Earth-838’s Doctor Strange succeeded in defeating Thanos through using the Darkhold. While this led to an Incursion that would justify Earth-616’s Doctor Strange omitting that possibility, What If…? season 2 revealed that there may have been yet another, less destructive, route to success.

Captain America’s Fight With Thanos Makes Doctor Strange’s Endgame Lie Bigger

Doctor Strange – who was revealed to have never divulged details about the millions of possible futures in which the Avengers succeeded in Ant-Man’s book, Look Out for the Little Guy! – can be forgiven for skipping over futures in which an entire universe would have been destroyed as a result. A scene in What If…? season 2, however, seems to show Captain America successfully removing the Time Stone from Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet in the Battle of Wakanda. Assuming this is not followed by Thanos simply reinserting the Infinity Stone, it can be assumed that Cap’s success would have prevented the Snap entirely.

What If Season 2’s Thanos Fight Tease Puts The MCU In A Difficult Position

The outcome of this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trailer moment now puts the MCU in an awkward position. If, as it appears, the Avengers emerge victorious thanks to Cap’s slick moves in this universe, then it completely undermines the stakes of the same fight in Avengers: Infinity War, as well as Doctor Strange’s grim assurances on Titan. To avoid downplaying how hopeless the fight was, and making Doctor Strange’s lie look even worse, the MCU will presumably have to ensure that another rehash of the Battle of Wakanda still ends with Thanos’ snap. If that occurs, then What If…? Season 2 looks decidedly less interesting.

How The MCU Has Already Downplayed Avengers: Endgame

Neither outcome is enticing for the MCU, but this also isn’t the first time that it has appeared to downplay the climax of the Infinity Saga and the power of the Infinity Stones. In its attempt to introduce bigger stakes, Loki saw the Infinity Stones reduced to paperweights. New Asgard, meanwhile, made light of the Infinity Stones with its ice cream shop “Infinity Conez,” featured in Thor: Love and Thunder. Add to that the fact that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness depicted an impaled Thanos on Titan, and it looks like the MCU is gearing towards making Thanos look decidedly more small fry.

This makes sense given that Marvel must be looking to up the stakes in the Multiverse Saga. Minimizing the threat levels of the once terrifying arch-villain is an easy way of doing this, if somewhat frustrating for those invested in his villainy. It does, however, fly in the face of the fact that the MCU cannot stop referencing the impact of the Infinity Saga while halfway through an entirely new narrative arc. The best case scenario is that things aren’t exactly what they seem in the What If…? trailer, and that Cap’s success leads to a bigger loss in the long run.