Avengers Endgame / Tropes A to C

Tropes A to C | Tropes D to G | Tropes H to O | Tropes P to Z | YMMV | Trivia

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Avengers: Endgame provides examples of the following tropes:

Spoilers for all preceding Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, as well as this one, will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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• 11th-Hour Ranger:
  • Captain Marvel. After being absent from Earth's events throughout the MCU timeline, she returns to assist the other survivors of Thanos's culling of half of all life in the universe. Then she leaves again when Natasha dispatches several Avengers on missions in space, only to show back up for the final battle.
  • Hawkeye is the last to join the group, having been absent from Avengers: Infinity War due to his house arrest after Captain America: Civil War and taking up vigilantism as Ronin after the time skip.
  • Ant-Man, Rocket, Nebula, and Captain Marvel are now officially members of the Avengers.
  • Pretty much everyone resurrected from the first film in the climatic battle.
  • The Wasp and Pepper Potts (in her own suit of Iron Man armor) also join the battle.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, you may well spot Howard the Duck brandishing a gun with the Ravagers as they head into battle.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The bulk of the movie takes place five years after Infinity War, which was set in 2018, so therefore set in 2023.
• The New '20s: By extension of being set in 2023, this film ends up taking place in this decade, which ultimately sets the stage for future MCU installments.
• The '70s: Steve and Tony travel to 1970 to get the Tesseract after the previous attempt in 2012 failed spectacularly. The opening scene shows a carful of hippies (among them Stan Lee in his final cameo appearance) driving by the entrance of Camp Lehigh and jeering, and later, Howard asks if Tony is a beatnik, due to his facial hair.

A

• Abdicate the Throne: Thor declares Valkyrie the ruler of New Asgard, after commenting that for the first time in a thousand years, he won't have to be who he's supposed to be, while acknowledging that Valkyrie was essentially ruling New Asgard already while he spent the last five years doing nothing but drinking, eating junk food, and playing video games.
• Aborted Arc: The Sokovia Accords are totally unmentioned throughout the movie, Steve Rogers and his allies are no longer fugitives, and Hulk is able to operate in public to the point where he poses for selfies with kids. Justified due to how the Snap broke Earth's ruling bodies — Nick Fury and Maria Hill are gone (so probably no SHIELD), Thaddeus Ross is gone, and we're told world governments are in pieces. It seems like the Avengers are the ones filling the power vacuum of keeping peace and order across the planet, so presumably no one else has the means to bring legal action against them, and if they do then they'd probably not because they need their help now.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade:
  • Stormbreaker, which not only decapitates a weakened post-snap Thanos with a single strike, but later in the climax starts to cleanly dig into Thor's armor when Past Thanos is pushing it into his chest, while Thor is also trying to push it away.
  • Thanos's double-bladed sword, which is sharp enough to take chunks off of Cap's famously "unbreakable" vibranium shield.
  • Clint's sword is not as impressive as the other two, but it is nonetheless shown to be able to slice an Outrider in two.
  • Valkyrie's lance is capable of slicing into a Leviathan's armor plating like a hot knife through butter. This is the armor about which Jarvis once said "we will lose power before we break through that shell."
• Achilles in His Tent:
  • Of all the Avengers, Thor takes the events of the Snap the hardest. Five years later, he's become an overweight, alcoholic shut-in who spends his days drinking beer and hanging out with Korg and Miek as they play Fortnite. Rocket and Hulk coax him into coming out of retirement, but he doesn't start to get his groove back until after getting a pep-talk from his mother while time-traveling to Asgard in 2013.
  • Tony initially refuses to help with time travel, because he can't risk his life with Pepper and Morgan. However, after the others instead go to Banner, he's shown washing the dishes so distracted he drops the sprayer and douses himself. Then he heads downstairs and solves the problem of time travel.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Tony absently refers to Doctor Strange as the "Bleecker Street Magician" at the beginning of the film. The actor who plays Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) played the title character in Sherlock, an in-joke made even more ironic since Robert Downey Jr. also played Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Elsewhere in the film, Robert Downey Jr. starred with another actor who played Sherlock Holmes, James D'Arcy, who played Edwin Jarvis, played Sherlock in Sherlock: Case of Evil. Interestingly, Stephen Strange's address 177A Bleecker came from the comic book and was not a direct reference to Sherlock.
  • Korg is seen wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a pineapple print that's identical to the one Taika Waititi wore during the promotional tour for Thor: Ragnarok.
  • The fact that Nebula encounters (and then kills) her 2014 counterpart might not exactly be a coincidence considering Karen Gillan previously played a character who has encountered past and future versions of herself—sometimes to argue with them, but also sometimes to flirt with them.
• Adaptation Expansion: The movie actually shows the fallout of Thanos's victory following the Snap. In the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, the Snap occurred within the first few pages and the counterassault (and subsequent Reset Button) came within 24 hours, too short a time-frame to display any real consequences that such an event would have on the population.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • In New Avengers: Illuminati #2, Reed Richards attempted to destroy the Infinity Stones with the Infinity Gauntlet, and failed. In the movie, it works.
  • The Secret Empire's infamous line of Captain America saying "Hail HYDRA" to reveal himself as a HYDRA Agent appears, but in the context of him pretending to be one.
  • Blink and you miss it, but when the climatic fight is happening, as Stark is fighting against Thanos, there's a moment when the titan grabs Iron Man, and looks like he is about to split him in half, like in the comic "Thanos Wins."
• Adaptational Protagonist: In The Infinity Gauntlet, the Avengers are basically there to help up the death toll and make for an exciting battle with the all-but-godlike Thanos. In particular, Iron Man has his head unceremoniously pulled off and Captain America is the last man standing before Thanos shatters his shield and snaps his neck. Instead, Adam Warlock is the one who plans and finally carries out a plan to bring Thanos down. When the story was adapted into the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers take center stage, with Iron Man being the one to put Thanos down once and for all; at this point in the MCU, Adam Warlock had yet to exist aside from a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and would not surface until the aftermath in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
• Adaptational Timespan Change: In The Infinity Gauntlet, the heroes undo the effects of the Snap within a day of it occurring. In the movie, it takes the heroes five years to undo the damage.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Zigzagged with Thanos:
  • His comics counterpart is an unrepentant genocidal madman who only sought to conquer the universe and wipe out half of all life to appease his mistress, the literal personification of Death herself. The first film changes his motivation to where he still sought to wipe out half the universe, but made him into a Well-Intentioned Extremist who was trying to prevent an overpopulation crisis on every world before it claimed the universe like his own planet was. The Avengers are still out to stop him, but they question his methods of solving the crisis rather than the reasoning as to why he's trying to accomplish it. Then, when the team encounters a past version of the Mad Titan while trying to undo the damage he caused in Endgame, he decides to wipe out the entire universe and start over because he believes the universe is ungrateful for his sacrifices, proving he's no better than his comics counterpart.
  • By the same token, he's shown to genuinely care for his daughters (well, Gamora anyway Nebula not so much), showcasing that, unlike his comics counterpart, who treated his children as tools, he is capable of love. It brings him to tears when he's forced to sacrifice Gamora for the Soul Stone, as he doesn't want to kill her, but he can't give up his goals for her sake. Before Thor kills him, he also admits to Nebula that he treated her too harshly.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, after the events of The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos comes to realize he's not worthy of wielding the god-like powers of the Infinity Gems, so he eventually becomes an Anti-Villain who often fights on the side of the heroes. Here, there is no such Heel–Face Turn: the older version of Thanos remains convinced his actions were justified, while the 2014 version is even more omnicidal than in the previous films.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Captain Marvel was heavily featured in the promotional material for the film, especially after her own movie proved to be a huge hit at the box office. Despite this, she disappears after the fight with Thanos in the first act, and is absent from the film until the final battle. This is pretty much a repeat of what happened with Black Panther in the marketing for Infinity War, right down to the ads overselling the size of his role due to the success of his solo movie. Justified due to her abilities matching if not exceeding those of Thanos (without the help of a stone); and when she does appear in the final battle, she proves to be a difference-maker, destroying Thanos's ship and outclassing the Mad Titan himself. She also had other planets to mind that didn't have heroes of their own.
  • Okoye is also featured prominently in the American theatrical poster, as is Valkyrie in some of the international ones. Like Captain Marvel, they don't get to do much until the final fight with Thanos's forces.
  • Wong is shown in one of the "Avenge the Fallen" posters in color but much like Captain Marvel, Okoye, and Valkyrie, doesn't appear until the Avengers really need them.
• An Aesop:
  • Thor learns that the measure of a true hero isn't living up to the expectations of others, but by doing your best being a decent person that is true to yourself.
  • Also, after loss comes second chances: whether it be a chance to take back what you lost, or build something new out of what you have left. Ultimately, the Avengers realize this and use this to their advantage (such as when Steve and Tony, after losing their chance to gain the Tesseract, stay determined and resourceful and find another way) which ultimately ensures their victory; while Thanos, who is given a second chance to achieve a permanent victory in his world (by learning from the Avengers' actions and doubling-down on his plan to erase 100% of the universe rather than just 50%), instead goes for the much more brash and careless option and ultimately ensures his own demise.
  • Being a hero requires being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Avengers spend most of Infinity War trying to find a way to extract the mind stone from Vision without killing him because to quote Steve, "they don't trade lives". They run out of time and ultimately Wanda has to do what they've been putting off the whole movie. However Thanos is able to use the time stone to rewind his destruction and complete the gauntlet, leading to the snap. This time around no one hestitates to lay down a life to stop Thanos. Clint and Natasha are both willing to throw themselves off the cliff to get the soul stone, Bruce wears the gauntlet to snap everyone back despite not knowing exactly what it will do to him, and then Tony also uses the gauntlet knowing it will kill him.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Just like his comics counterpart, Steve retires and passes the shield to Sam Wilson.
• After the End: The story shows how the world has been dealing with the loss of half of all life in the universe in the five years since the prior movie, which isn't great despite what Thanos may think. People are traumatized, cities are quiet and empty-feeling, and no one can really bring themselves to move on or even do anything. Steve has actually started a support group for people in order to try and get them to move on with life and continue.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • The prime Thanos, while he succeeded in wiping out half the universe, believed he was doing it for a very noble cause, so he's not entirely unsympathetic. Thus, some may find it a little sad to see him overpowered by the Avengers and executed by Thor.
  • Once Thanos and his forces are now on the receiving end of the snap, you can just see it in his eyes that he knows that he's doomed. He rests in the desolate Avengers HQ, looking up with an expression of pure agony as he slowly lowers his head; eyes closing, and body sulking down to the ground silently, filled with despair as he surrenders, awaiting the inevitable.
  • As they turn to dust, Ebony Maw reaches out to Thanos in confusion and terror, and Proxima cradles the dead Corvus as she dies (he was ran through by Okoye earlier).
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Korg and Miek are playing Fortnite when Rocket and Professor Hulk find them and Thor in New Asgard.
• Alien Invasion:
  • The Chitauri invasion of New York City during The Avengers is revisited, although most of the action takes place after the invasion has been dealt with.
  • 2014 Thanos makes his way to the Earth of the prime timeline, along with his whole army. Only this time the Avengers and their allies are all able to gather at the same place for a welcome committee.
• All Deaths Final: At least in the case of the Soul Stone and who is sacrificed to retrieve it. They can't be brought back to life, even with all six Stones. Likewise, a being who uses all six Stones but isn't strong enough will also die and can't be brought back. It's also implied that only the people directly killed by the Snap were brought back and not, say, the people killed when millions of cars on the road suddenly lost their drivers, or anyone who was killed during Thanos's quest for the Stones.
• All for Nothing:
  • By the end of the first act, the Avengers find and kill Thanos, but even before Thor decapitates him, they realize it's all for naught since Thanos already destroyed the Infinity Stones beforehand, robbing them of a means to undo the damage he has done, and reducing them to just trying to pick up the pieces, at least until Scott shows up with an idea.
  • 2014 Thanos loses it after learning that, despite achieving his goal of bringing balance to the universe and sacrificing everything to accomplish it, far from being appreciated for his efforts, the entire universe reviles and hates him as a mass-murdering monster and will pursue any opportunity of undoing his work. The realization leads Thanos to conclude his only option is to destroy the universe and create a new one that will appreciate his efforts.
• All There in the Manual:
  • In a BGR article, the Russo brothers answered a few of the movie's hanging questions. One of the biggest Plot Holes was just how did Past-Thanos bring his entire ship and army into the future? There was no explanation in the movie, nor did any of the character question how it happened.
    Q: How did Thanos bring his army to the future?
    A: There is a guy called Maw in his army, he was a great wizard. Thanos himself was a brilliant genius as well. Those two easily reverse-engineered and mass-produced Pym Particles.
  • The ages of Scott Lang's age-altered selves are given in the credits as 12, 93, and baby.
  • Thanos's double-bladed sword is described as made of uru metal, like Mjölnir and Stormbreaker, explaining why it can cleave Cap's shield.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The finale begins when Thanos from 2014 arrives at the Avengers Headquarters and the resulting battle utterly obliterates and destroys the compound.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Tony Stark and Nebula have run out of food and water and are about to run out of oxygen on their way back to Earth on the Benatar, the Guardians' space ship. Cue Carol Danvers.
• Alternate Personality Punishment: In the aftermath of Thanos ending half of all life in existence, the heroes manage to assemble what's left of the team and beat the crap out of Thanos... who has taken up the Call to Agriculture and barely puts up any resistance. He doesn't even have the Infinity Stones anymore, having used their own power to destroy them, greatly weakening himself in the process. The Avengers kill him anyway, but it's obvious they feel no satisfaction or justice from doing so. Fortunately, they go back in time to retrieve the stones to undo the damage and are followed by pre-snap Thanos, resulting in a Thanos who is very much satisfying to kill, even if he technically hadn't killed half of all life (it helps that having seen the results of only killing half of it, he decides to kill the entire Universe and start over so no one will remember his role).
• Alternate Self: When travelling in time, some Avengers meet past versions of themselves. The "alternate" part is in full motion when each of these timelines is changed by them.
• Alternate Timeline:
  • Changing any event in the past creates one of these, while the traveler's own past remains untouched. As such, the six timelines that the Avengers create include:
    • 1949: (4 years after Captain America: The First Avenger) The main timeline version of Steve goes here to spend his life with another timeline's Peggy Carter after World War II, before returning to his original timeline after her (presumed) death in 2016. As such, Steve is an old man when he returns. This one is a weird one because the writers and directors disagree on whether this was actually an alternate timeline, or whether it was part of the original timeline all along, with Steve actually being Peggy's mystery husband who was discussed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As the year Steve travels back to is 1949 and not 1945, this would still give the Agent Carter series plenty of time to take place.
    • 1970: After Hank Pym is distracted by a fake emergency call, four vials of the Pym particle go missing from his lab at the Camp Lehigh S.H.I.E.L.D. facility (granted they're only taken and used by Steve and Tony to get back to the present, but Hank and S.H.I.E.L.D. have no way of knowing this). Howard Stark also has a conversation with one "Howard Potts" (his future son Tony from the main timeline), and Captain America sees photographs on the desk inside the office of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director Peggy Carter that make it clear she never forgot him.
    • 2012: (right after the climax of The Avengers) Loki escapes custody with the Tesseract immediately after the Battle of New York and is never imprisoned on Asgard, and HYDRA agents believe Captain America is on their side (but 2012 Steve is unaware of this). The Ancient One learns of Doctor Strange's plan to stop Thanos years later, and Captain America is also made aware of Bucky's survival (although how much he believes this information is up for debate).
    • 2013: (during Thor: The Dark World) The Asgardian army chases a "rabbit" (Rocket) after it extracts the Aether from Jane Foster, while Frigga is made aware of a future Thor from a different timeline. Mjölnir is borrowed from this timeline. And similar to the missing baseball glove from the Barton farmhouse, while minor, the large can of beer that Thor leaves behind in Asgard can potentially trigger a (hopefully minor) comedic butterfly-effect that will nevertheless still change the future.
    • 2014: (right before Guardians of the Galaxy) Thanos and his forces (aside from Ronan and Korath) completely disappear from this timeline and are killed along with that timeline's Nebula in the main timeline, while the Gamora of this timeline lives on in the prime timeline, replacing her dead original future self. With this timeline's version of Gamora now in the main one, the Guardians of this timeline likely never form, especially since Peter Quill was knocked out before he could get the Power Stone (potentially giving the Kree time to get it after Cap puts it back).
    • 2018: A baseball glove disappears from the Barton household. This might not have any significant effect on world events, but butterfly effect, so you never really know.
  • This is also why Steve goes back to the various timelines to return their Infinity Stones and Mjölnir: without them, the bad guys would never be stopped in that timeline's version of Doctor Strange (Time), Captain Marvel (Space), Guardians of the Galaxy (Power), Thor: The Dark World (Reality & Mjölnir), and so on. While there are likely some major and irrevocable changes, this will mitigate some of them a great deal.
• Alternate Universe: This is the primary difference between scientific time travel (via the Quantum Realm) and magical time travel (as has been shown with the Time Stone). As explained by Professor Hulk and later the Ancient One, quantum time travel creates a new alternate reality that diverges at the point you arrive, so that everything that follows has no effect on the original timeline.
• Amazon Brigade: During the final battle, when the Avengers are relaying the Infinity Gauntlet towards the Quantum Tunnel, Spider-Man passes it off to Captain Marvel, who gets an escort from every single active female Avenger or ally: Okoye, Shuri, Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, Gamora, Nebula, Mantis, the Wasp, and Pepper Potts in her Rescue suit.
• Ambiguous Situation: After Steve returns Mjölnir and the Infinity Stones, and goes to live in the past with Peggy Carter, did he create an Alternate Timeline, or was he part of the original timeline all along? Since the year Steve travels back to is 1949, this allows plenty of time for the Agent Carter series to take place before Steve comes into the picture. The writers have suggested that Steve was Peggy's mystery husband all along, but the directors have stated that Steve simply went to live in an alternate reality, leaving this situation up in the air.
• Amicable Exes: After briefly touching on their quasi-relationship in Avengers: Infinity War, Natasha and Bruce have reached a version of this following the time skip.
• And I Must Scream: Averted. Upon hearing that Scott went into the Quantum Realm just before the Snap, Natasha muses that it must've been torture for him to be trapped down there for five years and wonders how he didn't Go Mad from the Isolation. Scott reveals that to him, it was only five hours.
• And Starring: Theatrical posters only have the singular "With Josh Brolin as Thanos." The end credits to the film actually has enough people being credited this way that the list is as long as the cast listing for other films in the MCU: "Featuring Vin Diesel as Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, with Gwyneth Paltrow, with Robert Redford, with Josh Brolin as Thanos, with Chris Pratt, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury." And then it concludes with the original six, including the actors' signatures along with the usual titles.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • While most of the Avengers' arcs are tied up with death or a happy retirement, Thor joins the Guardians of the Galaxy (at least temporarily) to do a cosmic version of Walking the Earth.
  • Steve gives Sam the shield and deems him the new Captain America.
• Animal Motifs: The Benatar resembles a swallow in the contre-jour shot where it is drifting around in space. Being a monogamous migrating bird, swallows are a symbol for loyalty, hope, and the safe return home after a long journey. Thanks to Captain Marvel, Tony and Nebula make it back home in one piece.
• Answer Cut:
  • When Scott Lang discusses his plan with Cap and Black Widow, he seems to get the idea that they don't know how to help him. He asks, "So who do we go to?" Cut to a shot of Tony's new home as he walks out to look for Morgan.
  • After Stark rejects them, Cap comments, "We're going to need a really big brain." Doubtfully, Scott asks, "Bigger than [Stark]'s?" Cut to a shot of Banner/Hulk eating his food, angled to show off his huge head first.
  • When Rhodey and Nebula arrive on Morag, Nebula warns Rhodey that several people (including 2014 her) are also searching for the Power Stone at the same time. Rhodey asks, "Wait, where are you right now?" Cut to 2014 Nebula trying to fight aliens.
  • Thousands of people arrive to the Avengers HQ battlefield via sorcerers' portals. Strange asks Wong, "Is that everyone?", to which Wong responds, "You wanted more?" Then Giant-Man bursts out of the rubble with Rocket, Hulk, and Rhodey, and they all get in position to fight.
• Anti-Role Model: Howard Stark admits to "Howard Potts" (i.e. time-traveling Tony) that he is dreading the possibility of his son turning out like him, and hopes he becomes better than him.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People:
  • Downplayed. The film doesn't call attention to this trope, but it seems to be in effect. Despite the elimination of half of all life in the universe, human civilization continues without collapsing into dystopia. This applies to some specific heroes in particular. Banner despite being a hero before the tragedy ultimately takes his defeats as a learning opportunity and reconciles his Banner/Hulk sides to become the best version of himself. Nebula goes on to fully complete her Heel–Face Turn by working with the heroes to rebuild and thwart the event.
  • It's also subverted. While civilization overall seems to have managed to muddle through, people are still traumatized over five years later. People just going out on a date end up crying during the date, but this is considered so normal that they still schedule another one. From hints Carol gives during her briefing with Natasha, other planets aren't doing much better. The inability to move on is so bad that when 2014 Thanos shows up, he decides that the only way to get things moving again is to destroy everything, and start the universe from scratch.
• Apocalypse How: The film shows the aftermath of the Snap at the end of Infinity War. Even worse, once an Alternate Timeline's past version of Thanos becomes aware of what's happened in the main timeline's present, he goes there and he seeks to this time use the Infinity Stones to inflict a Class X-4 and then remake the universe In Their Own Image.
• Apocalyptic Log: Tony Stark records a message on one of his helmets while drifting out in space. With his food and water gone, and his oxygen about to run out, he intends for it to be his final message.
  Tony: Hey, Miss Potts. If you find this recording... don't feel bad about this.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Discussed, when the Avengers talk about Scott's time travel idea which Nat really takes seriously, much to Scott's own amazement. Natasha points out she gets "emails from a raccoon" — time travel wouldn't be hard for her to get behind.
• Arc Number: 47, a recurring one for the MCU films as a whole. This time it's Bunker E-47 at Camp Lehigh that Steve and Tony have to infiltrate, to retrieve the Tesseract and a supply of Pym particles.
• Arc Words:
  • "Whatever it takes" for the surviving Avengers determined to bring back the people they lost to the Decimation. These are the words that Black Widow and Hawkeye repeat when they realize that the Soul Stone demands a sacrifice from one of them.
  • "Move on" in the early part of the movie, as the characters try to adapt to the effects of the Decimation, and that they had no way of undoing it, at first. It's also relevant in how Thanos expresses disappointment at the heroes for trying to undo his future self's work.
  • "I am inevitable" from Thanos. The line is first used by the retired Thanos defiantly saying that his work is irreversible to the Avengers. It is later repeated when Past Thanos watches the recording of his future death. And it is the last thing that Past Thanos says before realizing that Iron Man has the Infinity Stones and uses them to kill him and his army, thereby averting the "inevitable" altogether.
  • "I am Iron Man": Going all the way back to the first Iron Man movie and the start of the MCU; Tony repeats it at the end of the third Iron Man movie, and repeats it one last time here, before he uses the Infinity Stones against Thanos and his army.
• An Arm and a Leg: When the remaining Avengers get the drop on Thanos on the Garden planet, the first thing done after immobilizing him is Thor cutting his gauntlet arm with Stormbreaker. The fact that Thanos never removed it despite the Infinity Gauntlet no longer sporting the Stones (and thus being now useless) hints that it had fused with his arm after its last use.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: When Hawkeye's daughter is practicing archery with him she raises her elbow upwards when pulling back the bowstring instead of keeping it horizontal. Despite that she hits the target dead centre and Hawkeye compliments her technique.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Hawkeye has always been a supporting character, and of the original six Avengers, he's gotten the least time to shine out of anyone. Here he gets his own major plotline revolving around his relationship with Black Widow, and the scene of his family disappearing while he's on a picnic with them is the very first scene of the movie — before even the Marvel logo!
  • Ant-Man, when looked at from a broader scale. He is considered one of the main stars in the movie, and this may be a surprise as he wasn't introduced until the end of Phase 2. Both of his movies, while not slouches at the box-office overall, trail behind the other MCU stars and are relatively self-contained, while his role in Civil War was rather minor, not to mention that he sat out of Infinity War. Here, while the movie also emphasizes the six founding Avengers, Ant-Man's involvement is very important to defeating Thanos. This is not unlike Doctor Strange's role in Infinity War.
  • Nebula. She started out as a secondary villain — basically just there so Gamora had somebody to fight in the third act. Now she's one of the (many) central characters in the biggest film event in history, and half the plot hinges on her.
• As Long as There Is One Man: Done without a single line of dialogue. Thanos has taken out the Avengers Complex, most of the remaining Avengers are trapped in the rubble, Thor and Tony are down for the count, and only Steve is left standing against Thanos's entire army with nothing but Mjölnir and a broken shield. What does Captain America do when faced with these impossible odds? He tightens the straps of his shield over an arm wound and moves to take on the entire army alone, ready to go down fighting. That is, until he receives a radio transmission...
• Ass Shove: Thor's solution for NoobMaster69's trolling is threatening to do this to him with his own arms.
• Asshole Victim: Thanos at the end of the first act may have just become a peaceful farmer in his retirement from being an omnicidal warlord, but you'll still likely not shed any tears over him when the Avengers ambush him, cut off his arm, and eventually decapitate him. Clint's crusade against the criminal underworld also applies, as he butchers any cartel, yakuza thug, or other criminal scumbag he comes across.
• Astral Projection: When Professor Hulk gets impatient with the Ancient One, she forces Banner out of the Hulk's body in astral form. Banner then converses with her while the Hulk is left sleeping on a chair.
• Audible Sharpness: Stormbreaker makes its usual sounds flying through the air, cutting through things...and opening Thor's beer.
• Audience Surrogate: Scott acts as one throughout the film, being the guy completely shocked at how much the heroes and their world have changed since he last saw them, and desperate to get back what has been taken from them. Scott also bases his understanding of Time Travel on popular movies rather than an understanding of the actual science that would be involved. Tony and Bruce use this to distinguish between more science-based Time Travel Tropes and those less based on (currently understood) science.
• Aura Vision: Thor tries to trick Frigga into thinking that he's the Thor from her timeline, and fails miserably.
  Frigga: I was raised by witches, boy. I see with more than eyes, you know that.
• Avengers Assemble: Right before the final battle, Doctor Strange and a bunch of other sorcerers warp superheroes and various other warriors to the remains of the Avengers compound in order to fight off Thanos's invasion. The words are finally spoken by Cap, although he says it after everyone's assembled... which is actually true to the source material.

B

• Back for the Finale:
  • Lots of characters return for the final battle, including all the heroes who died in the original Snap. This even extends to Mooks on both sides; Thanos brings Outriders from Avengers: Infinity War, Chitauri and Leviathans from The Avengers, and Sakaarans from Guardians of the Galaxy. The Avengers get sorcerers from Doctor Strange, Asgardians from the Thor films, Ravagers (and Howard the Duck) from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Wakandan warriors from Black Panther.
  • Also, many of those who died in previous films (or haven't been seen since) are seen again as the Avengers travel through time. In New York: Loki, Brock Rumlow, Agent Sitwell, Alexander Pierce, and the Ancient One. On Asgard: Frigga, Jane, and Loki again. On Lehigh Base: A younger Hank Pym, Howard Stark, and Edwin Jarvis. On Vormir: Red Skull. And an older version of Harley from Iron Man 3 appears at Tony's funeral.
  • For the very first time, a character from the Marvel TV shows gets to migrate to the movies, when Edwin Jarvis is shown chauffeuring Howard Stark at the Lehigh military base.
• Back from the Dead: In the finale, Hulk un-snaps everyone dusted in Infinity War back into existence, eventually leading to a final confrontation between the heroes of Earth and Thanos's forces.
• Backported Development: When revisiting the events of The Avengers, Thor acts much more like his jokey and relaxed self as seen in Thor: Ragnarok, rather than the more serious Proud Warrior Race Guy he was in that movie. Furthermore, The Hulk is shown ranting about stairs in his traditional Hulk Speak, a sharp contrast to how most of his vocalizations in The Avengers were beastly roars (discounting his infamous "Puny god" one liner).
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Tony and Pepper guard each other in true Battle Couple fashion during final battle so neither is snuck up on.
• Back to the Early Installment: Thanks to Thanos destroying the Infinity Stones after his infamous snap, the Avengers have to use time travel to go to the past where they still existed so they can undo the snap. To find them they go to the events of The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians of the Galaxy. We get to see them arrive during the 2012 Avengers' famous pose, and right at the start of Peter Quill going after the Power Stone.
• Badass Army: The Avengers are joined at the climax of the film by practically every single heroic force introduced in the MCU, from the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Masters of the Mystic Arts, the Asgardians, the Ravagers, and the Wakandans to form one hell of an army of Superheroes, Kung-Fu Wizards, Norse gods, Space Pirates, Afrofuturist warriors, and a gun-toting, talking duck in a suit. They clash with Thanos's own forces, consisting of the Chitauri, the Sakaarans and the Outriders.
• Badass Boast:
  • In the finale, Wanda lands in front of Thanos with vengeance written on her face.
    Wanda: You took.... everything from me.
    Thanos: I don't even know who you are.
    Wanda: You will.
  • Few boasts can hold a candle to Tony Stark’s last words:
    Thanos: I am inevitable.
    Tony: And I... am... Iron Man. [snaps]
• Badass Fingersnap:
  • Once the Avengers collect the Infinity Stones, Bruce does it to bring back everyone turned to dust.
  • Once Thanos has the gauntlet and has taken out everyone trying to stop him, he snaps to fulfill his new plan, nothing happens. It turns out Tony took the stones, and does one to disintegrate Thanos and his forces.
• Bad "Bad Acting": When part of the Avengers time-travel to 2012 during the Battle of New York, they witness the Hulk throwing a fit. Professor Hulk is told to act like the Hulk to blend in, and he grumbles that it's "gratuitous", but he'll do it. He goes over to some vehicles and gives them a few unmotivated punches while lazily saying "roaaar".
• Bad Vibrations: Steve's bathroom mirror vibrates when Captain Marvel returns the Benatar to the Avengers Headquarters.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In 2012, Cap is inside an elevator full of HYDRA infiltrators within S.H.I.E.L.D. who refuse to give him Loki's scepter and get suspicious of his insistence. Looks like we'll get another elevator fight, right? Nope, Steve instead whispers "Hail HYDRA" in Jasper Sitwell's ear. Suddenly they all think he's a fellow sleeper agent and hand him the case, no questions asked.
  • In the final battle, Thanos has pinned Thor down and is trying to drive Stormbreaker into Thor's chest as payback for what Thor did to 2018 Thanos in Wakanda. As he's doing so, we see a close-up of Mjölnir being lifted. It flies, hits Thanos and causes him to lose grip of Stormbreaker, then flies back into the hands of... Cap.
    Thor: I knew it.
• Bathos: At the dramatic climax of the epic three-hour-long extravaganza, 2014 Thanos reclaims the Infinity Gauntlet, dramatically declares "I am inevitable," and snaps his fingers again, and... nothing happens. No flash of light, no dramatic explosion of energy, just a tiny, hilariously anticlimactic clink of metal. Even the music cuts out as soon as he snaps his fingers. And then the arrogant smile vanishes from Thanos's face as he looks over and sees that Tony Stark has the Infinity Stones.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: The Outriders are so inherently dangerous and numerous that Spider-Man immediately activates his Instant Kill function in his suit just so he can defend himself from them. Even then, they're still a big enough force to overwhelm him, forcing Captain America to intervene to help him.
• Battle Couple:
  • Couple Tony Stark and Pepper Potts suit up and blast through Thanos's forces. This includes a Back-to-Back Badass shot.
  • Scott and Hope get such a moment, the Wasp helping Ant-Man move through the battlefield by flying.
• Battle Cry:
  • After emerging, revived, through a portal onto the final battlefield, T'Challa leads the approaching Wakandan army in chanting in Xhosa, "YIBAMBE!" ("hold the line"), reprising the similar moment from Infinity War.
  • And of course...
    Captain America: [backed by every living hero of the movies, facing down the armies of Thanos] AVENGERS! [summons Mjölnir] Assemble.
• Battle in the Rain: Ronin vs. Akihiko in Japan while rain falls like the anguish in the former's heart.
• Beard of Sorrow: Thor, having wallowed in shame and self-pity for five years because he failed to kill Thanos in Wakanda, has grown a large, unkempt beard and is noticeably out of shape. Inverted with Steve Rogers, who shaves his beard off after his darkest defeat.
• Bear Hug: Upon meeting him again for the first time in years, Thor hugs Rocket enthusiastically. Rocket doesn't appreciate being pressed against Thor's beer belly, though.
• Beatnik: When Tony Stark and Steve Rogers go back to 1970 to retrieve the Tesseract and additional Pym Particles, Tony is mistaken for a beatnik by his own father because of his beard.
• Behind the Black: In 2014, Star-Lord completely misses War Machine sneaking up on him, despite the latter being in armor, to clonk him on the head, because Rhodey comes from off-screen. Quill was probably too busy dancing.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Scott Lang is comic relief for most of the movie, even though he's very important for the plot. Come the final battle, though, and as Giant-Man he punches Leviathans out of the sky and crushes Cull Obsidian (the strongest of Thanos's children in the previous movie) underfoot.
• Big Bad: Thanos, once again, is the villain the heroes need to defeat in order to bring back half of the universe. In a subversion, the Thanos that wiped out half the universe is killed in the opening act of the film, but this does nothing to undo the damage he did, and the movie instead focuses on trying to pull that off, specifically a journey for the heroes to bring back their loved ones. It is a time-displaced Thanos from 2014 that takes the role of Big Bad instead, after he learns the heroes are trying to undo his upcoming victory. Thanos becomes an even bigger bad, as now he isn't just trying to do a 50% depopulation, but totally wipe out the universe and restart it from the beginning.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Battle of Earth, a massive action scene involving 40 characters, all of whom have names and backstories. It's been hyped as one of the movie's selling points, even though none of it is shown off in the ad campaign for the film. It consists of pretty much every heroic force shown in the Marvel films coming together in one final clash against the Mad Titan's army amidst the ruins of the Avengers facility.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • When Tony and Nebula are left drifting through space in the Benatar, Captain Marvel finds the ship and returns them safely to Earth.
  • When Thanos's past self attacks the Avengers headquarters, Banner, Rhodey and Rocket are trapped in a section of the base about to be either crushed by debris or drowned. Fortunately, Scott is able to save them just in time for them to join the final battle.
  • Steve gets his own during Thor and Thanos's fight to the death, showing up to save the Asgardians with Mjölnir in hand.
  • Perhaps the biggest damn hero moment in the MCU happens right at the top of the final battle. When Captain America comes face-to-face with Thanos's enormous army, everything appears to be a lost cause... until Cap hears Sam Wilson's voice call out "On your left". Cue every resurrected superhero alongside Asgardians, Masters of the Mystic Arts, the Ravagers, Wakandans, and more emerging from portals to create an army of their own.
  • Cull Obsidian gets Korg in a headlock and is clearly overpowering him, but Drax runs in to start stabbing his back, giving Korg an opening to fight back.
  • Spider-Man gets one when he saves Iron Man from Cull Obsidian by pulling The Brute away from him for Giant-Man to step on and kill.
  • Captain Marvel again in the climax, when her presence alerts Thanos's ship and they stop their bombardment on the battlefield to focus on her. She then destroys the entire ship herself in a matter of seconds.
  • Rocket is about to be devoured by a huge flying monster when it and the rest of Thanos's entire army is Reduced to Dust.
• Big Damn Hug: During the climax, Tony emotionally hugs Peter Parker upon seeing him revived for the first time in five years, with Peter admitting it feels "nice."
• The Big Damn Kiss: Endgame closes on Steve and Peggy passionately kissing while dancing to the tune of "It's Been a Long, Long Time" when he goes to 1949, fulfilling a lost romance that has endured for most of the saga's history.
• Big Damn Reunion: Towards the end of the film. Cap is all alone to face Thanos's massive army, until the resurrected Sam Wilson comes in, along with every previously snapped hero for a five-year-overdue reunion.
• Big Eater: Aside from Thor, who's seldom seen not eating, Professor Hulk has an absolute ton of food for his breakfast.
• Big Guy Rodeo:
  • When Thor fights Thanos, Thanos catches Stormbreaker, but Thor tries to force the blade towards him. Captain America jumps on Thanos's back, grabs the axe, and pulls it towards Thanos.
  • As the final battle gets heated, Drax the Destroyer jumps on Cull Obsidian's back to stab him and help save Korg, who the former had put in a headlock.
• Big "YES!":
  • A comedic one, when 2012 Thor revives 2012 Tony with Magical Defibrillator.
  • Rocket shouts "OH, YEAH!" when Captain Marvel enters the battle and destroys the Sanctuary II.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The Avengers finally repair the damage Thanos has done to the universe at the end of Infinity War by traveling back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones across different timelines, reviving everyone who got dusted by Thanos's fingersnap, and culminating in Tony using his own Infinity Gauntlet to, in turn, fingersnap Thanos and his army into oblivion. Unfortunately, their victory came at a steep price: Natasha sacrifices herself to help Clint re-acquire the Soul Stone in Vormir, Tony dies using the Stones on Thanos, and Steve, having returned the Stones to their original timelines, chooses to stay in the 1940s and live the rest of his days in married retirement with Peggy, though at least he lives long enough to pass his shield and mantle to Sam Wilson. Additionally, the Avengers H.Q. has been completely annihilated by Thanos's forces, and the future of the team itself is left ambiguous at the end of the film.
  • Furthermore, things are not fully restored to pre-Infinity War days. While the 2014 version of Gamora lives on in the current timeline, the version of Gamora from the original timeline is dead for good, something that Star-Lord is clearly upset over even though he tries to hide it, since this Gamora never fell in love with him. The Vision is also still destroyed, and without the Mind Stone, there is not a clear way to bring him back — although Wanda has seemingly made peace with this.
  • On a smaller note, even after bringing everyone back, there's the fact that they lost five whole years of time with their loved ones. Like Scott losing out on seeing his little girl grow into the teenager she was when she opened the door for him. Now all of the returned victims have to adjust to a world that's moved on without them.
  • Lastly, with the Infinity Stones reduced to atoms, the universe is open to all sorts of threats the stones had previously been used to protect them from, for instance extra-dimensional Eldritch Abominations like Dormammu.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • Thanos has his forearm chopped off, and shortly later his head. There are no signs of blood. (Nebula does reach up to touch her face, implying a droplet, but we don't see it, and she could also be wiping away a tear.)
  • Likewise, when Ronin carves his way through the Yakuza with a katana and has a Sword Fight with a mob boss in a single shot, there's basically no blood.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: During the final battle, all the major female characters show up to give Carol backup while she makes a run towards Scott's time machine, even though the only one that could be considered useful is Wanda.
• Body Horror: Using the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet isn't good for anyone's health.
  • Thanos, after using the Stones twice, is reduced to a broken, limping wreck, the entire left side of his body burnt and blackened and his gauntlet arm essentially lame by his side. The fact that he didn't remove the now useless gauntlet also implies it has fused with his flesh.
  • Using the Stones just once is enough to scar Professor Hulk the same way, and fatally injure Tony Stark.
• Bookends:
  • The original six Avengers from The Avengers all survived the events of Infinity War, and reassemble (and team up with the other surviving heroes) to put an end to Thanos's conquest for universal "balance" that started with the Chitauri attack on New York City.
  • Character design-wise, Captain America and Iron Man, the MCU's two biggest players, whose stories are wrapped up in this movie, wear outfits that look almost exactly like their classic comic book designs instead of the MCU's signature "modernized" look. Tony doubles up by having a similar black tank top to the one he had in the original Iron Man.
  • Tony Stark's iconic "If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it" line goes full circle considering they indeed couldn't protect the Earth, but are now seeking Thanos to avenge the fallen.
  • Iron Man is back in the same kind of dilemma he was in at the beginning of his first movie: trapped in a prison on borrowed time, with his only hope for survival depending entirely upon someone else helping him out, surviving only off of materials that he has within his prison. As an added bonus, he's even wearing the same kind of shirt that he did when he was in that cave in Afghanistan.
  • Cap is wearing the same S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform that he wore in Captain America: The Winter Soldier — the first film in the Russo Brothers' MCU run. Endgame happens to be the last in the Russos' MCU run.
  • Tony's last words, and the ones that finally mark the end of the battle, are the same words that ended the first movie: "I am Iron Man."
  • Also going back to his first movie, there the arc reactor turned back on after the climactic battle showing he survived. Here it turns off to signify his death.
  • Spanning back to Infinity War, the earlier film ends with Thanos watching the sunrise, as he smiles in pride having accomplished his goal. This film ends with Thanos watching the sunrise, as he bows his head in shame having failed.
  • It also closes out his very first appearance in The Avengers. There he stood up and smiled at the thought of facing the Avengers. Here he sits down and bows his head defeated by the Avengers.
  • Moments before his death, present-day Thanos defiantly proclaims "I am inevitable" to the Avengers. In the final battle, before he realizes that Iron Man has the Infinity Stones, Past Thanos arrogantly proclaims "I am inevitable". It was definitely intentional on his part, since he had watched Nebula's memory of 2018 Thanos's death in which some of his last words were declaring "I am inevitable" to proclaim his victory, and believed he was about to succeed again.
  • The song that closes out the film, "It's Been a Long, Long Time", was previously used in Joe and Anthony Russo's first Marvel movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • After the credits, the sound of Tony hammering together his very first suit from all the way back in the opening act of Iron Man plays.
  • Tony begins the film recording a potential Apocalyptic Log / Video Will for Pepper in case of his death. His final scene has the cast viewing another one he made five years later for her and Morgan at his actual funeral.
  • While Thanos has gained and lost a multitude of archnemeses in his 46-years-and-counting comic book history, he was first introduced in the pages of Iron Man Vol. 1 #55. Therefore, it is only fitting that Iron Man himself would see him out. Bonus points for having his creator, Jim Starlin, make an appearance for this event.
  • Captain America: The First Avenger — Steve Rogers' MCU debut — had him begin his career as Captain America and fight the Red Skull, who was wielding an Infinity Stone (the Tesseract/Space Stone), and then get frozen into the 21st century. Endgame — which is meant to close out Rogers's Character Arc — ends with him travelling back in time and return the Infinity Stones back to their proper eras, including Vormir in 2014 — which was where the Red Skull ended up after The First Avenger.
  • Alan Silvestri's piece "This Is My Choice" played over Steve's Heroic Sacrifice in The First Avenger, as he made the choice that ultimately led to him being frozen and ending up in the future, paving the way for his time as an Avenger. Silvestri reprises much of the track for "Go Ahead", used for the scene in which Steve has returned from time travel as an old man at the end of his life and career as a superhero, and passes on the mantle of Captain America to Sam.
  • At the beginning of Iron Man, Tony poses with a soldier for a photo. As the soldier flashes a peace sign, Tony sarcastically quips, "Yay, peace, I'd be out of job if it were for peace." In Endgame, when Tony reunites with Steve at the Avengers Compound, he flashes a peace sign and tells Steve, "I just want peace. Turns out resentment is corrosive and I hate it." This shows his final evolution from a weapons contractor to a man opposed to war.
  • The Avengers culminated in a battle with one side's army arriving from another world via portals. This film does the same.
• Braids of Barbarism: Thor gets braids in his hair and beard when he powers himself up with lightning before the final battle.
• Brick Joke: Both in-movie and on a franchise-wide level.
  • Within the film itself:
    • Rocket and Nebula end up finding a garbage scow of a ship that Danvers pinged as hostile. On Vormir, Nat, who had been point for the expeditions Nebula, Rocket and Carol were on at the time, responded to Clint's observation of Rocket not being a raccoon by saying "he eats garbage" as well as mentioning to Scott that she got "e-mails from a raccoon" which made nothing sound crazy to her. This also hearkens back to the multiple times Rocket asks what a raccoon is whenever someone calls him it (normally Quill).
    • Scott is not happy that Tony refused to help the team at first, and reminds him later in the movie after the botched attempt to steal the Tesseract.
      Scott: You're repeating yourself! You're repeating yourself!
    • Back to the Future: Tony is thinking Scott is basing his theory for time travel on this film, which Scott denies. When Bruce debunks every theory he and Rhodey had, he quips "So Back to the Future is a bunch of bullshit??"
  • Carrying over from other movies:
    • Steve Rogers making Mjölnir budge during the "lift the hammer" party game from Age of Ultron pays off when Cap finally lifts and wields Mjölnir in the finale, with Thor gleefully saying "I knew it."
    • Scott tells Hank his days of "breaking into places and stealing shit are done" in Ant-man. Played with in this film; he and the Avengers break into other timelines and steal the Stones (and Mjölnir).
    • When Clint returns from his time travel test run, Scott can be seen in the background holding some orange slices, the same snack he requested in Civil War.
    • Steve Rogers is shown swearing several times, despite being kidded for reprimanding others for their language in Age of Ultron.
    • After being teased in Age of Ultron, Steve Rogers finally says "Avengers Assemble!"
    • After Rocket steals the Aether, he's chased down by a horde of Asgardian guards who cry, "get that rabbit!" just like Thor has mistaken Rocket for a rabbit.
    • Tony Stark being reluctant to call his hug to Peter at the start of Homecoming a hug, comes back when he unambiguously hugs him.
    • In a darker vein, Doctor Strange saying he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice either Stark or Spider-Man if it meant saving the world, becomes this when Strange confirms to Stark at the end that the one timeline in which Thanos is defeated ultimately rested on Stark performing a Heroic Sacrifice. Strange really wasn't kidding around.
    • In the same darker vein, Tony finally disproves Steve's argument from the first movie that Tony will never make the big sacrifice (though it's not like he didn't try to do so in the first movie).
    • Likewise, Tony's argument (as well as Red Skull's) that everything special about Steve came from the super-soldier serum is proven definitively wrong by Mjölnir, and by extension Odin himself.
    • Early in the film at Tony's house, he finds Morgan wearing the helmet for the suit of armor he made Pepper, and jokingly complains that "Mommy never wears anything I make her." Guess who shows up, in a suit of armor, at the final battle?
    • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Hope repeatedly mocked Scott for referring to Captain America as "Cap". Here, she herself calls him Cap upon meeting him for the first time, earning a funny look from Scott.
    • During the tarmac fight in Captain America: Civil War, Hawkeye introduced himself to T'Challa as Clint, and T'Challa answered, "I don't care." During the final battle, when Hawkeye is carrying the nano-gauntlet with the Infinity Stones, only to be surrounded by Thanos's forces, T'Challa remembers his name and says, "Clint, give it to me!"
    • Drax, who values honor above all else, shows just how much he respects Tony by wearing a black shirt to the funeral. Remember, he has sensitive nipples!
    • In Avengers: Infinity War, Wong mentions that Ben and Jerry's released an ice cream flavor named for the Hulk, "Hunka Hulka Burning Fudge." In the brainstorming session, Smart Hulk is shown chowing down on a gallon of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Sharp-eyed viewers spotted that it's Hunka Hulka Burning Fudge.
    • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter chooses against using Instant Kill Mode in his suit. He finally uses this mode during the final battle against Thanos's army.
• Bring It: Aside from a moment of surprise, Thanos's reaction to the Avengers bringing in a massive army of allies in the form of the Wakandans, Asgardians, Ravagers, Khamar-Taj, and more, which then charges at him, is to simply lift his blade with a satisfied smile and order his army to do likewise.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Tony succeeds in defeating Thanos and his forces by snapping with the Infinity Stones, but wielding their power completely fries his human body to the point of dying just a few minutes after using them.
• Brutal Honesty: More than one character tells Thor either that he failed, or that he is a failure.
  Thor: That's a little bit harsh...
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After sitting out Infinity War, Hawkeye and Ant-Man return.
  • Harley Keener, the kid from Iron Man 3, makes a reappearance at Tony Stark's funeral. You'd be hard pressed to recognize him, though; the internet was flooded with inquiries and plenty of people provided explanations.
  • When Thor and Rocket time-travel back to the events of Thor: The Dark World, both Jane Foster and Frigga show up. Along with Mjölnir.
  • The Ancient One from Doctor Strange appears in the 2012 New York timeline, four years before Stephen Strange started practicing the Mystic Arts with her.
  • Likewise, Brock Rumlow, Jasper Sitwell, and Alexander Pierce (not yet unmasked as HYDRA moles) show up when Tony, Steve, and Scott bump into them in the aftermath of the Battle of New York).
• Bus Crash: According to the Russos, both Betty Ross and Lady Sif were turned to dust by the end of Infinity War. Although her demise wasn't shown in Infinity War, Shuri was another victim. Freeze Frame Bonuses confirm that Erik Selvig and Sharon Carter also seemingly died. The latter was proven wrong by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: This is played with. 2018 Thanos killed Vision to get the Mind Stone. When Wanda is brought back, she is furious at Thanos, even though she is speaking to his 2014 counterpart, and he genuinely doesn't know who she is, and figures she's just another person who he took a loved one from but doesn't remember.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Star-Lord. His past incarnation of him is knocked out by Rhodey after both he and Nebula call him an idiot. His present incarnation after being revived runs into the past Gamora, who kicks him in the groin when he moves on her because she doesn't know him yet, and finally, his position as the leader of the Guardians is contested yet again when Thor tags along with the crew in the ending, in spite of Thor still being horrendously out-of-shape and still recovering from his depression. Peter Quill just can't catch a break.
  • Even if he is essentially a Hope Bringer for the heroes, Scott fares worse than Peter in this regard since he has a much larger role. Getting hit with both Rapid Aging and de-aging one after another in a single scene is just one of the many embarrassments he goes through.
  • Cull Obsidian gets manhandled pretty badly during the Battle of Earth. Even though he takes point in leading Thanos's army forward, he is immediately knocked down by Cap with Mjölnir before he can even land a hit on someone. Cull gets back up and manages to get Korg in a headlock, but then Drax hops on his back to stab him repeatedly, and Korg is able to get free and smack him in the face. Finally, Cull once again attacks Iron Man, but Spider-Man is able to hold him in place with his webs long enough for Giant-Man to fatally crush him under his foot. For all his being the biggest and toughest of Thanos's children, Cull barely lasts a minute in the final battle.
  • Hulk. He is actually taken out of the picture before the movie even begins, thanks to Banner developing a way to take over the body, denying any closure for his trauma in the past movie. His strength is useless through the movie; as first the Ancient One sidesteps him entirely by punching the astral conscience of Banner out, and then he is too damaged by the snap to join the final battle. When they go back to New York's invasion, his past self is thoroughly mocked, including by Banner himself. He's shown to be left out of the elevator and forced to take the stairs by the other Avengers, and eventually is the reason the plan fails and Loki manages to escape with the Tesseract. Banner doesn't fare much better himself, though, as his intelligence becomes an Informed Attribute, and his attempts at time travel only serve to provide some comic relief (leading to Scott's aforementioned Butt-Monkey status) and to underline just how badly the heroes need Tony.

C

• Call-Back:
  • Tony mentions his nightmare from Avengers: Age of Ultron and bitterly references his "suit of armor around the world" plan and that promised they would fight and lose together as a team. (See Calling the Old Man Out below.)
  • When the team have Thanos restrained at the beginning of the movie, Thor decapitates him. His response when asked "What did you do?":
    Thor: [bitterly] I went for the head.
  • Scott tries to remind the Avengers of his presence with his contributions to the Leipzig-Halle airport fight in Captain America: Civil War.
  • At the end of Captain America: Civil War, Steve surrendered the shield after Tony shouted, "That shield doesn't belong to you! My father made it!" When Tony returns to Avengers Compound to assist with their plan to retrieve the Infinity Stones, he returns Steve's shield, commenting, "He made it for you."
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Odin tells Thor in a vision that the field in Norway where he died could be Asgard, because Asgard is its people. This is where the surviving Asgardians settle to establish "New Asgard". Actually even more of a Call-Back than that: the place where "New Asgard" is established is the city of Tønsberg, which was previously seen in a flashback in Thor and in the 1940's in Captain America and shown to have strong Asgardian connections in those appearances.
  • During their attempt to recruit a drunken and despondent Thor, Bruce mentions how much Thor's help on Sakaar meant to him when he was trying to merge his brains with the Hulk's brawn.
  • Cap and Bucky repeat their "Don't do anything stupid til I get back" banter from Captain America: The First Avenger, only with their roles reversed.
  • The events of the Time Heist feature call-backs to the films that took place during those times along with other films in the MCU:
    • Captain America dons his original outfit from the first Avengers movie at one point in the film. He does this to blend in when he, Ant-Man, Hulk and Iron Man travel back to the aftermath of the Battle of New York so that they can get the Space and Mind Stones.
    • While trying to get the scepter, Cap is in an elevator full of HYDRA agents (including Rumlow) who are trying to act like everything's normal, but are clearly ready for a fight. This time he bluffs his way out.
    • When Professor Hulk tries to take the Eye of Agamotto from the Ancient One without so much as a by-your-leave, she calms him down by knocking his astral form out of his body, like she did to Stephen Strange when he got too exasperating for his own good.
    • 2012 Thor tells Alexander Pearce that he's going for lunch before heading back to Asgard. This is a call-back to The Stinger where the Avengers gather for shawarma.
    • Thor and Rocket are tasked with retrieving the Reality Stone from Asgard just before it is attacked by the Dark Elves during Thor: The Dark World. This allows Thor to have a heart-to-heart with his mother Frigga shortly before her predestined death.
    • War Machine and Nebula head to the planet Morag from the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy so that they can get the Power Stone before the past version of Star-Lord steals it.
    • In the 1970s, Tony and Steve end up at the army base where S.H.I.E.L.D. set up shop after WWII. Tony doesn't know where the entryway is. But Steve, however, does from his time in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, pointing out the same munitions bunker entryway that he had gone (or will go) through.
  • When present-day Cap is fighting 2012 Cap, the latter says: "I could do this all day." This was essentially his catchphrase in the first Captain America film, which present-Cap wryly acknowledges.
  • The Hulk ends up being the one to use the Infinity Stones to resurrect everyone who died in the decimation, as the Stones give off harmful gamma radiation that only his body can withstand. Earlier, when searching for the Tesseract at the S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities, a Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that Tony's glasses are specifically tracking a gamma radiation signature. Back in the first Avengers movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. tracked down Bruce because the Tesseract emitted gamma radiation that he knew all about. In the same film, Tony mused that maybe Bruce had survived the gamma accident that turned him into the Hulk for a reason, and it looks like he was correct.
  • Thor uses his lightning to power up Tony's armor during the final battle with Thanos, a nod to the scene in the first Avengers movie where he accidentally charged up the armor during his initial fight with Tony.
  • During the final battle, Captain America is able to lift Mjölnir, referencing the scene where he was actually able to slightly budge the hammer in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
  • One of the moves that Steve uses involves his shield and Mjölnir colliding behind Thanos during his fight before the big battle begins, the shockwave throwing him off his balance. In the first two Avengers films, this combo move was performed with both Thor and Steve (in the first film, it's discovered during the first fight between Tony and Thor and used during the Battle of New York. In the second film, Steve and Thor use it while the Avengers assault the HYDRA castle at the start of the film. The move Steve does in this film marks the third and final time it's seen on screen).
  • Spider-Man activates the Instant Kill Mode in the final battle.
  • What are Tony Stark's last words before using the Infinity Gauntlet to snap Thanos and his army into oblivion? "I am Iron Man!" — the same words that he said when he first revealed his identity to the world in Iron Man. He ends his journey with the same bold declaration that began it.
  • Also a slight bookend of sorts, in Iron Man, Pepper threatened to quit when she saw Tony endangering himself by wearing the Iron Man suit, but Tony convinced her to stay by informing her of his change of heart. Here, he does die in battle, but as a Heroic Sacrifice rather than getting himself killed like she feared, and she's the last person with him before he passes.
    Pepper: [in 2008] You're gonna kill yourself, Tony, I'm not gonna be a part of it.
  • There's a more short-range one when Tony figures out the equation to create the much-needed quantum GPS, then considers sleeping on it, upon which Pepper asks him "would you be able to rest?" At the end of the final battle, one of the last things Pepper says to him is "you can rest now."
  • Before he returns the stones and Mjölnir to their proper times, Steve tells Sam, "You're a good man," echoing what Dr. Erskine first told Steve in Captain America: The First Avenger; "Stay as you are, not a perfect soldier, but a good man." Shortly after, Steve hands Sam the shield, naming him the new Captain America.
  • Before leaving on the mission that ended with him being frozen for several decades, Steve had promised to take Peggy Carter dancing. In the flashback of him explaining where he went to Sam, we see the two of them dancing together.
• Call-Forward: Loki mockingly impersonated Captain America after being arrested, which he would eventually do in the main timeline while teaming up with his brother. This move is also what netted him with the muzzle seen after the Battle of New York.
• Call to Agriculture:
  • As seen in Infinity War, after dusting half the universe, Thanos moved to a place called "The Garden", where he's shown harvesting crops and cooking them. When the Avengers learn of his location, Rhodey comments, "That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan".
  • Hawkeye has been toying with retiring from the secret agent/superhero life to be with his wife and kids on the farm since the end of Age of Ultron. Once the snap is reversed and he has a wife and kids back on the farm again, he decides to make another go at it.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Tony does this to Steve (who at this point is nearly 100 years old) over his broken promise from Avengers: Age of Ultron to fight together to combat any threat from space rather than trust a "suit of armor around the world."
  Tony: I saw this coming a few years back. I didn't wanna believe it — thought I was dreaming. ... And I remember telling all of you that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not — that's what we needed!
  Steve: Well, that didn't work out, did it?
  Tony: I said we'd lose. You said, "We'll do that together too." And guess what, Cap? We lost, and you weren't there. ... I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, liar.
• The Cameo:
  • One of the Russo brothers, Joe Russo, cameos as the grieving man attending a group therapy session with Captain America after the five years timeskip. Also present is Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos and writer/artist of The Infinity Saga in the comics.
  • Stan Lee has one, as usual, where during the time travel to 1970 in New Jersey, he drives past an army base, shouting "Make love, not war," a reference to his counterculture fanbase at the time. It is one of the last live-action cameos he filmed before he passed away, and is officially his final cameo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.^note Lee's likeness appeared in Ralph Breaks the Internet and he voiced a cameo in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. James Gunn also helped him film a number of cameos for Marvel movies before other Marvel movies actually started production. Worth noting is that the woman who is in the car with him is a de-aged version of his wife, portrayed entirely through CGI due to Joan Lee's death in 2017.
  • In the ongoing tradition of actors from Community appearing in the MCU, Yvette Nicole Brown shows up in the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility when Steve and Tony infiltrate it in 1970.
  • Ken Jeong (also from Community) appears as the security guard for the deep storage facility where the "disgusting van" has been sitting for 5 years.
  • Howard the Duck can be seen in the background during the final battle when the Ravagers arrive through a portal (behind Wasp when she herself arrives on the scene).
  • Hiroyuki Sanada is the yakuza that Ronin hunts and kills right before Nat recruits him.
  • One of the people at Stark's funeral is Harley Keener, a.k.a. the kid who helped Tony in Iron Man 3, once again played by Ty Simpkins. Quite a few viewers were caught off guard or didn't even recognize him since it had been six years since he was last seen and Simpkins has grown quite a bit.
• Car Fu: In a humorous throwaway moment, 2012 Hulk is seen bringing down a car on several Chitauri then using it to bat others aside.
• Can't Take Criticism: Upon finding out just how people feel about his "balancing" of the universe in the previous film, as well as the fact that the Avengers are trying to undo it, Thanos goes from simply misguided to completely insane. A few minutes of criticism is all it takes to make him decide to kill the whole the universe and make a new world that will appreciate his actions and love him as a hero.
• Casting Gag:
  • The two cast members of Parks and Recreation (Chris Pratt and Paul Rudd) are dismissed as idiots by Nebula and Rhodey. Fittingly, both their characters (Andy Dwyer and Bobby Newport) are ditzy manchildren, but nice guys.
  • Also, theinvoked memetically ageless Paul Rudd plays the character who accidentally travels five years into the future and does not age, while the others who survived the snap have aged visibly.
• Cast from Hit Points: Using the Infinity Gauntlet extracts a heavy toll. Thanos is crippled from the combined efforts of the Snap and his subsequent destruction of the Stones, Hulk is wounded and weakened after donning the Stark Gauntlet despite his great endurance and innate resistance to the gamma radiation released by its use, and Tony's attempt at using the Gauntlet — though ultimately successful — kills him, implicitly by burning out his heart.
• The Cavalry: An entire army of Wakandans, New Asgardians (which include Korg and Miek among them), Masters of the Mystic Arts, and Ravagers (among other groups), united behind the Avengers, charge across the field against the hordes of Thanos's forces.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • The time-travel films mentioned when the Avengers discuss using the Quantum Realm to go to the past:
    • Hot Tub Time Machine stars Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky.
    • Star Trek stars Zoe Saldaña, who plays Gamora, and Karl Urban, who played Skurge, and also features Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor. The greater franchise features quite a few actors who appeared in the MCU such as Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange, and Idris Elba, who plays Heimdall.
    • If they mean the A Wrinkle in Time film released in 2018 and not the books, that film stars Michael Peña, who plays Scott's friend Luis.
    • Scott suggests Die Hard. William Sadler, who was in Die Hard 2, plays President Matthew Ellis. Samuel L. Jackson, who was in Die Hard with a Vengeance, plays Nick Fury.
  • Thor's looks after five years of letting himself go and drinking like crazy make him resemble the Dude so much that Tony even snarkily calls him "Lebowski" at one point. The Dude himself played the Big Bad Obadiah Stane all the way back in 2008's Iron Man.
  • Korg can be seen playing Fortnite, a video game in which Thanos was playable during a limited-time event.
• Central Theme: Second chances. You may have failed once, but never give up. Use your failure to create an even better success.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: The second arc of the movie (the Time Heist) has significantly more humor and is more brightly lit compared to the somber first act and the apocalyptic final arc because a 2014 version of Thanos invades Earth. However, the arc itself starts getting hints of a serious tone again as 2014 Thanos uncovers the Avengers' plan, and finally whiplashes back to serious during its final segment — Black Widow's sacrifice.
• Character Development:
  • Steve Rogers's loosening up over time is demonstrated when he travels to 2012. Rather than fight all the HYDRA agents in the elevator to get the scepter as he would have done a few years ago, he says "Hail HYDRA" to convince them to just hand it over. Later, he curses when he encounters his 2012 self and knows a fight is inevitable. During the ensuing scuffle, Steve is shown to be a Combat Pragmatist compared to his past self when he says, "Bucky's still alive!", causing 2012 Steve to let his guard down and allowing present-day Steve to escape the chokehold and knock him out with the scepter.
  • Thor's maturation from a pompous, arrogant braggart and Boisterous Bruiser to a grieving, tormented survivor to a noble, selfless, and modest warrior is highlighted in the final battle. In Age of Ultron, Cap merely nudging Mjölnir was enough to make Thor momentarily panic because he had built his entire concept of self-worth around being the only person worthy of wielding the hammer. In Endgame, there's not a trace of jealousy in him when Thor sees Captain America swinging Mjölnir around like he's had it for years, and he joyously says "I knew it." He even prefers Steve use Mjölnir in battle while he use Stormbreaker, because he knows he's not Thor, God of Hammers and he's delighted to see his friend proven worthy.
  • Nebula's Character Development is given a measuring stick to show how far she's come by this point when she faces her 2014 self, still fanatically loyal to Thanos.
  • A smaller case, but nonetheless notable. Pepper has always been a case of Wet Blanket Wife towards Tony, even leaving him at one point when he failed to fulfill his promise to fully retire. While she does get back together with him, even when we last see her in Infinity War, she still has shades of being a Wet Blanket Wife towards him when pointing out his arc reactor. In her two most prominent scenes here, however, we see that Pepper has long moved past that and, in fact, is the one who encourages Tony to help undo the Snap now that he knows the way to do so, citing both her acceptance that she could never stop Tony before, and that him not going through with this will haunt him in his sleep. It's telling that her last words to him as he dies from using the Gauntlet are not of pleas for him to stay alive, but of genuine assurance that he did everything he could and he can now rest. The fact that she willingly joins the final battle in the Rescue Armor, despite Tony believing she would never wear it, shows how much she herself has grown.
• Chekhov's Army:
  • In the final battle against Thanos and his forces, every single hero who appeared in films prior (minus ones whose deaths are permanent, like Natasha, Vision, or Heimdall) and their allies show up to assist the Avengers, forming a massive army spanning multiple alien races, gods, sorcerers, and technologically augmented humans.
  • The film itself features many past characters (who are dead at the present point in the story saga) through time travel, such as Howard Stark, Loki, Peggy Carter, Frigga, the Ancient One, and Alexander Pierce.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Scott tells everyone that they only have one vial of Pym particles left since they lost Hank Pym to the Snap, which inspires Steve to find the part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility where Hank worked in 1970, and steal some fresh vials.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Hank Pym mentioned many times in the two Ant-Man films that the time and space work differently in the Quantum Realm and his wife even mentioned that there are time vortexes in there. This give Scott Lang the idea to use time travel to reverse the damages Thanos caused.
  • Janet Van Dyne's prolonged stay in the Quantum Realm has given her Quantum Powers which, among other things, allowed her to stablize the molecules of those who are suffering from quantum displacement. Similarly, Scott was stuck in the Quantum Realm for five years (or five hours from his perspective) and while it is not explored, it most likely changes him as well, which explains how he is able to stay as Giant-Man for longer periods than before without showing any signs of exhaustion.
  • In 2012, following the events of the New York battle, the Hulk is forced to take the stairs after the Avengers insist he won't fit in the elevator, and he angrily does so. Later, he swings the door open as Tony is about to walk away with the Tesseract, knocking him out and allowing Loki to escape with it.
  • One which spans multiple movies: while trying to stop Thanos's forces from reaching the new Infinity Gauntlet, Spider-Man finally sees fit to activate Instant Kill Mode.
  • While Tony's daughter Morgan plays with Pepper's Rescue mask, he tells her that Pepper doesn't wear it. During the final battle, she does.
  • Since Thanos destroyed the Time Portal breaking through to 2023, Tony laments that they have no way to get the stone back. Cue Scott saying, "That wasn't our only time-machine." Cue La Cucaracha coming from Luis' van.
  • At the end of Infinity War, after handing over the time stone to Thanos, Doctor Strange breaks down while apologizing to Tony Stark, saying it was the only way. Endgame reveals that he wasn't just apologizing for handing over the stone, but for setting in motion a plan that will require Tony's death.
  • The Iron Man suit's infinity gauntlet that is holding the infinity stones. The moment Thanos attempts his second snap (seconds after having wrestled his hand free from Iron Man), it turns out that all the stones are gone... and have migrated over to Stark's gauntlet. Apparently he built a failsafe into it to prevent exactly this from happening.
• Chekhov's Skill: Tony and Nebula kill time while adrift in space by flicking a paper football back and forth. Incredibly, this comes into play during the Time Heist, when Tony needs to flick Ant-Man across a room and onto the HYDRA agent carrying the Tesseract in a briefcase.
• Choke Holds: 2012 Steve Rogers puts present Steve Rogers in a chokehold, thinking that he is a disguised Loki. Present Steven Rogers manages to free himself by distracting his past self, saying that Bucky is still alive.
• Climactic Battle Resurrection: The victims of the Snap return to life for the final battle.
• Clip Show: Fitting for a finale. A subverted example occurs when the characters travel through time to collect the Infinity Stones. We get some clips, and some old scenes from new angles from The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians of the Galaxy. But once the time-traveling present-day Avengers start altering events, there's plenty of new content, too.
• Close-Enough Timeline: Steve returns to various timelines to return their Infinity Stones to make sure those realities more or less proceed along the same path as their own, rather than letting dark realities where The Bad Guy Wins occur due to Captain Marvel never existing due to the Tesseract disappearing, Doctor Strange not being able to stop Dormammu due to lacking the Time Stone, Thor never stopping the Dark Elves due to lacking Mjölnir, and so on. However, Joe Russo confirmed in an interview that Loki created an alternate timeline when he teleported away with the Tesseract in 2012, and that it would be "impossible for [Cap] to rectify the timeline unless he found Loki."
• Clothing Damage: Lampshaded when Professor Hulk says he's wearing shirts now. On travelling back to the past, he obligingly rips his own shirt off in order to pass as the Big Green Rage Monster.
• Collapsible Helmet: Beyond the usual suspects from previous movies (Ant-Man, Iron Man, War Machine, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, The Wasp, Captain Marvel, and the unusual ones like Pepper Potts in her "Rescue" armor), the quantum suits are made from nano-tech and can fully collapse. The helmet is the first to come off after a trip, even if the rest of the suit stays. This allows the protagonists to show their faces at almost all times, except when the helmets are an absolute necessity, i.e. during trips in the Quantum Realm. Owing to the difficulty of applying this trope to users with long hair, in the case of Thor once more having long hair and now a shaggy beard as well, the movie cheats by only showing him with helmet either already on or off, never forming like the others. Likewise with Rocket, due to being an enhanced raccoon.
• Color Motif:
  • In contrast to the neon-tinted teaser poster used for Infinity War, the teaser poster for Endgame is a mix of purple and blue. This extends to some of the promotional material as well, as an abandoned New York City is seen bathed in a blue marine layer in the Big Game TV spot.
  • The new "character posters" are full color for the characters who survive but black and white for those who have died.
• Combination Attack: Pepper, Shuri and the Wasp fire their weapons at Thanos to try to keep him at bay as Danvers cruises past him to the van.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Thor threatens a young Fortnite player that he will come to the latter's place and tear off his arms, then taunting him further when he seemingly makes the child cry.
• Comfort Food:
  • Before the mission to the Garden, Thor is shown eating a bowl of bread in addition to drinking alcohol. After passing the Despair Event Horizon, it’s made abundantly clear from how his house is littered with discarded wings, pizza boxes, and snack wrappers that he’s been eating way too much junk food.
  • Downplayed with Natasha. In her first scene post-Time Skip, she is eating peanut butter sandwiches while on the verge of tears after the Avengers meeting, though she didn’t let herself go in the last five years like Thor did.
• Comfort the Dying: Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, is suffering from the Cast from Hit Points effect of the Infinity Gauntlet, which he has just used to utterly disintegrate a Galactic Conqueror and his armies. In his final moments, his best friend, his protégé, and his wife are the ones to comfort him as he struggles to stay alive, but it's a battle Tony is losing, and they all know it, as the toll of the Infinity Gauntlet had already been established as nearly too much for Hulk at peak condition, whereas Tony used it after a prolonged skirmish that left him running on fumes. With Tony's stubbornness serving only to prolong his pain, he finally passes, peacefully, when his wife tells him that they'll be okay thanks to his Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Comically Serious: Mantis, who proves she is capable of being silly and serious at the same time. This is especially obvious when she is seen charging into battle with M'Baku, Thor, and Captain America.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames:
  • Clint Barton is never called "Ronin" at any point in the movie.
  • Likewise, while Pepper does finally don her armor, she's not called "Rescue" by anyone.
  • Much like her debut solo, Carol Danvers is never called Captain Marvel.
• Composite Character: Clint Barton. Much like his 616 incarnation, he takes the identity of Ronin following Civil War, and his change in attitude and costume following the tragic deaths of his family is reminiscent of Ultimate Hawkeye. However, whilst Ultimate Hawkeye became a Death Seeker, MCU Hawkeye instead goes down the same route as The Punisher, and starts ruthlessly murdering criminals who survived the Decimation. He comes very close to sacrificing himself for the Soul Stone to atone for his actions as Ronin, reminiscent of his Ultimate counterpart's Death Seeker tendencies, but Black Widow performs the Heroic Suicide before he can.
• Conqueror from the Future: Inverted. Thanos's past self from 2014 is accidentally warned that he will fulfill his goal of erasing half of the population but that the Avengers are traveling to the past in order to steal the Stones. Capturing the Nebula from the present and acquiring her Pym particles vial, Thanos, his warship the Sanctuary II, and his army all come to the present to get all the Stones at once from the Avengers.
• Continuity Cavalcade: When the Avengers are gathering all the infos they have on the Infinity Stones' whereabouts over the years, they recall in turn some of the adventures that we've seen in the previous movies, each putting their own twist on their respective tales.
• Continuity Nod: Has its own page.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Scott's escape from the Quantum Realm happens entirely by luck when a rat accidentally activates the portal. Let us give proper gravitas to this: this simple, infinitesimally unlikely action of a rat walking over a control panel leads to the invention of time travel, the ability to recover the Infinity Stones that Thanos wiped out of existence, and the resurrection of literally trillions of creatures eradicated by the Decimation.
  • The 2014 Thanos is alerted to the Avengers' time-travelling because Nebula's neural network connects to her past self, showing him images of the future through 2014 Nebula. There was never so much of a hint that this could happen, yet it leads to Thanos time-travelling to the future in order to take the Infinity Stones from the Avengers all at once, resulting in the Final Battle and Tony Stark's death.
  • Bruce's belief that he could get the Time Stone from Doctor Strange in 2012 was completely wrong. Luckily for him, the Ancient One just happened to have the Time Stone in her possession while she was protecting the New York Sanctum during the Battle of New York in 2012.
• Conveniently Close Planet: Averted. Tony and Nebula attempt to pilot the Benetar all the way back to Earth, but they find out too late that the ship only has 48 hours of fuel left, and the nearest inhabited planet is light-years away. Were it not for the timely intervention of Carol Danvers, Tony and Nebula likely would've likely died in space together miles away from home.
• Cool Shades: Deconstructed. Thor wears sunglasses in various scenes, even inside. But it rather highlights his failed attempts to put up a happy and relaxed appearance in order to conceal how depressed he really is, than actually make him look cool.
• Cool Ship: The Benatar returns, as well as Thanos's Sanctuary II.
• Cool vs. Awesome:
  • As with the first film, a time-displaced super-soldier, a nanite-powered tech genius-cum-playboy, a scientist with the body of a radioactive mutant, a CIA spook turned crime-fighting vigilante, a raccoon, a Norse God and a Blue-Skinned Space Babe go on a time-traveling quest to undo mass genocide. The super-soldier winds up fighting a past alternate universe self, and the raccoon accidentally angers the guards of Norse Mythology.
  • The climax features a wizard teleporting in more wizards, an intergalactic alien militia, the remainders of Norse Mythology, a fighter pilot turned cosmic energy conduit, and reality-warped-back-to-life superheroes fighting alternate dimension counterparts of a Mutant alien overlord seeking to become a god and his army, made of space gorillas, giant bio-mechanical snakes, and cybernetically-enhanced mutant aliens.
• Copycat Mockery: In 2012, Loki shapeshifts into Steve Rogers and repeats his "On my way down to coordinate search and rescue", mocking him.
  Loki: [to Thor] I mean honestly, how do you keep your food down?
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": The Avengers are using Scott Lang to test the time travel machine, but have yet to work out the kinks, turning him into a teenager, a baby, and an old man — who gives this trope after being zipped back and forth through time.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Tony Stark makes a risk and sacrifices himself via taking the stones off of Thanos and using it to undo the damage he did during Avengers: Infinity War at the cost of it killing him. This is the perfect evidence that shows how in the end, Tony was able to do the one thing that Steve Rogers accused him of being unable to make a sacrifice play for the greater good of others, even with nothing in return.
• Crapsack World: Zig-zagged. After Thanos wiped out half of all life, resources and the environment on Earth do bounce back, and major governments quickly took measures to maintain order — but it's clear that the combination of grief, loss of life, unsupported infrastructure and the resulting power vaccuum is eroding humanity steadily. Carol also discussed that other planets in the universe are losing stability while she's working to fix it. Notably, both San Francisco and New York City are shown to be barely populated, and the few people we do see are barely making ends meet.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Steve and Natasha's plan has incredibly low odds of actually working, but they're so determined to avoid letting that stop them because everyone will suffer even more if they fail. The plan is to attack Thanos where he's retired and, to their surprise, Thanos is completely alone and much weaker due to destroying the Infinity Stones having cost the majority of his strength. So of course the heroes' plan works much easier than it should.
  Natasha: This is gonna work, Steve.
  Steve: I know it is. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't.
• Creative Closing Credits: The film uses the style of end credits from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, by showing the signatures of the actors who played the original Avengers.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Co-director Joe Russo plays a man in a support group for people losing love ones with Captain America. He is the first character openly on the LGBTQ spectrum portrayed in an MCU film. Thanos creator Jim Starlin is also a member of the support group.
  • In Stan Lee's last cameo, he plays a hippie who drives past the entrance of Camp Lehigh, jeering at them. Lee was de-aged for this scene to look as he did in the 1970s, alongside a completely CGI recreation of his wife, Joan Lee, as she appeared at that time. This also marks the second time that Joan Lee had a cameo in a Marvel film after X-Men: Apocalypse.
  • When Scott is looking at the memorials for the people who vanished, many names listed are of people who worked on one or more Marvel films, including VFX editor Emily Denker, CG artist Geoff Diamond, animator Marco La Torre, and digital asset coordinator Susana Lou.
  • Screenwriter and producer Christopher Markus appears briefly at the start of the 1970 sequence as one of the men entering the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker.
• Cringe Comedy:
  • When meeting up with Professor Hulk at a diner, a group of kids come up and ask for a photograph with him, to which he obliges, but then Lang asks the kids if they want a photo with him too, but since he's out of costume, they don't realize he's someone special, and as he tries to explain himself, Prof. Hulk at the same time is trying to cover for him, while Ant-Man just wants the suggestion to be dropped, and Hulk trying to encourage the kids.
  • When Tony accidentally teaches his daughter how to swear, the tiny and adorable little girl cheerfully giggles "shit" (twice!) before Daddy Foul-Mouth hurriedly tries to teach her "You can't say that! That's mommy's word!"
  • The hilariously shocking reveal that Thor has become an overweight alcoholic video-game junkie who spends all day indoors in only his underpants would be right at home in an Adam Sandler gross-out comedy. You'll hate yourself for laughing with a grown-ass 1,500-year-old God yelling at a 10-year-old Internet Troll over Playstation-Chat, threatening to "rip his arms off and shove them up his butt"... but you'll laugh anyways.
  • When Thor tries to enlighten the other Avengers on the Aether/Reality Stone, he ends up rambling about Jane, Odin, and the nature of life. Eventually, Tony has to interrupt him and save him from himself as he babbles aimlessly.
  • Rhodes suggests that the Avengers should just use the time machine to go back to when Thanos was a baby and strangle him with a garrote, pantomimed and complete with choking noises. Professor Hulk is naturally horrified by this proposal.
    Rhodey: It's Thanos.
  • In-Universe literal example: Captain Rogers, Lang, Stark and Banner just have to bump into Hulk the way he used to be back in 2012 in their time-travel quest for the New York Infinity Stones. The first three men look on bug-eyed and stupefied as the Hulk violently jumps up-and-down on a car like a broken trampoline screaming like a five-year-old after using it to smash a Chitauri to death, while the now peace-loving Doctor Banner covers his face and cringes in humiliation.
• Cue the Sun: Although there's still some daylight when Thanos's ship arrives and the Final Battle begins, the destruction of the landscape and Sanctuary II itself cover the land in dusty, thick gloom. Then, as Captain America prepares to make his final stand, a luminous magical portal opens up behind him, revealing the noon sunshine of Wakanda. It's so bright that, when Okoye, Shuri, and T'Challa step out, it seems for all the world that they are stepping out of pure light. Then the rest of The Cavalry steps out from their own sunlight-filled portals.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The surviving Avengers and their allies manage to locate Thanos in his farm within the first twenty minutes of the film. By then he's already retired to a quiet life and has destroyed the Infinity Stones, which left him a fraction of his original strength. Captain Marvel, Bruce in the Hulkbuster, War Machine, and Thor quickly make short work of him. Justified since Thanos destroyed the Stones, he doesn't have his army, and he wants to die anyways after murdering his daughter and half the universe.
  • The Hulk makes a move to attack the Ancient One to get the Time Stone. She knocks Banner right out of the Hulk's body with her astral strike.
  • Past Thanos hands these out like candy, stomping almost every hero that tries to attack him. The only ones he couldn't stomp are an enraged Scarlet Witch, who instead matches and gradually overpowers him herself (to the point the last leg of their fight is practically a Curb-Stomp in its own right), and a fully-powered up Captain Marvel, which he needed the Power Stone to take out.
  • Corvus Glaive gets unceremoniously Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Okoye. She barely even breaks stride in her forward charge.
  • Giant-Man easily punches Leviathans out of the sky, and Goomba Stomps Cull Obsidian with little effort; also he doesn't even seem winded as he did in Civil War and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: While the past Thanos overwhelms the Avengers and if not for a last second sleight-of-hand would have won, they manage to get a few good hits in:
  • Cap with the power of Mjölnir and his own skill in using his shield treats Thanos like a ragdoll, until he figures out his tricks and breaks Cap's shield in the process.
  • Wanda is extremely close to killing Thanos outright, breaking his sword and crushing him in his own armor, but him raining fire on the battlefield takes her out of the fight.
  • Finally, Carol manages to fight Thanos to a stalemate, outright No Sells his headbutt, and nearly breaks his gauntlet hand, before he knocks her out with the raw power of the Power Stone.
• Curtain Call: At the end of the film, characters from across the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe are displayed, culminating with the original six Avengers.
• Cut the Safety Rope: Clint and Natasha's fight over who gets to die so the other may get the Soul Stone ends this way: Clint is saved from falling using Natasha's safety rope, with him holding only one of Natasha's hands. And then she forces herself free of his hand by kicking the side of the cliff.
• Cutting the Knot: Rhodey has a suggestion for doing so by going back in time, finding baby Thanos, and killing him. Bruce has to point out to him that, aside from being reprehensible, his idea wouldn't work.

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