Top 10 Things To Remember Before Seeing Avengers: Endgame

Unless you repressed the memory, and we can’t say we’d blame you, “Avengers: Infinity War” ended on the most shocking and emotionally devastating moment in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After assembling the Infinity Gauntlet and obtaining ultimate power, Thanos accomplished his goal of wiping out half of all life in an event officially dubbed The Decimation. So obviously, the MCU is going to be in pretty dire straits when the curtain rises on Endgame. And that’s not even touching on characters like Gamora, who was killed before the Decimation even took place! Basically, look forward to a lot of sad faces when we next see the Avengers in action.

While Thanos has seemingly put his life of cosmic genocide behind him and hung up his armor, he’s still in possession of all six Infinity Stones, giving him absolute control over space, time, power, reality, mind and soul. It’s a safe bet that the Avengers will be looking to either undo the Mad Titan’s actions in Infinity War or get some much-deserved payback, and they’re in for one heck of a fight. Even with just a few Infinity Stones, Thanos was able to out-fight almost every Avenger single-handedly, and with all six he’s essentially unstoppable. That is unless the Avengers pull some kind of rabbit out of their collective hats.

Doctor Strange brought a lot of new and interesting powers to the MCU when he was introduced in his 2016 solo movie. Not the least of these is a trick he pulled in Infinity War: using the Time Stone to look into possible futures to figure out the probability of their success. The results weren’t encouraging, with the team only pulling out a win in one out of millions of potential futures. Unless Marvel really throws us a curveball, it’s a safe bet they’ll figure out how to save the day, meaning that the Doc knew what needed to be done leading up to his seeming demise. Could it be that all this happening was necessary for ultimate victory?

After getting his giant green butt handed to him in the opening moments of “Infinity War”, the biggest, greenest Avenger didn’t seem too keen to come out to play again. We were all surprised about this, Banner most of all. Heck, Marvel even inserted some shots into the film’s trailers that threw viewers off of this plot point. While Banner has proven he’s not helpless without his alter-ego, their seemingly fractured relationship will definitely come up in “Endgame”, and we just hope the two are able to come to some kind of agreement. We mean, it’s not like the entire universe hangs in the balance or anything like that.

After a knock-down, drag-out brawl on Titan, Iron Man and the cyborg Nebula were helpless to watch as their friends and comrades vanished before their eyes. Judging from the trailers for “Endgame”, it looks like the pair will be using the Benatar, the ship used by the Guardians of the Galaxy, to escape into space. But then, it also looks like they’ll be having a tough time out there. We’re just curious what the relationship between these two wildly different characters will be like. What do a genius super-scientist playboy and an unhinged cyborg alien even talk about on an extended road-trip through space?

Thor proved that he’s not actually the god of hammers in the epic final fight scene of “Thor Ragnarok”, seemingly putting his days swinging the mighty Mjolnir behind him for good. But when Thanos came ‘a calling, the god of thunder decided that maybe having a suitable weapon would even the odds. Thankfully, he obtained an awesome replacement in the form of Stormbreaker. Heftier and more powerful than Mjolnir, Thor’s new weapon also has the ability to teleport the Odinson and others via the Bifrost. And it might not just be a neat detail that its handle is actually Groot’s arm. Could it have some special properties we haven’t seen yet?

Speaking of “Ragnarok”, we definitely weren’t the only audience members wondering where Valkyrie, to say nothing of Korg and Miek, were during “Infinity War”. While we last saw them on the Asgardian refugee ship, they were missing when we saw that same ship in the wake of Thanos’s attack. Co-Director Joe Russo confirmed that she escaped with some other Asgardians via the ship’s escape pods. But where the heck was she for the rest of the movie? We just hope she turns up safe and sound in Endgame, swooping in to save the day with a certain rocky freedom fighter and his insect sidekick in tow.

We were especially sad to see the android Avenger Vision meet his end in “Infinity War,” probably because we had to watch him die twice. But as cut and dry as his deaths might seem, Vision may not be out of the game yet. Could he perhaps live on in the Mind Stone, the Infinity Stone that created both him and Ultron in the first place? Or Maybe Shuri’s efforts to safely remove the Stone from Vision’s head were successful enough that he could live to fight another day? Maybe we’re reaching, but we watched half our favorite characters die, we need some hope here!

After the soul-crushing ending of “Infinity War”, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” was just what we needed: a fun, lighthearted superhero romp that didn’t pull out our hearts and stomp on them. At least not until the film’s post-credits scene. It seems obvious that Ant-Man being trapped in the Quantum Realm at the end of his second solo outing will be a massive plot point in “Endgame”, perhaps giving the team the advantage they need to overcome Thanos. After all, what was it that Janet just said about not getting sucked into a “Time Vortex?”. Could time travel be the key to victory that the team needs?

Captain Marvel spoilers ahead. The final shot of “Infinity War” was a promise that Captain Marvel was on her way, and her solo film’s mid-credits scene show us her first interaction with the Avengers – the question is: when will that happen? Given that she’s already been described as the MCU’s strongest hero, she could be the heavy hitter the team needs to pull out a victory against Thanos, so the sooner she shows up, the better off our heroes will be. We just hope that when she gets to Earth she has a darn good reason for why she’s been a no-show for The Battle of New York and the Battle of Sokovia – which would certainly qualify as emergencies in our book.