It doesn’t matter if you love or loathe superhero films. The Marvel experiment, with its enormous tentpoles of interlocking stories dominating the international release calendar, has altered cinema forever. Naysayers may consider it a stranglehold, but fans celebrate the dominance of this once low art form. No longer will we be embarrassed to read comic books on the bus!

This is, for better or worse, a significant change in our culture. To undo it, one would need six Infinity Stones and a pocket full of Pym particles to stop Kevin Feige becoming Marvel Studios’ president of production. But only a team as brave and noble as the Avengers, could do it.

Twenty-two films. Eleven years. Three hours and one minute. Fifty per cent of all living creatures. There are a lot of big numbers tossed around with this one and we’ll be talking about it for a long time. For now though, let’s stick with five points.

Cap is worthy

There is a scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron when the gang are hanging out at HQ and eyeing Thor’s hammer. Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Rhodey and Bruce Banner all try to lift Mjölnir and, of course, they can’t. Then the musclebound Steve Rogers, Captain America, gives it a try. He can’t do it either, but it does budge a smidge. Enough so that, for a second, Thor looks worried.

“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor” is inscribed on it. Well, only Thor should possess the power of Thor, right?



Mjölnir is destroyed by Hela in Thor: Ragnarok but thanks to Endgame’s use of time travel, pudgy, beer-swilling Thor is able to yank the hammer away from Asgard and bring it to the present.

In the battle against Thanos, we get perhaps the greatest fan moment in all of the films. With the chips way down, and Thanos about to slice Thor in two with the Asgardian King’s axe Stormbreaker, Mjölnir flies across the screen and into Captain America’s hands. “I knew it!” shouts Thor. And we did too.

In the comics, Steve Rogers has lifted Mjölnir now and again (see The Mighty Thor #390 from 1988 for the first time) so to finally see it in the heat of a movie battle is especially gratifying.

Say the line, Steve!

Six syllables that pack a punch ... Chris Evans as Captain America in Avengers: Endgame Photograph: Marvel Studios 2019

But not as gratifying as what comes next. The Avengers are on the ropes. They’ve undone Thanos’ finger-click but the fight isn’t over. The still-bad Nebula from the past has snuck in to the present and brought the Mad Titan and his evil hordes to Avengers HQ. My God, Rocket Raccoon nearly drowns! Our noble heroes fight, but it looks like they’ll need a miracle to survive. And then, the portals open and all our friends from Wakanda to Bleecker Street are there for the brawl. And finally, after a decade of waiting, Steve Rogers takes a deep breath and says “Avengers assemble!”

To non-fans this may seem like a silly point. “Avengers assemble!” has been the team’s battle cry since Avengers #10 in 1964. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it looks like Steve Rogers is about to say it at the very end, but the music blurts in and the screen cuts to black. (That was director Joss Whedon trolling us.) The UK title of the first Avengers film is even called Avengers Assemble. It may only be six syllables but they pack a punch.

Not ash dead, really dead

We knew not everyone would make it out of Avengers: Endgame alive. It’s sad to see Tony Stark go, but not so sad to see Robert Downey Jr depart. Not that he isn’t great, but it’s time to move on, to make some room, and his snarky cool-guy act becomes increasingly less dignified as he ages. He also dies in the most noble way possible, saving every single living thing in the Universe. Can’t top that.

More upsetting and confusing is the loss of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. No one predicted this because Marvel has announced a Black Widow film. So now we’ll know a fate worst than death: another prequel.

Steve Rogers not only survived, he lived his best life with his beloved Peggy Carter and let the natural order of things take over. But short of more time travel, we won’t be seeing Chris Evans again. This is less of a surprise, because Evans already said goodbye to the franchise on Twitter. However, we nerds still have our guards up from when Simon Pegg lied to us and said Benedict Cumberbatch would not be playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, so forgive us if we’re not so trusting.

It’s been five years

Who is this four year old? ... Paul Rudd as Ant-Man in Avengers: Endgame. Photograph: Marvel Studios 2019

When Ant-Man re-emerges from the quantum realm thanks to a scurrying rat, he awakens to a world that’s been in mourning for five years. When he embraces his now-teen daughter who thought she’d lost him, it is quite a touching scene.

When the rest of the world is restored by the Avengers’ successful time-heist, Peter Parker reports that, to them, the gap felt quick. After Tony Stark’s death, a recording he made saluting the team’s anticipated success mentions the world rebuilding itself.

The question is, how many people came back from the click, went home to their spouses and said “uh, who is this four year old that looks like you and not me?” Avengers: Endgame includes a group therapy scene led by Captain America with common folk having difficulty moving on. But not everyone had that difficulty, I’m sure. There’s a lot left undiscussed.

A globalist’s perspective

Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang looks at Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers in his Captain America suit and, negating Tony Starks’ fashion criticism, salutes his hero and says: “That’s America’s ass.” Later, Rogers fights a version of himself in the past (take that, Back to the Future) and realises Lang is right. It is America’s ass.

But they are both wrong. Chris Evans, don’t let your posterior be undersold. You have the world’s ass. And if any of you disagree you are not worthy to hold it.