Poll of the Day > Question about the MCU... (Endgame spoilers...)

(+) Yeah! (+)

So, the MCU is universe 19999 or something. I heard that for Endgame, they went o another universe to fix things as best they could. So, that would mean they are in another universe instead of 19999, right?

Or did they go back to the original universe?
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LinkPizza posted...

Or did they go back to the original universe?

Technically, they don't leave their own universe.

They go back to points in time where they get the infinity stones, bring them back to the current time to unsnap the snap then Cap "supposedly" puts them all back where they belong.
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I see. i think I heard wrong, then. But that makes sense. Thanks!
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

Technically, they don't leave their own universe.

They go back to points in time where they get the infinity stones, bring them back to the current time to unsnap the snap then Cap "supposedly" puts them all back where they belong.

Actually they did go to other universes because they couldn't change their own past, so they went back in time to other universes, borrowed the stones, cap brought them back, and stayed in in some seperate universe and cucked himself until he was old, then came back to the original universe.
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darcandkharg31 posted...

and stayed in in some seperate universe and cucked himself until he was old

Which means him hooking up with Peggy's grand-niece in Winter Soldier ended up being pretty freaky.
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darcandkharg31 posted...

Actually they did go to other universes because they couldn't change their own past, so they went back in time to other universes, borrowed the stones, cap brought them back, and stayed in in some seperate universe and cucked himself until he was old, then came back to the original universe.

I'm pretty sure those are considered different timelines and not different universes.

adjl posted...

Which means him hooking up with Peggy's grand-niece in Winter Soldier ended up being pretty freaky.

I'm not sure why people think this. When Cap stays with Peggy, that's an alternate timeline where the niece doesn't even exist. It's not the same Peggy as was in the current timeline.
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I think people look far too much into this shit and should just accept the beautiful movie that was made
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Related Far from home spoilers:

if you somehow didn't go in thinking Mysterio was full of shit, there's a dead giveaway early on when he claims to be from the 616 universe that should set off a dozen red flags if you're paying attention to things.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

I'm pretty sure those are considered different timelines and not different universes.

Because of how Marvel classifies things, different timelines ARE different universes.

Because of how time travel generally works in Marvel, and because of how it was presented in the movie, they effectively went back in time in their own universe, then created divergent timelines the moment they altered events, then traveled forward back to their own point of origin.

The upshot of which is, they basically created four alternate universes. Two of them are probably minor - one in which Thor basically went back and got to talk to his mother (which was mostly otherwise unchanged), and one in which SHIELD lost the Tesseract in the 1970s (and while it was returned by Cap, the infiltration itself and Tony's conversation with his dad likely creates at least minor ripple effects). In all other respects, they likely play out mostly the same way, but might result in minor shifts.

The real major change was them screwing up in 2012 and letting Loki get away with the Space stone (which is supposedly the version of Loki that's going to be in the Disney+ TV show). It likely would have altered the entire future of that reality, because Cap wouldn't have been able to return that Tesseract, meaning Thor wouldn't have been able to use it to return the two of them home, and it would have made things more complicated later.

But the last reality is the one that's really hard to judge. Cap would have had to put both the Orb and the Soul Stone back (presumably somehow preventing past Peter Quill from being too effected by the change). But the Thanos of that reality (and most of his army) is now dead, and the Gamora of that reality is now gone. Which will radically alter the future of things - Gamora will no longer be there to become part of the Guardians, Nebula and Thanos being gone may alter Ronan's behavior, and ultimately the events of Infinity War and Endgame will never happen there.

Each of those distinct timelines would wind up having a different "universe number".



AllstarSniper32 posted...

I'm not sure why people think this. When Cap stays with Peggy, that's an alternate timeline where the niece doesn't even exist.

Probably because the directors themselves explicitly said it wasn't an alternate timeline, and that Steve literally wound up being with Peggy and spending his entire life in the main timeline, only laying low (presumably under an alternate identity) to avoid causing further disruptions.

Of course, that kind of falls apart when you really think about it, but it's comic book fantasy and not hard sci-fi - we've already put more thought into the mechanics of time travel in this topic than anyone making the movie did.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Because of how time travel generally works in Marvel, and because of how it was presented in the movie, they effectively went back in time in their own universe, then created divergent timelines the moment they altered events, then traveled forward back to their own point of origin.

Even in your explanation you're referring to them as timelines and not as divergent universes. I'm pretty sure they don't refer to anything in Endgame as a separate universe.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Probably because the directors themselves explicitly said it wasn't an alternate timeline, and that Steve literally wound up being with Peggy and spending his entire life in the main timeline, only laying low (presumably under an alternate identity) to avoid causing further disruptions.

Yes, cause directors of Marvel movies have never lied about any plot related things in the past. What would make anyone think that something the directors say in real life is canon for the mcu?

Until they show what Cap did with a movie or show or some official comic or something, we have no idea exactly what he did or how it plays out.

One thing you do know though, is that when he lived out his life, it wasn't in the timeline that was in Endgame.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

Even in your explanation you're referring to them as timelines and not as divergent universes.

Yes, to clarify to YOU. Because you were already using that terminology. But again, "Because of how Marvel classifies things, different timelines ARE different universes."

In this context, it literally means the same thing. For another example, the future of "Days of Future Past" is almost always referred to as an alternate timeline in the comics themselves when characters refer to it, but it's explicitly a separate universe (more specifically, Earth-811). The moment the timeline diverged into two possible outcomes, two universes existed. The same holds true for pretty much every alternate timeline created by any means. This is canonically how timelines work in Marvel (and the Marvel movies are explicitly part of that cosmology, because they've been defined as taking place in the existing multiverse).

The multiverse is literally a collection of universes that exist on multiple parallel timelines. Whether you refer to a parallel universe or an alternate timeline, you're referring to exactly the same thing.



AllstarSniper32 posted...

Yes, cause directors of Marvel movies have never lied about any plot related things in the past.

Things said after the fact, to clarify an aspect of the movie? No, they literally never have.

Before a movie comes out, to preserve suspense or hide spoilers? Sure. But that doesn't actually apply in this case.



AllstarSniper32 posted...

What would make anyone think that something the directors say in real life is canon for the mcu?

Probably the fact that most people don't accept "Death of the Author" as a valid criticism technique, and by definition the author of a work is the only person capable of elaborating on context that isn't explicitly spelled out in a movie.

For another Avengers/Russo example, it isn't really explained in any meaningful way in the films why Hulk doesn't want to come out in Infinity War. Plenty of people speculated that it's because Hulk was afraid of Thanos (and that's probably the much better way to interpret it), but like it or not, after the fact, the writer and directors explicitly explained that it was because Hulk was tired of being used, and didn't want to just be a weapon that Banner relied on when needed that would get stuffed back in the box the moment he didn't. Like it or not, that is the canonical answer in-universe.

Arguably, that could be contradicted if Kevin Feige came out and said "No, that's not really what it was" (as he's really the only one with official authority to outrank them), and it could potentially be retconned later (which is something that happens all the time in comics anyway), but at the moment, it IS the canonical answer, period.



AllstarSniper32 posted...

One thing you do know though, is that when he lived out his life, it wasn't in the timeline that was in Endgame.

We don't actually know that at all, because it's never explicitly said in the movie itself. And because it wasn't explained, viewers were confused, and asked about it, which is why the Russos explained how the whole mess worked in the first place.

Regardless of whatever headcanon you might prefer, Cap literally lived with Peggy through the main timeline of the MCU as seen on screen. Him being with her in the same timeline is canon. Which was straight up mentioned because people pointed out it was kind of weird that he would essentially be cucking an alternate version of himself otherwise.
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Cap grew old with Peggy in a timeline that was otherwise almost exactly like ours. Then when that alternate Steve was thawed out of the ice, our Steve stole his shield and returned to the "main" timeline.

What makes it confusing is how the scene is set up. We don't know how he ended up on that bench since he should have returned through the warp pad thing.

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