SPOILERS: The Most Extremely Messed Up Thing About 'Avengers: Endgame'

I don't think there's much utility in trying to convince anyone to see Avengers: Endgame: Infinity Money: No More Pee Breaks at this point—everyone already knows if they're in or out. Either you already have seen it, or you've bought tickets to go see it this week, or you couldn't tell your Mieks from your Mjolnirs if your life depended on it and you don't understand why adults care so much about the talking raccoon films. This movie has already made approximately $30 billion dollars and it's only been open half of a day; it's already been given a very deserved honorary Oscar for Most Stuff That Has Ever Happened In One Movie.

Some people might argue that this movie is critic-proof, because it is the culmination of a ridiculously well-oiled, sometimes joyful, sometimes questionable 22 movie, 11-year cinematic arc—and yet, it also has a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the second highest rated Marvel movie. Even AO Scott could find things to like about it, so it isn't like the powers that be were phoning it in or half-assing it with the big climax.

And oh, what a climax this film is! It is a movie that is made up entirely of hilarious callbacks, insanely-detailed Easter Eggs, and gratifying payoffs for the entire series: emotional payoffs, comedic payoffs, character payoffs, and especially, the payoffs that Robert Downey Jr. will be living off of for the rest of his life. The 22 films in the entire MCU saga so far have been, at worst, profoundly competently-made (if hollow). At best, they really do evoke some primal childhood exhilaration from viewers, with narratives that are both nostalgic and colored by the complications of adulthood. Sometimes I have loved them unreservedly (The Avengers, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians Of The Galaxy), sometimes I have found them somewhat forgettable (Ant-Man, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2) and sometimes I think their ambitions have far outweighed the execution (Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Captain Marvel).

Avengers: Endgame fell comfortably into the first category: it is the platonic ideal of comic book movie, in that it looks and feels like a comic book come to life that still appreciates the fact that it's a film. In other words, it's not slavishly devoted to recreating a comic book like Watchmen—it's perfectly executing the feeling of a comic book story in this very different medium. If you're a fan of movies in this series, you will not be disappointed: you will laugh a lot, you will feel the hairs on your neck standup when the heroes do hero things together, you'll start to think about all the different places you were in your life when the previous movies came out, you may even shed a tear or two.

But while I heartily recommend this film, there's also something extremely fucked up about the plot, something which we can't discuss without wading into deep spoiler territory. And it is at this point that I strongly urge anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet to LOOK THE FUCK AWAY! Bookmark this page, close that browser, and come back after you see the film. The overarching plot of the film is one thing, but you really don't want to have the incredibly satisfying small moments spoiled for you before seeing it.

For everyone, please scroll down past the excessive spoiler warnings to understand the truly fucked up thing about this film...

SPOILER WARNING: FOR THE NIGHT IS DARK AND FULL OF SPOILERS

These are the faces I'll make if you keep reading below and then get upset because something is spoiled for you (Marvel Studios)

LET'S PAUSE HERE A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON WHETHER THANOS HAD A POINT AFTER ALL

VERY LAST SPOILER WARNING, NO TAKEBACKS: SPOILERS ASSEMBLE

FAT THOR!!!!!

Okay, just needed to get that out of my system. I love Fat Thor. He's roommates with Korg and Miek, he's gone full-Lebowski, he has a biter rivalry with Noobmaster69. All the Shakespearean trappings of Kenneth Branagh's initial take on Thor are completely gone—now he is Chris Hemsworth's id incarnate.

I don't want to get too caught up in this, but here is a brief list of everything amazing in this film: Captain America commenting on his own ass, the serene Professor Hulk goofing around and taking selfies with fans, Thor retelling the plot of Thor: The Dark World to confused looks, Cap wielding Mjolnir, the big Lady Avengers moment, "So Back to the Future was all just a bunch of bullshit then?", all the interweaving of the scenes from past movies, "I honestly thought you were 'Build-A-Bear'", the team eating lunch together at Avengers HQ, Black Widow's sacrifice, Stan Lee's final cameo, "NO MORE STAIRS," and of course, finally getting the "Avengers...assemble" moment we've been waiting for. Spider-Man cries again, and it's emotional! They had so many alumni come back for cameos and short parts, including Robert Redford, Rene Russo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tilda Swinton, Hayley Atwell, that kid from Iron Man 3. Fuck, they even got Natalie Portman to come back! She hates these movies!

The five years later jump into the time travel/time heist part of the movie was really a fun dramatic structure to the film that kept it moving along without getting bogged down in too much misery (the emotional beats around The Leftovers section of the film worked for me well). It didn't feel like a three-hour movie, which is pretty remarkable thing to say about a three-hour movie! The original six Avengers were all given complete arcs in the film and tons of screen time—maybe Hawkeye/Ronin got too much? Or is he the heart of these films? IDK—so nobody got robbed on that level. The fact that Cap, Iron Man and Black Widow are all definitively done felt right; Thor joining up with the "Asgardians of The Galaxy" felt even more right. Having the last shot be Cap finally getting his dance with Peggy, knowing he got to live a full life with her off-screen, felt pretty nice.

Good job everyone! Great movie experience! So much fun! Let's do it again in 11 years!

But there's...one thing...that is really bugging me. Actually, there are a couple things that we probably shouldn't think about too hard, like why did they send Black Widow and Hawkeye, of all people, to the weird alien planet at the end of the galaxy and not one of the space Avengers? And, wasn't it a really big deal in Guardians that a human had held an infinity stone? And here, like thirteen people all hold one in their hand like no big deal? But I digress. The really big thing: Tony Stark makes the team promise that if they are gonna bring everyone back, they can't erase everything that happened during that five year jump, because he ended up having a daughter, and obviously he doesn't want his daughter to cease to exist.

Right before the climactic battle with Thanos' forces in 2023, Hulk is able to make this come true when he wields the glove, snaps his fingers, and brings back all the people who Thanos made disappear. This makes for a truly epic moment when all the lost heroes start showing up to join in on the CGI Battle To End All CGI Battles. Then Iron Man heroically dies after he wields the glove to vanquish Thanos and his forces once and for all, and everyone (and I do mean everyone) shows up for his funeral, and also Cap is an old man now, don't ask. Life goes on...

But hold on a sec. What about all the people who have spent the last five years mourning their loved ones? What about the people who have moved on with new lives? What about the people who committed suicide, or turned into murderers-for-hire (looking at YOU Hawkeye)? What about the people whose personalities have irrevocably been changed because of the trauma? How will they react to their loved ones showing up on their doorsteps?

The troubling implications of Tony's decision really crystallized for me when we saw a brief shot of Peter Parker and best friend Ned Leeds reuniting in school—does this mean that half Peter's high school class graduated years ago while he's still a sophomore? Is Peter now a 22-year-old high schooler? Or do those gap years not count toward your age? Are they mixed in with other students or do the disappeared kids get quarantined together because of their shared experience?

We all know Tony Stark is a selfish guy who likes to have it both ways—that has been one of the major through lines of all his movies! It's why so many people love him! My friend, who I saw the film with this week, was also deeply-troubled by all this. He offered a few more thoughts about why he thinks what Tony does is arguably just as bad (particularly psychologically) as what Thanos did at the end of Infinity War. (He asked to remain anonymous because he doesn't really want anyone to yell at him, you can just yell at me.)

As any fan of myth knows, heroes regularly have to make tough decisions for themselves in order to serve a greater good (see: Black Widow’s dive into destiny in Endgame; Bruce Willis in Armageddon; The Dark Knight). And those choices do sometimes backfire (see: The Dark Knight Rises). But what makes heroes heroes is that they make those choices to spare the rest of the world maximum pain. Not Tony Stark though!

In Endgame, Stark unilaterally decides that the Avengers can go back in time and steal back the Infinity Gems in order to bring everyone who got snapped out of existence back… but, despite those gems having infinite power, they can’t just erase the past five years. Why? Because the Tony bopped Goop and Goop pooped out a moppet who likes to go through his garage.

Let’s just think through just three of the issues with Iron Man bringing back half the universe’s population rather than restarting the clock:

• After Thanos snapped and erased half the universe presumably millions of additional people died (on Earth alone!) due to things like planes and trains and automobiles and power plants and emergency rooms suddenly having nobody operating them. When Tony fixed things? Those people are still dead.


• All the parents who spent five years in grief because their children got dusted who suddenly have their kids back? Think about how those folks are going to transition back into a normal life. That’s gonna go great, I’m sure. Losing his family and kids turned Hawkeye into a psychopath - you think he’s the only one? Thanks Iron Man!


• Or, flip that, think of the kids whose parents got dusted and have spent the last five years growing up on their own (like, presumably, that mute kid on a bike in San Francisco). You think all of those children left behind survived? Imagine being an un-dusted parent and finding out what little Holden had to do to survive while Tony Stark was hanging out by the lake.

The story I kept thinking about after watching Endgame was that of Agamemnon, who in order to get the Greek ships sailing so the Trojan War could get going had to kill his first-born daughter, Iphigenia. Which - spoiler alert! - he did. He killed his daughter because he (and she) felt it was for the greater good. Yeah, he was arguably very wrong (Clytemnestra enters the bathroom) but that’s the way these stories are supposed to go. Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac. Heroes do crazy shit.

But not Tony Stark. Just like his dad before him, he’d do anything for his kid. Including bring about untold, and unnecessary, trauma upon the entire universe.

I understand that it isn’t just the Stark child that would be erased in a rewind, clearly the universe went on after the snap— but everything that Thanos did in Infinity War was against the nature of the universe. The good of a rewind vastly outweighs both doing nothing and Iron Man’s cop-out choice.

I'll just note that I would have gone with Stannis Baratheon instead of Agamemnon, but kudos to him for inserting Greek mythology into this. Also, he was very unhappy with the "implied ethical issues" of Cap's choices at the end of the film, but I think we can leave that argument for another day.