Opinion: The Avengers are the real villains in Avengers: Endgame

THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF AVENGERS: ENDGAME INCLUDING THE END OF THE FILM. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE AND DON’T WANT IT SPOILED

After 10 years, we’ve finally reached the big finale of the MCU with Avengers: Endgame. The mad men and women at Marvel finally did it, they put the cherry on top of their gargantuan cinematic ice cream sundae. It was a triumph for many, while we don’t feel as strongly as others do, it hits a lot of marks in a variety of satisfying ways.

Perhaps the most satisfying moments of the film is when basically every superhero in the MCU returns to beat Thanos’ purple ass. After acquiring all the Infinity Stones via time travel, the team builds a new gauntlet and Hulk equips it, snapping his finger to reverse Thanos’ intergalactic genocide.

This brings back the likes of Spider-Man, Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and any regular human who was a casualty of Avengers: Infinity War. This should be great, right? We won, everyone is back and safe! No, this is actually quite possibly the worst possible solution as a result of The Avengers’ selfish behavior to have their friends back.

The Avengers have interfered with fate. Now, some people don’t believe in fate and destiny but for the sake of this movie being what it is, let’s just say it exists. In Infinity War and Endgame, Thanos makes constant references to fate, destiny, and inevitability. His big motif in Endgame is “I am… inevitable” and in Infinity War, a crucial line revolves around him believing he is a savior and a force of fate.

“I know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail nonetheless. Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same… and now it’s here should I say, *I* am.”

Maybe what happened in Infinity War was meant to happen, maybe everything happens for a reason. For instance, Tony Stark got the happiness he so desperately desired through a successful marriage with a little girl he loves desperately.

Now, with everything reversed, the Avengers have created a problem worse than the before. Given the majority of Endgame takes place five years after the events of Infinity War, the world has begun to adjust to having 50% of all life removed from the world. Food production has been halved, people have moved on, been remarried, had new kids, jobs have been replaced.

Thanos’ whole motivation for all of this was to ensure that the world didn’t become unsustainable, he was trying to combat overpopulation. The world became sustainable again, whether we like it or not, and the Avengers broke the balance to a catastrophic level at the end of Endgame.

Husbands and wives are going to go home to find entirely new families. People are going to be out of jobs. Food and other vital resources are going to be in very limited availability for quite some time due to the law of supply and demand. Earth is going to be a disaster for a while. Tony Stark even says something along the lines of if you mess with time, time messes back.

Will this specific issue be acknowledged in future MCU movies? I imagine not but it’s one of the chaotic consequences that has resulted from the actions of our supposed heroes. It’s not out of line for them, they frequently do stuff like this. Sometimes they don’t make the smartest choices, sometimes their own self-interest outweighs the greater good as a particular Stark once said about himself.