10 MCU Theories That Come Directly From The Creators

2. There Were Always Two Caps In The MCU - Captain America: Civil War

Surely the most-debated aspect of Avengers: Endgame is the ambiguity over Steve Rogers travelling back in time to live out a happy, normal life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).

Did he end up living out his life in the original MCU timeline, or did he create a new parallel timeline by traveling back?

Amusingly, the Russo brothers are completely at odds with screenwriters Markus and McFeely on this, for while the Russos believe that Cap had to create a new timeline in order to live out his life, the writers have a very distinct theory about how the original timeline could juggle two Captain Americas at once:

"I would like to believe that through some sort of bulls**t time loop paradox - throw in the words you use when you're bulls***ting science in a movie: 'some sort of quantum paradox' - that there are indeed two Captain Americas in the MCU timeline. That Steve Rogers who looped back into time has therefore always been there, and that he is living somewhere else in the movies you're watching. And what I really like to believe is that there's an old man sitting in back at Peggy's funeral in Civil War, and that's old Steve Rogers, watching young Steve Rogers, carry old Steve Rogers's wife up to the front of the church. Can I explain it scientifically? Not really, no."

It's a fascinating, brain-scrambling idea, especially as an elderly gentleman bearing a decent resemblance to Old Cap can be seen acting as one of the pallbearers for Peggy's coffin in Captain America: Civil War.

This is one of those wonderful things that will likely never get a formal on-screen confirmation either way, but there's enough there for fans to subscribe to whichever version they prefer.

If there really are two Caps on Earth during the entire MCU, though, it sure does re-contextualise the franchise in a fascinating way.