10 MORE Incredibly Clever Moments Of MCU Movie Foreshadowing

Thanks to Robert Downey Junior’s always-stellar work in the role, Tony Stark has become an unofficial team dad to the Avengers over the years, with his snappy one liners giving way to inspirational speeches as he motivates the pack of otherwise hard-to-assemble (and impossible to control) heroes to action.

In the first flick which saw the team come together, 2012’s The Avengers, whilst arguing with Loki he’s given a chance to drop the film’s title in that rarest of beasts—an actually clever and subtle line which only references the movie’s name in passing, rather than going full “turn to the camera like Craig Robinson in Hot Tub Time Machine” on the audience.

When Stark says "If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it,” it’s a great wake up call to Loki to show him who he’s dealing with, but it’s also a very early bit of foreshadowing for the events of Infinity War, wherein Stark makes good on this very promise. When the Snap wipes out half of existence, it’s pretty clear the Avengers have failed, but true to his promise they do avenge the earth nonetheless, paying off a bit of foreshadowing six year in the making.