10 Twisted Timelines Created By Avengers: Endgame

When Thanos murdered half the universe with the Infinity Stones at the climax of Avengers: Infinity War, it was always going to take something fairly radical to unring that bell. Avengers: Endgame doesn’t disappoint, as the Avengers travel back in time to obtain the Stones before Thanos collected them, to perform a reversal of the ‘snap heard around the universe’.

Thing is, time travel works differently here than in other movies. Back To The Future may be “a bunch of bullsh*t”, but Avengers: Endgame makes it clear what some of the potential consequences might be.

In this scenario, there’s a single timeline: but travel back and change events in what was your past, and you create an alternate reality, what Endgame (and its directors, the Russo brothers) have called a branched timeline. As the knock-on effects from your interference reverberate throughout the new history, events unfold differently.

Following Thanos’ defeat, it’s Captain America who returns the Infinity Stones to their original times, fulfilling a promise made to Earth’s former Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One. But the genie won’t go back in the bottle. Screwing around with time travel never ends well.

Extrapolating organically from the internal logic of the film, here are ten twisted timelines that the Avengers should never have allowed to occur.

When the Avengers visit 2014 to obtain the Power Stone and the Soul Stone, our Nebula’s cyborg brain links with that of her younger self, alerting Thanos to the time travellers’ presence and creating a new branched timeline.

Thanos and his army travel to the future for one final showdown over the Infinity Stones, but this time it’s the bad guys who get dusted. However, that branched 2014 timeline no longer has a Thanos… or a Gamora.

Without her, there’s no Guardians Of The Galaxy. Oh, Quill still steals the Orb, Rocket and Groot still cash in on Yondu’s bounty on him, and the three still escape the Kyln - but not Drax. In Gamora’s absence, he never has a reason to team with them. Without The Collector (who was Gamora’s buyer), Quill sells the Orb never knowing what’s inside.

With Thanos vanished Ronan has no reason to search for the Orb (he also doesn’t know what’s inside it): and without their big heroic moment against a supercharged Ronan, Quill, Rocket and Groot never go straight. Ego kills Peter a short time later and activates his seedlings - leaving the Avengers to presumably take out the colony on Earth.

Come 2018, there’s no Thanos to wreak havoc. The survivors of Ragnarok all make it to Earth (Thor still down one eye and one hammer but up one treacherous brother), the Avengers never reform after the Civil War, and without the Decimation, Fury never recalls Captain Marvel to Earth.