10 Twisted Timelines Created By Avengers: Endgame
8. 1970: S.H.I.E.L.D. Discovers Hydra Decades Early
Cap and Stark’s second leap back in time is to Camp Lehigh in 1970, when the Tesseract was being studied by S.H.I.E.L.D. Although Cap and the Ancient One will return the Tesseract to the vault, the damage has already been done.
In order to lure Hank Pym away from his lab so that they can steal Pym particles for the return trip, Tony and Steven faked a radiation leak in a delivery of materials. Pym realises he’s been had - and returns to find missing several vials and a base on alert (due to a nosy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent having sussed Stark and Rogers despite their disguises).
Upon being informed, Howard Stark will quickly realise that the thief with the dodgy beard that everyone’s looking for is Howard Potts, the odd hippy from MIT he bonded with. Spies have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.!
Of course, the irony is that there are spies infiltrating Camp Lehigh. In 1970 Arnim Zola is there as a part of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s science division - and he’s secretly rebuilding Hydra inside the organisation.
Would this high alert allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to catch Zola engaged in espionage, two years before a terminal diagnosis forces him to upload his consciousness into the mainframe? It’s very likely that Stark and Roger’s incursion into 1970 causes a timeline where S.H.I.E.L.D. engages in civil war four decades early… with no superheroes around to help.