12 MCU Movie Endings With Disturbing Implications You Totally Missed

3. The Universe Is Now "Without Its Greatest Weapon" - Avengers: Endgame

In Endgame, we get to meet Tilda Swinton's Ancient One again, which is great because so is she. In basically everything. We also get to see her almost casually punch Professor Hulk's soul out of his body while barely breaking sweat. Again, she's great.

She also says some pretty important stuff that sets up the end of the movie as she reveals that the Stones have to be returned to the same point in the timeline that they were stolen from, in order to preserve the main timeline and cut off all of the branches. She clarifies that this is important for her own reality because removing the Time Stone from Earth in 2012 would open humanity up to all sots of dark threats from the multiverse as Earth would be without "its greatest method of defence" or words to that effect.

That's all well and good, but then the Time Stone is returned to 2012 at the end and the Stones end up locked in an eternal time loop. In other words, in 2023, Doctor Strange watches the Time Stone disappear into the past and he is left without his best possible chance to defend the universe from forces of darkness. Doesn't that mean that 2023's people are immediately doomed?