Why The Avengers Don't Need An Infinity Stone To Turn Back Time
Lots of discussion had focused on the Quantum Realm as the key to time travel and Marvel's head honchos have bigged up Ant-Man as a key player in Avengers: Endgame because of his experience of and ability to enter the Quantum Realm. But what if he's not the only key to time travel?
All of that speculation is based on blind faith - that the Quantum Realm's "time vortexes" can be consciously manipulated to travel freely to certain points in time. But the reality is, when Janet Van Dyne warned Scott Lang not to get sucked into one, she was sign-posting the fact that they're best considered dangerous wildcards. If they could be used to successfully travel anywhere, Janet would surely have used one to simpyl travel to her own past to prevent herself getting trapped in the Quantum Realm...
Something else has to figure into this equation, in other words, and we might now have an answer to that question, thanks to Samuel L Jackson. With Captain Marvel's marketing campaign kicking up several notches and set visit reports appearing all over the place, Jackson gave an interview with Entertainment Tonight and revealed a telling new superpower for Captain Marvel:
“She’s pretty much the strongest character — in terms of someone with powers are able to do things — in the Marvel universe. So, for Carol Danvers to be that person and for Brie to become that person, it’s gonna be a dynamite thing. I mean, [the Avengers] are up against some really, really tough odds right now — we saw throughout Infinity War — so now we know that we need something that’s as powerful as Thanos. And at some point, we’ll find out how powerful she is and all the things that she’s capable of. She’s one of the few people in the Marvel universe that can time travel, so…”
Wait, what?
She can time travel? That's a new one even for Marvel, who is supremely powerful in the comics and who has been suggested as the most powerful entity ever introduced in the MCU in the run-up to her debut. She's never been able to time travel in Marvel's books, so it's strange to see Jackson mention it.
Could it be that Jackson knows something we don't? Or is he pranking everyone?
There is a distinct possibility that Scott Lang ends up accidentally time travelling in the lead-up to Endgame (or in that film's first act) and meeting up with Captain Marvel, who follows him back into the Quantum Realm as the pair seek a way to jump back to the future to stop Thanos. That speculation would require Captain Marvel to be powerful enough to manipulate the Quantum Realm to her own requirements, in order to use the time travelling elements of that realm in a focused way.
Perhaps that's what Jackson means rather than her simply being able to time travel as one of her superpowers. Because, let's face it, nobody wants Marvel to introduce a character so powerful that she can hop around in time undoing everything that went wrong with complete abandonment.