Avengers: Endgame — In defense of Steve Rogers

Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: ENDGAME..L to R: Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2019

Who Steve Truly Belongs With

Steve belongs with Peggy! #Steggy
Steve belongs with Bucky! #Stucky
Steve belongs with Natasha! #Romanogers

The merits and story-threads that support each ship are understandable. Fans are entitled to support whatever relationship they desire. Whatever connections you recognize and find familiar to your own life are important and valid. However you connect to the story makes it your story. My chosen ship is irrelevant here. I didn’t want Steve to go back and stay with Peggy because I didn’t want Steve’s choice to erase Peggy’s life with her husband and children. That was my sole objection — Steve Rogers wouldn’t trade a life for a life. However, thanks to the handy new time travel rules repeatedly explained and illustrated in Endgame, Steve got his happy ending without wiping others from existence.

Lingering Questions

As much as I loved Endgame and am thrilled for Steve’s happy ending, I have a few questions about those final scenes. Some of the infinity stones were altered from their original forms in the course of their quest to make a new gauntlet. Steve took them all back as stones. I don’t see how Steve could put the stones back exactly where they were taken from if they weren’t in their original forms. Also, how does Old Steve get to the bench at that precise moment in time? If he lived his life in a branch reality, did he travel through the Quantum Realm to reach that moment? Or, did Old Steve simply remember where to show up after Stark’s funeral to meet up with them, within the same timeline somehow. These are nit-picky questions that I don’t really need answers too.