While the Avengers: Endgame ending ostensibly gives us an explanation for why what Captain America did, going back to his original timeline to dance with Peggy Carter, doesn’t cause any timeline problems, it’s still incredibly problematic for more reasons than one.

I remember the first time I watched Avengers: Endgame; I was disturbed by the ending the Russo brothers gave us both for Steve Rogers and Tony. I was okay with Natasha’s death only because it was canon at the time thanks to the Secret Empire event. But in the comics, Iron Man wields the gauntlet without dying (albeit at only a fraction of its power), and Captain America would never go back in time and leave behind his responsibilities here.

It Should Have Been Steve

Indeed, the proper Avengers: Endgame ending would have had Steve die using the gauntlet. Look, I know that both Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans were ready to be done with their roles in the MCU, and who can blame them? They both got trilogies and appeared in all the Avengers movies. Iron Man also appeared in the early Spider-Man movies. I get it: they’re done.

But the Avengers: Endgame ending with Captain America was ridiculous on so many levels. First of all, Steve Rogers spent years as America’s moral compass to Iron Man’s egomaniac. He is constantly telling us to do the right thing, accept reality, and move on with what we’ve got. Indeed, there’s an entire scene in the beginning of Endgame that has Steve leading a therapy group encouraging people to keep taking it one step at a time during the blip.

Undoes The Achievements Of Peggy Carter

In Captain America: Winter Soldier, we learn that Peggy had a long, happy life with a man from the unit Steve saved. She also helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. As she lay dying in her bed in this film, aged and content, we see her and Steve exchange pleasantries and happy moments. She got to live a nice life filled with passion, love, and a great career. The Avengers: Endgame ending would ruin all that.

Can’t Change The Timeline

How do we know this? Because there’s an entire scene in Endgame where Bruce and Tony explain time travel. They talk about how you can’t go back and change time in your own timeline. What happened has already happened. If you go back and change something, it just creates a new timeline. This means that when Steve went back to be with Peggy in 1949, he created a new timeline with her, where they lived, ideally, happily ever after.

Did Steve Create A Timeline Without S.H.I.E.L.D.?

But, what if this Avengers: Endgame ending destroys all of that? For all we know, and for all Steve knows, going back in time to live with Peggy sets off a chain of new events in this new timeline that means Peggy doesn’t live into her 90s. What if she doesn’t found S.H.I.E.L.D.? What if she has a bunch of kids and decides to be a stay-at-home mom and dies early of a heart attack from too much weight in her middle section?

Old Steve Makes No Sense

It sounds funny, but it could happen. We just can’t know what actually happens when Steve goes back. Then, in the final moments of the Avengers: Endgame ending, we see an elderly Steve walk to the bench by the lake and visit with Sam, presumably happy with how his life turned out. But how can that be? Bruce and Tony already explained that he can’t be in this timeline. And if he is, then we never had our Captain America doing all the good he did with the Avengers.

Endgame Is Filled With Great Moments And Horrible Writing

So, he either is in this timeline, or he isn’t, but the Avengers: Endgame ending gives us sloppy writing on this point that never clears it up for us. We’re just supposed to go with it. Instead, they could have had Steve wield the gauntlet and die, and they could have let Tony live happily ever after with his actual, present-day, real-life wife and child. They could retire to some island somewhere, never to be heard from again.

No matter how many times I watch the Infinity Saga, I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with the Avengers: Endgame ending, and you shouldn’t be either. We MCU fans deserve better writing.