Unlike his superhero buddies Iron Man and Black Widow, Captain America lived happily ever after in Avengers: Endgame. He returned the Infinity Stones, as well as Thor’s hammer Mjölnir, to their respective points in the timeline, and instead of immediately returning to the present, he lived a “beautiful” life with Peggy Carter. But how did Cap pull it off? Did he create his own “branch reality,” or did he remain in our timeline? The only thing we know for sure is that Chris Evans is still ridiculously handsome even as an old man. It’s a question that has plagued Marvel fans since the highest-grossing movie ever was released, but directors Joe and Anthony Russo have set the record straight.
“One thing that’s clear that Anthony and I have discussed, I don’t know that we’ve discussed this publicly at all, but Cap would have had to have traveled back to the main timeline,” Joe told the Lights Camera Barstool podcast. “That’s something that, yes, he would have been in a branch reality and have had to have traveled back to the main timeline to give that shield to Sam Wilson.” In other words, Cap and Peggy finally danced to “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” in a branch reality, but he returned to the main timeline to hand his shield (not S.H.I.E.L.D.) to Falcon. Joe added:
“In our internal logic that we defined in the room, that was the choice that we made. Based on everything that happened, he would have been in a branch reality and then had to have shifted over to this, so jumped from one to the other and handed the shield off.”
Phew, I’m glad that’s finally solved… at least until Chris Evans returns to the MCU.
(Via the Huffington Post)