Warning: Endgame and MCU spoilers will be found below.
Avengers: Endgame didn’t manage to snap Avatar out of existence over the weekend with a re-release (so close!), but Chris Evans and Don Cheadle still kept the MCU fires burning over the weekend at ACE Comic-Con. In doing so, Evans revealed that he was as confused as many other people by Captain America’s heartwarming yet ultimately confounding ending. Nope, I’m not talking about how he handed over the shield to Sam “Falcon” Wilson instead of Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (that’s a discussion for another day). Instead, Evans mulled over how Captain America managed to travel back in time and seemingly spend decades married to Peggy Carter in a reality where Cap was buried in ice and Peggy was (presumably?) married to someone else.
The Endgame writers previously threw a bone to a popular fan theory by stating that they’d always considered Cap to be Peggy’s offscreen husband, meaning that Peggy’s two children probably had some super-soldier DNA in them. Yet the dynamic directing duo, Joe and Anthony Russo, previously didn’t take that big of a leap, preferring to explain that Cap simply “create[d] a branched reality.” Clear as mud, yes? Well, here’s what happened when Chris Evans attempted to deliver a satisfyingly adequate answer on the spot:
“You know, I’m not sure I can give you those answers. That’s weak as sh*t, but ask the writers. Look, I understand there’s a lot of things you can question about the time continuity but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about working with Marvel, they don’t leave stones unturned. They really don’t.”
Wellll, in a way, Evans might be suggesting that Marvel Studios has plans to further explain this hot timeline mess. If that happens, there’s a chance that it could go down on the Disney+ streaming service’s Falcon and The Winter Soldier series. That’s where my bet would go, given that Bucky Barnes seemed to know that Cap couldn’t be coming back and expressed how much he’d miss his lifelong pal before he zoomed into time-travel mode at the end of the movie. Poor Bucky. He’s so used to being jilted and left to die after falling out of a train.
In the below video from the ACE Comic-Con Facebook page, Evans finished his answer by attempting to make people ask Don Cheadle awkward questions, but Cheadle wasn’t ruffled. Instead, the James “War Machine” Rhodes actor simply stated, “Steve exists on multiple planes and time isn’t a straight line, there’s multiple timelines.” Boom. Rhodey knows all?