Earlier this morning, we got the first Avengers: Endgame trailer. While the Russo Brothers previously said that the title would not come from any dialogue in Avengers: Infinity War, it turns out that they decided to go a different way and pull from Doctor Strange’s line “We’re in the endgame now,” which is what he says before turning to dust.
But beyond the title, let’s take a closer look at the trailer and see what we can discern from the brief footage contained therein. We start with Tony stranded in space, which is apparently where he's stuck following the fight with Thanos on Titan.
There are a few surprises here. First, you may recall that Nebula and Tony were the only two people on Titan who didn't get dusted. So why did they part ways? I can easily see Nebula deciding to strike out on her own rather than team up with a total stranger like Stark. We also know the Q-ship crash landed on Titan, so that's presumably why Tony is in a different spaceship. Where did the ship come from? And did he just launch himself into space with no direction home? However he ended up here, Tony appears to have given up and is sending a message to Pepper Potts in the hopes that she's still alive and that she receives it.
Meanwhile, Thanos is living the peaceful life he imagined. His armor now serves as a scarecrow. He's still got the gauntlet (although it remains to be seen if it works post-snap; it looked badly damaged after he had used the snap), but he's running it through the fields. While Infinity War belonged to Thanos, it looks like the focus moves back to the remaining Avengers for Endgame.
Cap's beard is gone! It just goes to show that even when half of the universe has been wiped out, there's still time for good grooming and a proper shave. But also, we needed to see that Cap is back in action with his fugitive beard gone. He's "back in the world" as it were.
We can also see that Banner and Thor have gone back with Cap and Black Widow to Avengers HQ. Banner is looking through profiles of those who have gone missing, and while we see at the end of the trailer that Scott Lang is not only in a post-snap world, but also out of the Quantum Realm (where we left him in the mid-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp), it doesn't look too good for Shuri. She's also listed as missing, and since she could have only been in Wakanda where we last saw her, chances are she didn't survive the snap. While it's possible she's in hiding, she seems more likely to step up and lead Wakanda rather than go off the grid had she survived.
Nebula is surprisingly one of the more interesting characters in play for Endgame. With Gamora dead and Drax dusted, Nebula is the only major character who has a pre-snap relationship with Thanos. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, she swore revenge against the Mad Titan and almost got it, but was captured and used to manipulate Gamora to revealing the location of the Soul Stone. Additionally, the only other Guardian left is Rocket, so it will be interesting to see where the film takes her and if she'll get her revenge on Thanos or if she'll have to get in line.
Hawkeye's back! He got a haircut! He looks less than happy! In Infinity War, we learned that Clint Barton and Scott Lang took deals with the government to protect their families. Presumably, Clint got the same deal as Scott: house arrest. Considering the look on Clint's face, his family also suffered the same fate as Scott's: dusted. He's now using a sword for some reason, but either way, it looks like Hawkeye is ready to get back in the fight even though he's lost what matters most to him.
"This is going to work, Steve," Natasha tells Captain America. "I know it is," he replies, "because I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't." So what is the "it"? We don't know! My best guess (and it is a guess because I haven't gone digging for Avengers 4 spoilers) is that it will somehow involve time travel. Time travel is the best scenario here because not only can you undo the snap, but you can also the ramifications of the snap for 99.99999% of humanity. If humanity had to live with the knowledge that half of them had been wiped out and it was only because a few people had meddled with time to save the day, that kind of world would be unrecognizable to us. There would be no going back to "normal". The only way to normalize it is to undo what Thanos did, and that probably means jumping around in time.
But don't worry! There will be jokes! As dark and as dour as this trailer is (and it should be since half of the universe was wiped away and the bad guy won), it's still a Marvel movie and Marvel movies have jokes. In addition to showing that Ant-Man is back, it also shows the immense wisdom of hiring Paul Rudd for the job. It's not a big joke, but just enough to let audiences know that Endgame won't be a 3-hour depressing slog.
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