Joe Russo Clears Up Endgame/Old Man Cap Confusion

“That was the choice that we made.”

Avengers: Endgame was universally loved. However, some of the specifics around time travel did have viewers scratching their heads, especially when it came to the film’s ending. The final few minutes of the film has Chris Evans’ Captain America sent on a mission through time to return all of the Infinity Stones to their rightful places, only to not return moments later as expected.

We then discover an older Cap sitting on a bench a few yards away, ready to pass his superhero identity onto Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson/The Falcon. Turns out he traveled back in time as planned, but then decided to live out his days with Peggy Carter.

As beautiful as this ending was, the plot point did have fans realising there was unanswered questions. Although this film’s science around time travel is well established earlier in the film (traveling to the past becomes a part of your future and so you can’t change it, you instead create a new timeline foreign of your own), it had us wondering where this Cap fit into things.

Had Rogers travelled to the past and somehow lived his life out in the same timeline as before? Had he lived his life in another reality and then travelled back? Or had he just forgot his moisturiser during his trip through time?

Thankfully, co-director Joe Russo has finally cleared up this potential plot hole almost two years after the film’s release! During an interview on the Lights Camera Barstool podcast, Russo had this to say:

One thing that’s clear that Anthony and I have discussed, I don’t know that we’ve discussed this publicly at all, Cap would have had to have traveled back to the main timeline. That’s something that, yes, he would have been in a branch reality, but he would have to travel back to the main timeline to give that shield to Sam Wilson.

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.

So there you have it! It’s official! Rogers lived in an alternate reality and returned to his original timeline to pass on his shield to his friend.

The fallout of Cap passing on his shield will be explored throughout upcoming Disney+ show The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. The six-part series is due to start streaming March 19 and recently had it’s final trailer released during the Super Bowl.