Chris Evans Addresses Avengers: Endgame Timeline Confusion

This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

Chris Evans, Don Cheadle and Jeremy Renner (taking time off from his relaunched career in music) appeared at ACE Comic Con over this past weekend to talk about all things Marvel and take questions from fans and, inevitably, the subject of Captain America’s final appearance in Avengers: Endgame was brought up to test Evans.

In the film’s wrap up of Steve Rogers’ MCU arc, old man Cap turned up again in the present within the main timeline, having seemingly lived out much of his life with his true love Peggy Carter, and this somewhat defied Endgame‘s stated time travel laws – that perhaps a move like this would create a branch timeline where events were altered and history would be changed in unknown ways.

After the movie’s massive release, directors the Russo brothers seemed to confirm that this was indeed the case:

“The old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam.”

But later, Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely disagreed with this version of what happened, revealing that in their opinion, Cap stayed in the main timeline and there were then two Steve Rogers in it, one frozen in ice for much of the time they existed on Earth together.

“I reject the ‘Steve is in an alternate reality’ theory,” said Markus in an interview with Fandango.

Evans, for his part, hinted that this discrepancy may well be addressed by Marvel further down the line.

“You know, I’m not sure I can give you those answers. That’s weak as shit, but ask the writers,” Evans said. “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.”

Evans then went on to joke that even if someone had told him how Steve managed to turn up at the end of Endgame with a brand new version of his shield, plucked from somewhere in time, he probably wouldn’t remember anyway.

“At times, I might share some of the questions, but any time I ask that question [on set], there’s always someone that explains it to me and then I forget it and I come on stage and I say, ‘Hey, ask Don Cheadle what it’s like… to be Don Cheadle!”

Cheadle then piped up, adding “Steve exists on multiple planes and time isn’t a straight line, there’s multiple timelines.”

Ah, that clears it up, Don, thank you.

More on this if we ever get it.