Yeah, I cried
This weekend, I saw Avengers: Endgame with my 11 year old. It is by no means a perfect film, but I do feel that it firmly fits within the spectrum of best possible endings for the series.
This little rant will involve certain details of the film, so hold on a moment and let me vamp for spoiler protection.
Now, maybe it was the fact that I spent the night previous shivering in the New Jersey Pine Barrens with my son’s Scouts BSA troop…
Or maybe it was the fact that this film was unabashedly joyful in celebrating its characters…
But I cried, perhaps, four different times during the movie. A couple of times those were tears of fannish joy–Captain America wielding Thor’s Mjolnir or the arrival of all of the “lost” superheroes. And once was purely character driven, such as when Ant-Man finds his now-grown daughter still alive. I didn’t cry at Tony Stark’s death, but I emitted a few tears as I could hear my son softly weeping.
Premise
After the fannish glow–after I thought far too long about the cockamamie time travel nonsense–I really began to wonder about the return of all those vanished people after the first one. Sure, the superheroes all jumped back into the fray. But what about everyone else?
What if you had moved on after your parents disappeared? What if you returned, like Scott Lang, to find your daughter was now five years older? What if you disappeared while piloting a commercial jet, killing all the non-vanishing folks onboard? What if your spouse remarried? Is your older sister now younger than you? (What does that do for royal hereditary if suddenly the firstborn is younger than the second?) WHERE IS ALL OF YOUR STUFF?
The Idea: Five Years Later — Not Just A Rehash of The Resurrected, The Returned, The 4400, etc.
OK, I get that this sort of thing has been mined before. Missing people returned from the dead/mysterious disappearance is something that happened a bit in the post-LOST era of TV.
So, yes, I want a LOST-style narrative-style. I want to tell complex stories about peoples whose lives were turned inside out by the ol’ Infinity Snap. Before the Snap, after, and after the Return. Good people. Bad people (you return to find Hawkeye murdered your Cartel, for example). Normal people. People in pain. People who return to losses they cannot fathom. People punished by circumstances beyond their control. People who have been given the gift of a clean start. Are there food shortages now? Do wealthy folks suddenly find themselves poor and homeless?
In a Marvel universe full of gods and warriors, what is it like being just a person?
I want to see the Marvel universe from the ground level. Here’s the other part of that–what’s life like when alien invasions periodically devastate your biggest cities. What’s life like when ARC Reactors become the alternative energy of choice? Do you still go to church after you’ve met a god? Are you still a skeptic when you see magic practiced on the streets of Manhattan?
This is perfect for Disney+ or ABC. Just let me know when you want to talk, Mr. Iger.