'Avengers: Endgame' Spoilers: Final Trailer May Confirm Time Travel Theory

With all the time traveling the Avengers may be doing, Avengers: Endgame could revisit several key moments from previous movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but one scene we’re definitely expecting to see is the Battle of New York from the original Avengers. Now, we may have confirmation that Iron Man will return to that battle in Endgame, thanks to an Easter egg spotted in the most recent trailer.

Possible spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below.

Redditor u/lucho750 screencapped two moments from the same battle and then transposed them for comparison. The top screenshot is of Iron Man in his classic red and gold suit (with a few subtle tweaks) as he flies across the Manhattan skyline in the final Avengers: Endgame trailer. The second shows Hawkeye taking aim with his bow and arrow in the 2012 film.

Can you tell these are from two different movies? We couldn’t. At least, not without the help of u/lucho750. What is most apparent about the two images is that the same two buildings can easily be seen in the background behind both characters. One of them is even on fire in both pictures.

Here are the screenshots:

And before you counter that the Iron Man pictured here looks more like the version we saw in the 2012 Avengers than Tony Stark’s recent iterations of the suit, here’s a better screenshot from the same scene in that trailer (note the new arc reactor design). It’s probably not the nanotechnology suit from Infinity War, but it’s definitely different.

We pretty much know the Avengers will be time traveling to various moments from the past, most likely by way of the Quantum Realm. The theory is that they’ll go back in time to collect the Infinity Stones before Thanos can ever collect them to Snap half the universe out of existence.

The mission of collecting the Infinity Stones was, in part, confirmed by new footage shown at CinemaCon, where it was revealed that Captain Marvel proposed the idea to the remaining Avengers. 

Set photos have also placed some team members at the Battle of New York, including an older version of Tony Stark and Ant-Man. So we’re expecting to see at least those two characters revisit the battle.

The Battle of New York is important for multiple reasons. The first being that it was the first battle the Avengers fought alongside each other and what essentially made them a team afterward. They worked together to defeat Loki and stop the Chitauri from invading Earth. It was also the first time aliens invaded Earth, paving the way for space to become a prime setting for the MCU. (Two years later, Guardians of the Galaxy became the first Marvel movie set completely set in space.)

The Battle of New York is also important for another big reason: It is the easiest way for the present-day Avengers to take the Mind Stone, which was housed inside Loki’s scepter. Additionally, the battle is also when the Avengers could collect not only the Mind Stone, but the Space Stone as well, which was held and protected inside the Tesseract.

How long the team will spend revisiting the Battle of New York remains to be seen, but given the film’s three-hour runtime, Endgame could devote a significant amount of time to the past before the Avengers finally make their way back to the present to fight Thanos once and for all.

Avengers: Endgame hits theaters April 26, 2019.