Captain America's (Chris Evans ) fate in the finale of Avengers: Endgame might seem pretty sweet, but it also poses a lot of danger to the continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Heading back to the past to return the Infinity Stones back to where they belong, Steve Rogers decides against returning to the present so that he can live out the rest of his life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). This sparks a lot of concern regarding the future of the MCU. Could Steve Rogers have unwittingly created an alternate timeline? Did he disrupt the natural flow of events of the current time that the rest of the Avengers live in?
Speaking in an interview with BGR,Endgame co-director Anthony Russo responds to these concerns, saying that whatever Steve had done in going back to the past actually didn't have any effect on the prime universe of the MCU.
"To me, CA's action, in the end, wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality," the director explained.
" He lived a completely different life in that world. We don't know how exactly his life turned out, but I'd like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world," Russo went on , "Yes, there were two CA in that reality, it's just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to past, you simply created a new reality. The characters in this movie created new timeline when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon."
Guess that settles the whole matter. It would have been interesting though if Captain America's time travel actually did cause problems for the prime universe – it would have been interesting to see what kind of changes or what kind of effects it would have on the people left behind.
But then again, this is a much easier explanation, allowing the MCU to move on.
Marvel's latest release, Spider-Man: Far From Home, is currently screening in cinemas.
Read: Spider-Man: Far From Home Has a Surprising Captain Marvel Connection (SPOILERS)