Every Sneaky Easter Egg You Might Have Missed In ‘Avengers Endgame’
Hoo boy, there's a LOT.
Avengers: Endgame is the culmination of 11 years of storytelling, spanning across more than 20 movies.
It’s the end of an era, and it’s very conscious of this fact, paying tribute to the past and the characters who have shaped it.
Even the very nature of its plot — the Avengers time-travelling back through their greatest hits — sets it up to be heavy on nostalgia and full of callbacks.
Here are some of the big ones, in a film that is actually built from Easter Eggs.
Tony Predicts The Future
When Tony freaks out at the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, he talks about how he foresaw what was going to happen, which was why he wanted to be more proactive about the Earth’s defences.
What he’s referring to is the vision he saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which he was stranded in space, surrounded by his dead friends. It’s his worst nightmare – and it’s exactly what happens to him in Avengers: Infinity War. Later in the movie, Cap’s broken shield looks the same as it did in Tony’s vision.
That’s not the only instance of Tony’s ability to predict the future (or at least be informed by his visions and dreams); in Avengers: Infinity War, Tony tells Pepper he had a dream in which they had a kid – a son they named Morgan, after Pepper’s “eccentric uncle”. In Avengers: Endgame, we learn that Tony and Pepper have had a daughter, and named her Morgan.
Cameos On Cameos On Cameos
In the scene where Steve is leading a grief support group, co-director Joe Russo appears as the guy who talks about his depressing date. And Russo is far from the only cameo.
There’s the obligatory Stan Lee moment — his last before his death. In case you missed it, you can spot him when Cap and Tony travel back to the ‘70s.
In the same sequence, Community star Yvette Nicole Brown appears as the woman who gets suspicious of Cap and Tony in the elevator. Earlier in the movie, another Community star, Ken Jeong, is a security guard at the storage unit where Ant-Man emerges from the Quantum Realm. (The Russo brothers directed and produced for Community, and have sprinkled appearances of its cast across all their Marvel movies.)
Also, it’s not a cameo necessarily, but the character Korg, who is played by Taika Waititi, is seen wearing the pineapple pantsuit Waititi famously wore while promoting Thor: Ragnarok.
And in a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment, Howard the Duck appears in the final battle scene.
HOWARD THE DUCK!!! ?????#Endgamespoilers #EndGame pic.twitter.com/IHFPrlmVri
— Alexander Guerra Valencia (@AGuerrav) April 26, 2019
THAT’S Who That Kid Is
During Tony Stark’s funeral, the camera pans over the crowd, which includes just about every significant Marvel hero, along with their families.
At the back of the crowd, one teenage boy stands alone. If you didn’t recognise him, he’s actually Harley, the little boy who appeared in Iron Man 3. Tony bonded with him when he sought refuge at his house, and it seems they stayed in touch. My heart!
Where In The World Is New Asgard?
The Earth village where the Asgardians settle isn’t a random location. They’re in Tønsberg in Norway, which is where Odin fought the Frost Giants hundreds of years ago.
It’s also believed to be the place where Odin died in Thor: Ragnarok. We saw it in Captain America: The First Avenger, too — it’s where Johann Schmidt (who later becomes Red Skull) first finds the Tesseract.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
With the time travel plot, the callbacks to past movies are obvious — but just in case you need a reminder; Tony, Cap, Scott and Bruce travel back to New York 2012, which is when the first Avengers movie takes place.
We see some scenes from that movie, and are also given context to others — like why Loki was gagged, and how the undercover Hydra agents got the Mind Stone.
Speaking of which – the elevator scene in this sequence is obviously a glorious callback to Cap’s famous elevator fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, while his “hail Hydra” is a nod to the character’s dark path in the comics. Cap’s face-off with his past self, meanwhile, is not only hilarious — it also shows how much his character has changed over the years, as he wearily (and swearily!) encounters to his former self’s “I could do this all day” can-do attitude.
Later, Tony and Steve also go back to New Jersey in the 1970s, to the SHIELD base, where Steve sees Peggy and Tony runs into his father — and also sees Edwin Jarvis, Howard’s butler, who appeared in Agent Carter.
Meanwhile, Thor and Rocket travel to Asgard in 2013 during the events of Thor: The Dark World, and Thor is given some closure with his mother.
The rest of the team wind up in space in 2014, in time for the events of the first Guardians of the Galaxy to unfold. We see Thanos send Nebula and Gamora to help Ronin, giving context to what was already in motion in the original movie.
A Worthy Captain
One of the coolest moments in Avengers: Endgame comes when Cap successfully summons Mjolnir and wields it.
If you’re wondering how he’s able to do so, it’s because he’s worthy — as Odin said in the first Thor, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor”. We got hints that Steve would be worthy in Avengers: Age of Ultron, when out of all the Avengers, he’s the only one that can make Mjolnir move.
Thor gleefully declares “I knew it” in Avengers: Endgame because he was the only one to notice Cap do this at the time.
Save The Last Dance
Avengers: Endgame had a bunch of full circle moments, but no doubt the most emotional was Steve and Peggy finally getting their dance.
This stems back to the very first Captain America, in which Steve and Peggy make plans to go dancing but are delayed by Steve’s “death”. Before he plunges into the ice, Steve tells Peggy he needs a “raincheck” on their dance.
This is something that haunts Steve — quite literally, as his dance with Peggy (a symbol of their lost love and stolen future) appears in his nightmare vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And when Steve visits an elderly, dying Peggy in the “present” time, he tells her “I couldn’t leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance.”
The fact Steve and Peggy finally got their dance — and the life it held within its promise — was a wonderful way to conclude his arc.
Tony’s Final Mark
A lot of fans were disappointed to sit through the entire credits to find that, for the first time ever, an MCU movie had no end credits scene.
But it kind of did.
Sure, it wasn’t a scene, but it was an Easter egg — when the Marvel logo appears, you can hear a loud “clank”, which is a sound sample taken from the first Iron Man, when Tony was creating his original suit. It’s a nice nod to the way his character, and that movie, initiated the whole MCU, and a token to show that his impact won’t be forgotten.
Jenna Guillaume is a Sydney-based writer who loves all things TV and pop culture. She tweets @JennaGuillaume, and her new book, ‘What I Like About Me’ is available now.