#215 – The Three Seconds That Broke the Avengers

Welcome to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Coming with you with sort of a special episode today. I mean, every episode's special in my opinion. However, I think this is a really fun topic. I recently watched Civil War, and man, that is just peak Marvel Cinematic Universe at work. Part of me almost thinks they should have named it Avengers Secret Wars. They might as well have, but Captain America was a centerpiece which kind of juxtaposed Iron man as the villain. But in my opinion, both guys had a lot coming from each side. And this episode is about that three second pause that broke the Avengers. So there's a moment in Captain America, Civil War that lasts about three seconds. Tony Stark's head is down. He cannot bear to look at Steve, his friend Steve. He's processing footage of his mother screaming, his father begging. And he doesn't lash out immediately, he doesn't scream, but he drags his head up and you could see the restraint. Beautiful performance by rdj. He forces eye contact with Steve and then asks, did you know that question doesn't just break a friendship, it fractures the Avengers. And I genuinely believe that fracture is the reason the Avengers weren't prepared for Thanos's genocide. No one calls it that because that's technically what it was. It's just the heaviest way of putting it. This isn't about picking a side, really. It's more about understanding what that silence cost. Let's start with Tony, post Battle of New York. Tony is not the same man. He saw the wormhole. He saw the army waiting beyond it. And he's the only Avenger who saw the scale of what's out there. So when Ultron happens, when Sokovia falls, Tony signs the Accords. Not because he loves authority, but because he's afraid. Afraid of being the unchecked weapon that ends the world. Afraid that next time they won't get lucky. The entire movie, Tony is treated like he's selling out. Cap questions him, Wanda is confined. The team splits over ideology. But what no one sees, Tony is trying to prevent extinction. Then in the bunker, he finds out Cap knew not just that Bucky killed his parents, but he withheld that truth. That's not policy disagreement, that's personal betrayal. And when Tony asks Tim, did you know? He's praying that the answer is no. He can't bear the answer to be no. And Steve's hesitation destroys him. And from Tony's perspective, this is the final confirmation that the team he was trying to protect was Never unified to begin with. Now, let's give Cap his full weight. Steve Rogers has been betrayed by institutions repeatedly. S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra. Nick Fury lied. The government compromised. The system that he trusted in the 1940s doesn't exist anymore. So when the Accords come, Steve doesn't see safety. He sees control. And he sees politicians deciding what the Avengers are allowed to save. And Bucky? Bucky is the last piece of Steve's original world. The one person who knew him before the serum. The one who was stolen, weaponized, brainwashed. Steve knows Bucky is not that assassin. He knows he's a victim. So yes, he hides the truth. Because to Steve, protecting Bucky isn't corruption. It's loyalty. But here's the tragedy. Steve's loyalty to one man fractures loyalty to the team. He avoids the conversation because he's afraid of losing Bucky. But in doing so, he loses Tony. Avoidance wasn't malicious. It was human. So human. And that's why this whole thing is just beautifully complex. Now, let's bring in t'. Challa. Kind of our wild card perfect explanation of how things should have went. Because he is the moral hinge of this movie. T' Challa enters civil war consumed by vengeance. His father dies in Vienna. He believes Bucky is responsible. He hunts him relentlessly. He joins the fight not for ideology, but for revenge. And in that final act, when Zemo tries to take his own life, t' Challa stops him. He says, vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them. I am done with letting it consume me. Powerful. And that line is the spiritual resolution that Tony and Steve just cannot reach. T' Challa experiences loss and chooses not to let it fracture his soul. Tony experiences loss and lets it detonate the team. Steve experiences fear of loss and hides the truth. T' Challa is the only one who breaks the cycle. He finds inner peace before it destroys everything. And that's powerful because civil war isn't just about heroes fighting. It's about how different men process grief. Now zoom forward to Avengers Infinity War. Where is everyone? Well, Tony is in space. Camp is underground. Wanda and Vision are isolated. Thor is on his own mission. They are scattered. And Thanos picks them off strategically with not much trouble. If the Avengers were united, if trust had held, the stones could have been consolidated, guarded by the full team. Most likely in Wakanda. But with everyone there, Wakanda plus Stark Tech fighting that first fight we see in Infinity War, they stand a much greater chance. Strange Court Strange is coordinating. Thor, present Vision protected properly. And also fighting the Fight. They fight in fragments. Civil war doesn't just emotionally fracture the team. It strategically weakens them. And that weakness begins with that bunker moment with Tony dragging his head up. Because after that, the Brotherhood is gone. He's my friend. So was I. That hurts. That stings. As an audience member, when you care about both of these heroes, it's very tough. And when Thanos arrives, they are no longer one organism. They are divided Heroes. The main reason that did you know lands so hard isn't just writing. It's performance. I gotta just say, rdj, this is him at his absolute best. Tony cannot bear to look at Steve. His head is down. The physical motion of forcing eye contact is someone choosing to confront the truth, even when it might destroy them. And it does. That's why it feels real. Because this isn't superhero drama. It's human betrayal. And that's what makes the MCU so special. And that's why we as fans keep coming back, because of big, monumental moments just like this. It's grief colliding with loyalty. It's trauma colliding with principle. And neither man is evil. Both are right, Both are wrong. And that's what makes it one of the most mature conflicts in blockbuster history. Now, I also want to go into a little bit of spoiler territory. If you haven't seen Infinity War or End Game, obviously this is definitely something you want to skip. However, I'm. I'm figuring most fans that are at least listening to the show at this point. We all know what's coming. I want to, like, explore a little bit just what. What happens if the Avengers figure this out? How do they figure this out? How is it possible they figure this out? Well, I think around the time of Age of Ultron, I think the best perfect time is around Age of Ultron at the end of the movie where Steve is about to go looking for Bucky again. If you remember, the Avengers started out fighting, so there wouldn't have been any real time where Steve learned this information in his previous movie, Captain America, the Winter Soldier. What I think happens is he has this information. He's trying to figure out how to tell Tony, and he doesn't have the time because the Avengers are called in for another mission to defeat the rest of Hydra and to get Loki's scepter back, because that is very important in the hands of Hydra. So that comes first. And I'm assuming just because Steve is who he is, he's an honorable man. I thinking. I'm thinking he went from every angle, and he doesn't know how to tell Tony this. So he is mustering up the power to tell Tony after they get the Scepter back. But there's a party. Everything is busy. There's not much time to sit down and talk to him. So the perfect time for Cap to step up and honorably tell his friend what happened to his parents would have been after Age of Ultron. You. You could see the image of Tony, Steve and Thor walking through the complex before Thor blast off. You know that man has no respect for lawn care or something like that. That Tony says that's one of the funnier parts. Steve needs to go look. Can we go talk somewhere? Tony, I assume that goes down. It doesn't go over clean, right? He tells him the whole story. Like that we saw in the movies how he fell out of the train. How HYDRA compromised him. But Tony's listening because Steve is coming to Tony with something. He's not being caught. He's being honest. And even if Tony is enraged and wants to seek revenge and find Bucky. I personally think that Tony would calm himself eventually and follow and trust Steve. Because this isn't a betrayal anymore. If he does it at that point it's more of a confession of something he learned. And how did they figure out how to get Bucky and on the same page as Bucky. By the time the Sokovia Accords hit and all the heavy drama happens with that and Bucky just becomes on the map again and being framed. Tony has the whole story in his head. And he might not like Bucky, but he'll be by his friend Steve to help Steve out. Because he's a loyal friend. And it was probably one of the hardest things Steve would ever have had to do was to tell Tony that. And I don't think Steve is a weaker human or super soldier if you want to say. For not telling Tony until he had to get outed in the actual events of civil war. However, it just would have been so much cleaner, I think. And I think Tony would have went on to even help with the problem with Bucky. I think he would have convinced Steve to sign the Accords. Because Steve is still supported and backed by Tony. Either that or they both decide not to do it. They'd be a united front regardless. In my opinion. When the Sokovia Accords come around, I think Tony still will want to take full responsibility for what happened. And he's going to be taken over by the weight of what happened with his parents. However, there's not going to be that hinging issue with Steve Rogers. Maybe there will be a week or two where it's awkward between the guys and I. I really do consider by the time Winter Soldier shows up on those surveillance cameras that they're going to be united front so they become one again. They even find Bucky. They make everything clear. They find Zemo probably in the interrogation scene, maybe a little bit closer. And Steve being present for all that, it changes everything. I mean, I don't know what other chain effects could have happened. Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com Honestly, give me your theories. Like what else could have happened in that effect. If Steve broke the news to Tony after Avengers the Age of Ultron, how would the rest go down into Infinity War? Because Thanos is inevitable. He's coming. And that's going to happen in the same time frameish because they don't know Dr. Strange yet. They don't know where the hell Thor and Banner are. Something that Ross points out in Civil War. So the idea of Thanos will still show up when Bruce lands in the Sanctum sanctorum to meet Dr. Strange. And then it goes pretty smoothly from there. To find Tony, find Steve. Hell, maybe they're both at the complex together at that time. And to let them know thanos is coming. Dr. Strange and Wong tell them all about the Infinity Stones goes the similar way. But they're all together. They assemble, they bring Black Widow in as well as Hawkeye. We have Thor and he's still going to be in conflict. Probably using the Hulkbuster for a bit similar. It rolls out. Similarly, we could have prob use the real Hulk, but I think that might be coming back sooner in modern mcu. That's for a different episode. I really hope we get big mean Hulk again. I can't help but want that. So by the time Thanos starts sending his first attackers, the whole team will already have been assembled. And they might just take out Ebony. Ebony Maw and Cole Obsidian, the giant bigger than Thanos, son of Thanos. They would have taken him out early and they might have. Probably. I don't know what they would have done with the ship, but they wouldn't have taken it to outer space, to Titan. They would have stayed on Earth. They would have gathered what stones they already had, which would be the Mind Stone and Vision the Time Stone in Doctor Strange. And here's the thing. Thanos still a huge threat. He's going to have four Infinity Stones by the time he shows up to Earth instead of five like he had when he comes down in Infinity War. But that makes a big difference because twice the heroes ready for that first conflict with Thanos kind of overwhelms Thanos in a bigger way than he could have expected. It'll be like that scene where he's walking towards Wanda and she's trying to destroy the. Destroy the stone, except there's way more help during it. And just think about the Spider man, think about Star Lord. Think about how everyone will end up on Earth. Thor will arrive, you know, he'll help save the day a little bit. There's a lot that will go right. And I want you to think about Infinity War, where they almost get the thing off of him. The realization of Gamora's death. Somebody can pull Peter back because there's enough people there, they have him held down with Mantis and they get the the gauntlet off of Thanos. And Thanos isn't able to snap. He's able to fight, but he's overwhelmed by the full force of the Avengers unruly wretches, as 2014 calls the Avengers when he's learning that they are trying to stop his snap in the future. It's kind of crazy how good he takes time travel. Like he's not surprised. He's just actually proud of himself for being able to get through with the mission. His inevitable downfall actually giving him way, way, way, way too much confidence. And that he could just grab these stones off of these heroes when they're finally united again. So I think it'll spare us the five year gap. The snap. Everything changes. I can't go off of there. That's where everything expands, changes branches in different ways that I can't anticipate. I'm like Loki holding those trance together. However, I firmly believe that they would have gotten the gauntlet off of Thanos. They would have had the Infinity Stones. Maybe they would have taken them into a deep, deep vault within Earth or I don't know, Thor could have taken them somewhere or I don't think they would have had them destroyed. They might just keep them as their, as their biggest asset. Unfortunately, without knowing that putting a glove on and actually trying to snap may kill you. However, this is irrelevant. This is as far as I'll go with this somewhat fan fiction. But it all goes back to that three second moment. That moment where instead of oh my God, he knew the whole time he's betraying me, that wouldn't happen. And once he's Tony is betrayed by Steve, the whole board changes and everything is perfectly lined up for destruction. And we know they win in the end. But do they? Because time travel might have just been the thing that created the multiverse. If Tony is the one who invented it first and that time travel is completely sending everything out of control, that's what we can assume going into Doomsday. So that chain effect from that one moment that broke up the Avengers where Steve didn't tell the truth to Tony would have changed everything. And I think that's what makes the MCU awesome. Because you can go down those lists of possibilities. I can't can guarantee you that's exactly what would have went down. There's probably, you know, 50 million possibilities Dr. Strange could have seen and maybe like 10 where they win. I don't know. But all I know is it would have been cool to see, but it's even cooler to think about. And it just adds a lot more to that moment, if you think about it that way. How different things could have went if honesty was just Steve's policy, which it usually is. It's his one flaw. His best friend, Bucky. So back to civil war. It's not about the airport fight. It isn't about Team Cap versus Team Iron Man. It's about three men responding differently to loss. Tony chooses accountability but loses trust. Steve chooses loyalty but loses transparency. T' Challa chooses restraint and keeps his soul intact. And when Thanos snaps his fingers, he doesn't defeat a united team. He finishes what Civil War started. 3 seconds a dragged up. Chin, eye contact. Did you know? And that's where the Avengers truly fell apart. Thank you for listening. Email [email protected] your theories and your take on all this. I also would like to motivate you and Slash, encourage you to join our discord in the show Notes, rate the show thumbs up and give us a good review. It means the world and it goes a very long way. Thank you very much. And until next time, Avengers disassemble.