Those cliffhangers, characters, and plot points that the MCU has snapped away over the years.
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00:00 The Marvel Cinematic Universe gets more and more complex with each passing year. Introducing so
00:05 many new characters and storylines, it is inevitable certain narrative threads will
00:09 fall by the wayside. I'm Emile from WhatCulture and these are 10 MCU Loose Ends That Drive Fans
00:15 Crazy. Number 10. What happened to the stolen Pym Particles? One of the MCU's most notorious
00:22 loose ends revolves around a seemingly major plot development in the first Ant-Man movie
00:26 that was strangely ignored. Towards the end of that 2015 MCU entry, HYDRA agent Mitch Carson
00:32 runs off with a vial of precious Pym Particles, implying that he and the rest of his shady
00:37 organization will go on to use that technology for untold nefarious deeds. Almost seven years later,
00:42 those deeds have yet to materialize and Carson himself has been completely MIA. Interestingly,
00:48 a deleted scene from Ant-Man would have seen Paul Rudd's titular hero confronting Carson and
00:53 swiping back the stolen goods, but this was removed with the sole intent of leaving the
00:57 particles out there. Will Ant-Man 3 provide some answers? We sure hope so. Number 9. Where did
01:03 Valkyrie get her Pegasus from? The final battle in Avengers Endgame contains a couple of small
01:07 mistakes that are difficult to unsee once you spot them. And while this isn't a mistake per se,
01:12 it is a detail many fans nonetheless question. When the Asgardians emerged from one of Doctor
01:17 Strange's portals at the start of the battle, we're shown that Valkyrie is riding a majestic
01:21 Pegasus, which she then uses for the duration of the sequence. It was insanely cool to see,
01:26 mind you, but it did leave many fans wondering where did she get it from? She didn't have it
01:31 during Thor Ragnarok and considering that Asgard was destroyed at the end of that movie, along with
01:35 a good chunk of the population, she can't just stop by the Pegasus shop and pick up a new one.
01:39 Perhaps she acquired it during Endgame's five-year time jump, but when we first visit New Asgard
01:44 after this time jump, there are no Pegasuses. Wait, what is that, Pegasi? There's none.
01:49 One possible explanation is that the remaining Asgardians knew how to breed these creatures,
01:54 but considering that a firm explanation was never provided on screen, all fans can do is speculate.
01:59 Number 8. Did Matt Gargan ever try and find Spider-Man? One of the sub-villains in Spider-Man
02:06 Homecoming was Matt Gargan, who in the comics is known by his supervillain alter ego, the Scorpion.
02:11 This Scorpion factor led many fans to believe Homecoming was setting Gargan up as the main
02:15 villain in a future Spidey movie, an idea that was backed up by the mid-credits scene, which showed
02:20 he's hellbent on making the web-slinger pay. But not only have neither of these story paths been
02:25 utilised in Far From Home or Norway Home, Gargan himself has been completely abandoned, with that
02:29 prison-set mid-credits scene remaining his last appearance in the MCU. So what did Gargan get up
02:34 to next? Did he break out of prison to find Spidey himself, or did he use his boys on the outside to
02:39 do the dirty work for him? Is he still languishing behind bars, or maybe he escaped in the aftermath
02:43 of the snap? That mid-credits scene made it seem like the filmmakers had a plan for Gargan, but
02:48 it's been almost five years since Homecoming released, and the villain is yet to make a move.
02:53 Frankly, that's a waste of a perfectly good Michael Mando.
02:56 7. What happened to the leader? Despite it standing out as one of the MCU's formative
03:02 stories, The Incredible Hulk is a movie a lot of people overlook when discussing the franchise.
03:06 Though its reputation as a black sheep has improved in recent years thanks to characters
03:10 like Thaddeus Ross and Abomination being brought back into the fold, the movie has never fully
03:14 shaken that reputation. The recasting of Edward Norton, the redesign of Hulk, and the fact a
03:18 different studio owns the distribution rights certainly haven't done it any favours. Aside
03:23 from those aforementioned characters being reintroduced, it's also true The Incredible
03:26 Hulk is largely irrelevant in terms of the ongoing MCU narrative. Nothing about it has
03:31 ever been followed upon, including this whopper of a loose end. It's been 14 real-world years
03:37 since a cut on Dr. Samuel Sterns' forehead was infected with Bruce Banner's blood,
03:41 causing his head to bubble and mutate, and we're still no closer to finding out what happens next.
03:46 Sterns has featured in some MCU comics since then, but as far as on-screen resolution score,
03:50 we haven't got one. And if the upcoming She-Hulk doesn't deliver, we probably never will.
03:55 Sorry, Samuel, it's back into MCU daycare.
03:58 6. What's the state of Xandar? Xandar was introduced in the first Guardians
04:03 of the Galaxy movie as the capital of the Nova Empire, which is basically the Space Police.
04:09 Xandar ended that flick in a bit of a sorry state after serving as a battleground for Ronan and his
04:13 forces, but the planet did survive, and the end of the movie shows us that things have more or
04:18 less returned to normal for the Xandarians. Flash forward to Avengers Infinity War, however,
04:22 and poor old Xandar has received yet another battering, this time at the hands of Thanos.
04:27 The movie mentions the not-so-jolly purple giant decimated Xandar and took the Power Stone,
04:32 and this is the last we heard of the Nova Empire, the Xandarians, or anything to do with Xandar
04:37 itself. The annoying thing here, and why many fans consider this a loose end, is that "decimated" is
04:42 a fairly loose term. Does it mean the Nova Empire is completely gone? Is the planet a wasteland?
04:48 And are the Xandarians extinct? Or did Thanos just kill half the population as his signature move?
04:53 It's highly likely the Nova Corps has survived in some capacity, and perhaps with the announcement
04:58 of Nova being in the works, we will finally get the answer. Number five, how exactly did Banner
05:04 and Hulk reconcile their issues? Marvel Studios trolled everyone with its Avengers Infinity War
05:10 marketing, leading people to believe that Hulk would be unleashed during the final battle in
05:14 Wakanda. In reality, Bruce Banner and his angry green friend had relationship issues for the
05:18 entire movie, forcing Banner to don the Hulkbuster armor in order to stand a fighting chance.
05:23 Let's not talk about that CGI now. But the very next time we see Banner in Endgame,
05:27 he and the Hulk have somehow fixed their problems, merged personalities, and become the Smart Hulk.
05:33 The movie never properly explains how this came to be, with that explanation actually being cut
05:37 from Avengers Infinity War. The Banner-Hulk reconciliation again went unexplained in
05:42 Shang-Chi, where Banner was back to his regular human self. Then in She-Hulk footage, we saw a
05:47 few months ago that he was back to Smart Hulk. So what's going on? It is possible She-Hulk will
05:52 provide more of an insight into Banner and Hulk's newfound ability to merge and demerge at will.
05:56 The character works without us knowing, sure, but such a pivotal moment in Banner's development
06:01 does deserve some level of exploration. Ant-Man and the Wasp's main villain,
06:07 Ava Starr, aka Ghost, is suffering from a condition that the movie describes as
06:12 "molecular disequilibrium". The cells in her body are torn apart and stitched back together
06:16 on a consistent basis, and though this does grant her some pretty nifty powers,
06:20 it's also a living nightmare, and Starr is desperate to permanently fix her condition.
06:24 Fortunately then, the end of the movie gives her a glimmer of hope, with Janet Van Dyne
06:28 stabilising her using some quantum energy. However, this is only a temporary measure,
06:32 and the mid-credits scene shows Scott Lang entering the Quantum Realm to retrieve more
06:36 healing particles to presumably help out Ava in the long term. Sounds like a solid plan,
06:40 but it doesn't pan out when Thanos' snap leaves Scott stranded in the Quantum Realm,
06:44 kicking off the events of Endgame. Ava isn't mentioned in that movie, and Scott never delivers
06:48 the particles. Understandable, since you know he did have more pressing issues to deal with.
06:52 This means that if she survived the snap, Ava goes several years without any new particles,
06:57 and even if she was snapped, she's had to wait a fair old while for additional help. So,
07:01 shouldn't her condition have killed her by now? If not, how did she survive? As is the case with
07:07 other entries on the list, an upcoming project, in this case Ant-Man 3, might very well address
07:12 this loose end, but for now, ghost fate is unclear. 3. Did Peggy find out about Steve and Sharon?
07:19 This Steve-Sharon romance always came off as a little bit odd, primarily because Steve had
07:24 been in love with her Aunt Peggy since World War II. Even when Peggy died, Steve never stopped
07:28 loving her, as evidenced by his decision to leave behind his Avengers pals and go and live with her
07:33 in the past. That decision only hammered home how weird it was that Steve had snogged Sharon
07:38 in Captain America Civil War, a moment that does raise a further funny question. Did Steve ever
07:42 tell Peggy that he played tonsil tennis with her niece? And how did Steve react when he met a much
07:46 younger Sharon in the past? It's unlikely this will ever be addressed, because it's not really
07:50 that important in the grand scheme of things, but it is quite amusing to think about.
07:53 2. Where are the Ravager Guardians? A loose end that's quite likely to be addressed is the
07:59 whereabouts of the Ravager Guardians, last seen in one of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's many tags.
08:05 This intergalactic team of misfits, led by Sylvester Stallone's Staker O'Gord, felt like
08:09 they were planted here because writer-director James Gunn had big plans for them further down
08:13 the line. And it wouldn't make sense to hire a legend like Stallone if you're not going to
08:16 utilise him. Of course, Gunn's firing in 2018 pushed back plans for the Guardians franchise,
08:22 and if that hadn't happened, Guardians 3 would have hit cinemas already and the Ravager Guardians
08:26 might have made a comeback. On the plus side, Gunn's rehiring in 2019 put this back on track
08:31 for 2023. Reportedly, this movie will be the end for the current team of Guardians, which might
08:36 just mean the Ravager Guardians are about to take centre stage.
08:40 1. How exactly does Cap put the Infinity Stones back?
08:44 There are tons of huge MCU moments that happened off-screen, but this one is arguably the most
08:49 intriguing of the lot. When Cap is sent back in time to return the Infinity Stones to their
08:53 correct places of history, his entire adventure takes place off-screen. While we know the outcome
08:58 of this adventure, he was obviously successful. Many fans consider this a loose end because it
09:03 just isn't as straightforward as the movie seems to think it is. It took a full team of Avengers
09:07 to retrieve the stones, so how is Cap supposed to put them back all by himself? Some may be easier
09:13 than others, but doesn't the reality stone need to be put back inside Jane Foster? And how exactly
09:18 do you put the Soul Stone back? It's not like putting that fifth packet of crisps that you
09:22 definitely don't need back on the shelf in the shop you just picked it up from, right?
09:26 And that is not to mention the potential drama that unfolded when Cap came face-to-face with
09:30 his old nemesis Red Skull on Vormir. Like, how did that play out? Again, we know the ultimate outcome
09:35 here, but there are so many smaller situations that the movie leaves open to interpretation.
09:40 Cap's Infinity Stones Odyssey would make a cool live action or even animated series one day,
09:45 but for now, all fans can do is wonder how exactly it went down. All things considered, Kevin Fargey
09:51 does never like to say never, so maybe keep an eye out for some of them getting resolved in the near future.