Falcon and The Winter Soldier (spoilers)

[polishgenius]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

can be recovered in the same manner via time travel if urgently needed.

 

tbqh though this should also work in the splits. Obviously they'd also have to invent it first but there's no particular reason why someone in the Ancient One's alternate can't travel back to before the split and borrow the stone before Banner does.

 

 

I think trying to make it make sense is like trying to get Doctor Who make sense from season to season - they really only did what they needed to make their story work in that moment, they were not planning a rigid long-term framework. It's not as if comics have a tradition of time travel being consistent and making sense anyway. We try to hammer it into shape we're only going to hurt ourselves.

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Ever since the first Avengers movie I've always just kind of turned my brain off about how strong different superheroes actually are and how it makes any sense for regular people to fight alongside them. Hawkeye doesn't even have super-tech wings, just a bow and arrow. In theory, anybody with enough money to burn at a hunting shop could have his powers. Any random soldier should be more effective in a fight than him. So if the Falcon and the new CA and Battelstar are just fit, well-trained regular dudes with some cool toys, well, there's precedent for that.

I thought his power was his unerring aim. The bow and arrows are just augments to that. This gives him an innate super-power, whereas Sam has a tech power, and Cap, Spidey, Wanda and Hulk are artificially enhanced. Clint is more like Thor than any of the human avengers, in this regard. It's just that the only thing special about Clint is his eyesight, whereas the only thing (possibly) mundane about Thor is his eyesight.

[briantw]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I thought his power was his unerring aim.

So he's like a shittier Bullseye? 

[Tywin et al.]

At least Deadshot has a gun.

Also, does this make Martin Riggs a superhero now?

[TrueMetis]

All of the characters in the MCU still have comic durability, which means they can take hits that would kill a normal person unless the rules of Drama call for them to be injured. So Sam, NuCap, Battlestar, Hawkeye, etc are normal humans but everyone can take a hit except when they can't. (See Colonel Rhodes)

I do expect NuCap to get power though, either as a way to attempt to live up to Cap, or because he actually does have power right now but he's hiding them cause they're connected to the FlagSmashers.

(Is Natasha base level human? In the comics the Black Widows are also a result of a super serum IIRC but I don't remember if that was established in the movies)

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, briantw said:

So he's like a shittier Bullseye? 

 

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

At least Deadshot has a gun.

Also, does this make Martin Riggs a superhero now?

Guns are way less cool for super-heroing; it is known.

[Tywin et al.]

50 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

Guns are way less cool for super-heroing; it is known.

If your skill is elite aim, might want to pick the best weapon, especially when that skill has to exist in the same world as a fucking Hulk.

[DMC]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

Allow that timeline to continue without the Infinity Stones in place, and it will whither and die, either naturally or because the various threats the Infinity Stones defend against having nothing stopping them.

That's not what she says, at least the "whither and die" part - and certainly not "naturally."  She says:

Quote

This may benefit your reality, but my new one - not so much.  In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world would be overrun.  Millions would suffer.

That's basically saying she needs to keep the time stone as a weapon, not that losing one will necessarily "kill" the timeline.  Moreover, it's quite the leap to interpret her statement as the latter considering, as mentioned, obviously Thanos did destroy all the infinity stones in the main timeline, five years passed afterwards, and it doesn't appear to have affected much of anything.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Probably the biggest comparison is black widow, cos at least Hawkeye has the bow and arrow thing. She has no powers at all, she’s just good at fighting and is smart. 

 

6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

they really only did what they needed to make their story work in that moment, they were not planning a rigid long-term framework. It's not as if comics have a tradition of time travel being consistent and making sense anyway. We try to hammer it into shape we're only going to hurt ourselves.

Agreed.  I mean, just even starting to think about the timeline where 2014 Thanos/Gamora/Nebula disappear makes your head hurt.  That would mean the GOTG didn't get together, Loki and Heimdall survive, and, of course, all of what happened in Infinity War didn't happen.  Sounds like a pretty good timeline overall.

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If your skill is elite aim, might want to pick the best weapon, especially when that skill has to exist in the same world as a fucking Hulk.

Guns don't stop Hulk either.

[Tywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Guns don't stop Hulk either.

Well duh, unless you could shoot him with something to eliminate his powers, but the point was the power imbalances, like in the video you linked. It's like how it's silly to think Batman could fight Superman, given the former is a rich ninja and the latter is a god. Or in another DC property, how could anyone really stop Dr. Manhattan?

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well duh, unless you could shoot him with something to eliminate his powers, but the point was the power imbalances, like in the video you linked.

Right, the point is that guns vs. whatever Hawkeye uses in his "arrows" (which sometimes includes explosives btw) is not going to improve that power imbalance.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If your skill is elite aim, might want to pick the best weapon, especially when that skill has to exist in the same world as a fucking Hulk.

Hulk vs bullets, arrows and artillery shells is a bit of a wash. The only question is how much you want to piss him off.

[3CityApache]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Or in another DC property, how could anyone really stop Dr. Manhattan?

Wasn't the tv series actually trying to answer this very question?

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, DMC said:

That's not what she says, at least the "whither and die" part - and certainly not "naturally."  She says:

That's basically saying she needs to keep the time stone as a weapon, not that losing one will necessarily "kill" the timeline.  Moreover, it's quite the leap to interpret her statement as the latter considering, as mentioned, obviously Thanos did destroy all the infinity stones in the main timeline, five years passed afterwards, and it doesn't appear to have affected much of anything.

Agreed.  I mean, just even starting to think about the timeline where 2014 Thanos/Gamora/Nebula disappear makes your head hurt.  That would mean the GOTG didn't get together, Loki and Heimdall survive, and, of course, all of what happened in Infinity War didn't happen.  Sounds like a pretty good timeline overall.

She also says "The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time," and removing one will automatically create a new branch reality.

Banner then says that returning the removed Stone to the very moment it was removed eliminates the branch and that branching timeline is negated ("chronologically, in that reality, it never left"). The Ancient One agrees with him.

That's a key, oft-ignored point. Presumably then, if Captain Marvel had succeeded in getting the Infinity Stone through the van portal (ignoring for a second she doesn't have a suit; maybe she was going to give it to Ant-Man and he still had his suit in nano mode, ready to go?) and back to 2014 Morag, that would have caused Thanos and his army to disappear from the battle scene.

Because that was done after Thanos and his army was removed, it was a moot point (and everyone retains their memories of the battle because the timeline restoration can only do so much). It also means there is no alternate-2014 with no Guardians, no Thanos, Loki and Hemidall surviving etc. It was undone when Cap returned the Stone to Morag.

The only surviving alterno-timeline is the Loki-less 2012 one, and we're getting a whole TV show about that (well, it will at least come up).

[DaveSumm]

47 minutes ago, Werthead said:

That's a key, oft-ignored point. Presumably then, if Captain Marvel had succeeded in getting the Infinity Stone through the van portal (ignoring for a second she doesn't have a suit; maybe she was going to give it to Ant-Man and he still had his suit in nano mode, ready to go?) and back to 2014 Morag, that would have caused Thanos and his army to disappear from the battle scene.

Because that was done after Thanos and his army was removed, it was a moot point (and everyone retains their memories of the battle because the timeline restoration can only do so much). It also means there is no alternate-2014 with no Guardians, no Thanos, Loki and Hemidall surviving etc. It was undone when Cap returned the Stone to Morag.

That’s interesting, I don’t think I realised that was the plan with the stones. I thought they were just gonna hide them in the quantum realm (no suits, no Banner to punch in the right numbers?).

However ... disappearing Thanos’s sounds an awful lot like what Banner warns Scott against thinking: you can’t strangle baby Thanos because you can’t change your past. So, you can’t replace a stone and remove a Thanos either surely? Once you’re stuck with a Thanos army, you can’t ‘undo’ that, otherwise they would’ve just undone the whole thing.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well duh, unless you could shoot him with something to eliminate his powers, but the point was the power imbalances, like in the video you linked. It's like how it's silly to think Batman could fight Superman, given the former is a rich ninja and the latter is a god. Or in another DC property, how could anyone really stop Dr. Manhattan?

The only way to stop Dr. Manhattan would be to convince him to stop.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

She also says "The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time," and removing one will automatically create a new branch reality

That doesn't mean that removing a stone is the only way to create a new branch reality.  The Loki 2012 timeline proves this, as no stone was taken then and that timeline continues. I'd also argue the "multiverse" stuff they seem to be getting into suggests a timeline is created every time we make a decision. All these alternate realities they're (presumably) going to be playing with weren't created by removing infinity stones. 

Quote

Banner then says that returning the removed Stone to the very moment it was removed eliminates the branch and that branching timeline is negated ("chronologically, in that reality, it never left"). The Ancient One agrees with him.

"Chronologically, in that reality, it never left" doesn't mean negating the timeline, in my opinion. Just that as Banner leaves with the stone Cap appears to return it and the timeline carries on as if the stone was never gone. So no risk of not having it to save the day if some interdimensional entity attacks. 

[briantw]

23 minutes ago, RumHam said:

That doesn't mean that removing a stone is the only way to create a new branch reality.  The Loki 2012 timeline proves this, as no stone was taken then and that timeline continues. I'd also argue the "multiverse" stuff they seem to be getting into suggests a timeline is created every time we make a decision. All these alternate realities they're (presumably) going to be playing with weren't created by removing infinity stones. 

"Chronologically, in that reality, it never left" doesn't mean negating the timeline, in my opinion. Just that as Banner leaves with the stone Cap appears to return it and the timeline carries on as if the stone was never gone. So no risk of not having it to save the day if some interdimensional entity attacks. 

The real question is what happens to the main reality now that they don't have the stones to protect themselves since Thanos destroyed them.

I wonder if that's why the multiverse presumably starts to break down?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

49 minutes ago, RumHam said:

That doesn't mean that removing a stone is the only way to create a new branch reality.  The Loki 2012 timeline proves this, as no stone was taken then and that timeline continues. I'd also argue the "multiverse" stuff they seem to be getting into suggests a timeline is created every time we make a decision. All these alternate realities they're (presumably) going to be playing with weren't created by removing infinity stones. 

That’s the basic assumption of the “Many Worlds” interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.  One that I greatly favor over the Copenhagen Interpretation.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

51 minutes ago, RumHam said:

"Chronologically, in that reality, it never left" doesn't mean negating the timeline, in my opinion. Just that as Banner leaves with the stone Cap appears to return it and the timeline carries on as if the stone was never gone. So no risk of not having it to save the day if some interdimensional entity attacks.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the MCU takes the “Bill and Ted” view of Time Travel?  No paradox if you put everything back?

[DaveSumm]

@Werthead Actually, better evidence against your point: Gamora still exists. So nullifying alt-2014 people doesn’t work.

55 minutes ago, RumHam said:

That doesn't mean that removing a stone is the only way to create a new branch reality.  The Loki 2012 timeline proves this, as no stone was taken then and that timeline continues.

What might make an interesting (and have-your-cake-and-eat-it) resolution to all this is that the time agency in Loki snip off the branch realities created by the Avengers (but can only do so if the stones are present or something, to preserve what the Ancient One tells us) but that they chose to keep the Loki one for the specific intent of recruiting him. That way, the Avengers were absolutely right and there were no consequences provided they return the stones, Cap gets to live with Peggy because that isn’t a branch, and we all get a Loki show.