On September 25, 2026, Marvel Studios brought Avengers: Endgame back to theaters across the globe with a re-release titled Avengers: Endgame Encore. The re-release featured up to 4 credits sequences (depending on where fans selected to view the film) and was described by Marvel Studios as “must see” footage before seeing Avengers: Doomsday on December 18, 2026, as the additional scenes in Endgame: Encore were to serve as bridge from Endgame to Doomsday.
The 1st additional scene picks up right where Avengers: Endgame left off, with Steve Rogers dancing with his beloved Peggy Carter after some 80-years of longing for her and getting that dance that he never got to get due to his crashing of The Valkyrie into the Arctic ice in 1945, in order to prevent a catastrophe.
The original scene is extended in Encore with Loki (Variant L1130) knocking on the door of the home where Steve and Peggy are happily dancing. The last time that Steve saw this very version of the “God of Mischief” was when The Avengers traveled back in time and created a Branched Timeline in their efforts to reverse Thanos’ Snap (as seen in Avengers: Infinity War). The Branched Timeline spawned upon the arrival of Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and Scott Lang to the year 2012 during the Battle of New York. The mission of the quartet was to retrieve three Infinity Stones: the Eye of Agamotto (the Time Stone), the Cosmic Scepter (the Mind Stone), and the Tesseract (the Space Stone).
The mission did not go as planned. While The Ancient One explained the danger of removing Infinity Stones from a Reality and the dangers of creating Branched Timelines to Bruce Banner, Steve, Tony, and Scott were targeting the Scepter and the Tesseract. In the Reality from whence the time travelers came (the 616-Universe), Loki, after being conquered and apprehended by The Avengers, was sent back to Asgard (along with the Tesseract) with Thor. Now, The Avengers could alter this new Branched Timeline that they’d created, resulting in an entirely new chain of events than the ones they remember. And alter the Timeline, they did.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
For starters, Scott Lang wasn’t even in the Battle of New York, and he was in fact three-years away from becoming Ant-Man. So, that was different. Next, The Hulk caused a ruckus over having to take the stairs instead of the elevator and the skirmish sent the Tesseract sliding across the floor. I’m not sure if that was different from what transpired in the 616-Universe or not, but Ant-Man slipping into Iron Man’s suit and causing him to go into cardiac arrest was certainly not what originally happened! Meanwhile, Steve Rogers ran into his Alternate Self after encountering the S.H.I.E.L.D. STRIKE team. Steve’s Temporal Duplicate believed that 616-Steve was actually Loki and engaged Captain America in combat. 616-Steve was ultimately able to win the fight after using the Scepter to incapacitate his Temporal Duplicate. Two things transpired here that didn’t transpire in the 616-Universe. For one, Steve led STRIKE Team into believing that he was (like them) a secret Hydra loyalist with a whispered “Hail Hydra” into the ear of Jasper Sitwell. Then, he distracted his Alternate Self with the words “Bucky is alive”, which Steve did yet know in the year 2012. In the meantime, there was another major screw-up on the part of the time travelers, as while the Variant Thor successfully resuscitated the Variant Tony Stark, the Loki Variant commandeered the Tesseract and used its power to teleport away, landing in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, and creating yet another Branched Timeline as a result. The Loki Variant was confronted and then apprehended by the TVA (the Time Variance Authority). Loki was arrested directly by TVA Hunter B-15 and taken to TVA Headquarters by force for “Crimes Against the Sacred Timeline.” The TVA labeled the Loki Variant as “L1130.” The Branched Timeline that Loki created when he escaped was pruned (purged) by the TVA, erasing the Branch from existence and dooming its inhabitants to the Void at the End of Time where they would serve as food for the eager-to-consume Cloud Monster known as Alioth.
Back in the 2012 Branched Timeline from which Loki’s Branch spawned, the past that the time traveling Avengers knew had been dramatically changed. Both Loki and the Tesseract were gone. Steve’s Temporal Duplicate now knew Bucky to be alive. And Sitwell and his crew believed Captain Americas to be a Hydra loyalist.
Though Bruce Banner was allowed to take The Ancient One’s sacred Eye of Agamotto, promising to bring it back from whence it came at the exact moment that it was taken, theorizing it would be as if it never left, the time traveling Avengers only had two of the Infinity Stones that they came for (the Time Stone and the Mind Stone). Desperate, Steve and Tony decided to travel to a different point in time: 1970’s Camp Lehigh in New Jersey where Captain America was essentially born and where S.H.I.E.L.D. now operated out of.
Captain America and Iron Man arrived at a point in time in which three very special people to each of them that had died, were still alive: Steve’s beloved Peggy (who died in 2014 in the 616-Universe) and Tony’s parents Howard and Maria (who were both murdered by The Winter Soldier in 1991). Steve and Tony changed their uniforms in an effort for Steve not to be recognized by anyone. Tony was to retrieve the Tesseract and Steve was to retrieve the necessary Pym Particles that would allow them to travel back to the 616-Universe. During his mission, Steve happened upon Peggy Carter, who was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time. Steve was taken aback at the sight of the woman that he’d loved for decades. He wanted nothing more than to be with her. This was a pivotal moment for Steve, as he decided at that moment that when The Avengers’ mission was concluded, he would find a way to get back to her.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Meanwhile, Iron Man ran into Howard Stark but was able to conceal his identity, introducing himself as Howard Potts. These brief few moments with his father deeply moved Tony and in the best way that he could, he was able to tell Howard how much he appreciated and respected him. It was extremely therapeutic for Tony, who had a child of his own back in his own Reality.
Interestingly, when Tony asked how far along Howard’s wife Maria was into her pregnancy, he was caught off guard and confused about what Howard said. This has led to many fans wondering if Tony was actually adopted by the Stark’s. It should be noted that in the Marvel Comics, Tony was adopted by Howard and Maria and had an adopted brother named Arno. Does this matter in the context of the MCU or was this little more than an Easter egg. Time will tell.
Tony and Steve used the Pym Particles to successfully make it home, but when they arrived, they were stunned by the news that Natasha Romanoff had died during her mission with Clint Barton to retrieve the Soul Stone in the year 2014 from Vormir. Natasha was deeply mourned but The Avengers had to pull themselves together and complete their mission to ensure that Natasha did not die in vain.
From there, Bruce Banner successfully used an Infinity Gauntlet of Tony Stark’s design to snap the victims of Thanos back into existence and then, The Avengers conquered a time traveling Thanos and his armies in what became appropriately known as the Battle of Earth. Tony Stark delivered the final blow by wielding another Infinity Gauntlet made through nanotechnology to eradicate Thanos and nearly everyone and everything that fought for the Cosmic Warlord.
With their mission, Steve Rogers volunteered to take the Infinity Stones back to the Realities from whence they came, promising to “Clip all of the Branches.” From there, Steve said goodbye to his friends and after the mission was over, Steve decided to get the life that he never had, as the late Tony Stark had often encouraged Cap to do. After selflessly serving his Country and defending his Universe, Steve’s decision to be with Peggy was perhaps the only selfish decision that he’d ever made. The touching image of Steve and Peggy dancing together upon the Branched Timeline that Steve created was the end of the original version of Avengers: Endgame.
Now, you’re all caught up on Loki Variant L1130’s arrival upon the Branched Timeline that Steve created.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
This Loki now worked for the TVA and had been on a lengthy hero’s journey since Steve last encountered him. Loki had taken it upon himself to intervene in a fate that would befall Steve Rogers if he stayed on the Branched Timeline, knowing that the TVA would surely prune the Timeline and all of its inhabitants, as was TVA policy at the time whenever a Branched Reality went against the predetermined script of the Sacred Timeline. This sequence in Peggy’s home seems to take place before Loki Variant L1130 literally saved the Multiverse by taking a seat on a makeshift throne at the End of the Time and holding the Multiverse together, becoming the God of Stories. However, this could also be a copy of himself, conjured by Loki, as we’ve seen him do several times in the MCU.
So, I love this! MCU fans have debated for years whether or not Steve Rogers was always secretly living in the past or if he created a Branched Timeline, and we now know, conclusively that he created a Branched Timeline.
Debate over.
Meanwhile, it has been theorized / predicted that Loki moved Steve and Peggy to none other than Earth-828; the Universe in which the Marvel Studios film The Fantastic Four: First Steps was set in. Some have even pointed out that Steve and his son James can be seen watching the Fantastic Four cartoon that was referenced during the film. I love this idea too!
If it turns out to be true, it shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler as Steve was shown with his and Peggy’s child in one of the four Doomsday teasers that were released earlier this year to market Avengers: Doomsday. I also think it’s a brilliant decision to have Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers living in a world with The Fantastic Four, given Evans’ history in Marvel films, portraying Johnny Storm (Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Deadpool and Wolverine). Beyond that fan service, Steve and Peggy living with a child in a Universe from which they did not originate is a Multiversal danger due to the threat of Incursions (first mentioned in Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). As John Krasinski’s Reed Richards so eloquently put it: “An Incursion occurs when the boundary between two Universes erodes and they collide, destroying one or both entirely.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness revealed that Earth-828’s Doctor Strange was executed by his fellow colleagues in “The Illuminati” (comprised of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier, Hailey Atwell’s Captain Carter, Lashana Lynch’s Captain Marvel, Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, and John Krasinski’s Mr. Fantastic) after causing an Incursion due to “Dream Walking” (sending one’s consciousness into the body of a Variant version of oneself, which can be achieved through The Darkhold). Later in the film when we meet “Sinister Strange” (portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch), he lingers in a home world that suffered an Incursion and now used “Dream Walking” to murder Multiversal Variants of himself. At the end of the film, we see 616-Strange get recruited by the debuting Clea (portrayed by Charlize Theron) to follow her into the Dark Dimension because 616-Strange had himself caused an Incursion. Multiverse of Madness was released in 2022 and with the release of Doomsday, that mythology will finally be explored in full as I think it will be central to the plot of Avengers: Doomsday.
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