Avengers: End Game is a great movie worth seeing over and over again. It is the long-awaited sequel to Avengers: Infinity War and the final installment to the Infinity Saga series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.1 Infinity War and End Game are stories that illustrate the one quality common to truly great people. What is the one quality? Love. In Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) displays a deficient love — his love endears and endures but the object of his affections can be dismissed and destroyed in exchange for something else. In Endgame, members of the Avengers, Tony Stark the Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in particular, display a perfected love, which gives all for the betterment of the object of affections (spoilers henceforth).
Thanos is a warlord with a utopian vision to restore balance in the universe. His home world is the planet Titan. Titan had become overpopulated, the inhabitants depleted all the natural resources, and their planet became uninhabitable. Prior to the Titan’s doom, Thanos called for the random extermination of half the population to avoid the devastation, but his idea was rejected.
It is in the aftermath of Titan’s destruction that Thanos begins to imagine the entire universe becoming overpopulated, all its resources being used up, and it all coming to an end. He then begins a military campaign to bring balance to the universe, which entails invading a planet and randomly exterminating half-the population. He eventually starts a crusade to acquire the six Infinity Stones, which control different aspects of existence and constructs the Infinity Gauntlet to contain them. Possessing all the Stones will allow him to reduce the population of the entire universe by half with just a snap of his fingers. For Thanos, this is “mercy,” and once the deed is done, he expects to “rest and watch the sunrise on a grateful universe.”
Thanos says, “the hardest choices require the strongest wills,” in other words, the end justifies the means. On the planet of Vormir, he is even willing to sacrifice Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the one he loves as a daughter, in order to acquire one of the Infinity Stones — the Soul Stone.
Infinity War ends with Thanos acquiring all the Infinity Stones and performing the ominous snap which disintegrates half of all life in the universe.
End Game tells the story of how the surviving Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and War Machine/James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) along with Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Antman/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Nebula (Karen Gillan) work together in order to undo Thanos’ snap.
Thanos destroys the Infinity Stones as a way to ensure the effects of the snap are never undone. Nevertheless, hope still remains, for Scott Lang suggests the possibility time travel within the quantum realm via the use Pym technology, which will allow for a time heist. The Avengers and company can then go back in time and acquire the Time Stones prior to the events of Infinity War, construct an Iron Gauntlet, snap all those who disappeared back into existence, and return the stones back to the same moment in the past from whence they were taken.
Members of the Avengers perform unparalleled acts of sacrificial love in order to fulfill their mission to bring back all those who disappeared. In the story, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff travel to Vormir prior to the arrival of Thanos to acquire the Soul Stone, and Natasha sacrifices her life, which allows Clint to obtain the stone, and still have a chance to reunite with his wife and children who disappeared in the snap.
Hulk even suffered great pains and physical damage after putting on the Iron Gauntlet containing the stolen Infinity Stones and snapping his fingers in order to reconstitute all who had disappeared.
Tony Stark desires to both undo Thanos’ snap without losing people he cherishes the most, especially his wife Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and daughter Morgan (Lexi Rabe). He says, “We got a shot at getting these stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities. Bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I found? I have to, at all costs. And, maybe not die trying will be nice.”
A glitch in cybernetic memory banks of the past and future versions of Nebula allows the past Thanos to peer into his future. He comes to know that he would eventually acquire all the Infinity Stones, perform the snap, and get beheaded by Thor. He even learns about the time heist to restore the disappeared. This prompts him to travel with his army into the future, acquire the stolen Infinity Stones, and snap everything out of existence in order to create a new universe without any memories of the previous universe.
The Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Black Panther/T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) with Okoye (Dani Gurira) and the armies of Wakanda face off against Thanos and his forces. The battle ends with Tony putting on the Iron Gauntlet with the stolen Infinity Stones, snapping his fingers, and disintegrating the enemy.
Tony’s victory is the one win in fourteen-million-six-hundred-five battle scenarios with Thanos foreseen by Dr. Strange. It is the endgame win scenario which Dr. Strange could only speak of in cryptic terms. When Tony asks, “Hey, you said one out of fourteen million, we win. Tell me this is it?” Dr. Strange replies,” If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.” Why? Because the victory calls for Tony to willingly make the ultimate sacrifice —giving up his own life for the sake of the universe. His is an act of perfect love.
Christianity teaches that love is perfected in the sacrificial giving of oneself for the sake of another. It is more than a familial bond or what is generally associated with the Greek word storge. It goes beyond the ties between parents and children and children and siblings. It is more than comradery or what is generally associated with the Greek word philea. It goes beyond a common bond shared between people, whether interest, activities, or ideas. It even goes beyond our own sensuality or what is generally associated with the Greek word eros. Romantic gestures can invoke unparalleled ecstasy in person at the center of the affections, but there is even something greater than that!
Perfect love comes from God above. This divine love is generally associated with the Greek word agape. It is the selfless, unconditional, sacrificial giving for the betterment of another, whether or not the recipient of the affections deserves it. John tells us that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Likewise, Paul writes, “One will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8).
Agape is loved perfected. One can experience and express storge, philea and eros and call it love but these alone are deficient without the sacrificial love exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ. The perfection of storge, philea and eros ends with agape — the love of God found in Christ.
Thanos’ love is deficient because he only gives to serve his agenda. At his best, he only has an unparalleled familial bond to Gamora, but he is willing to extinguish her life for the sake of his own military agenda — obtain the Soul Stone along with the other Infinity Stones to bring balance to the universe. He is unconcerned with whoever disappears, but presumes the remaining universe will be grateful for what he has done. His love has limits.
Tony’s love is perfected because he is willing to forsake his own wants and wishes for the sake of others. He does not look to his own needs but to the needs of others. The same can be said of Natasha. She gives her own life so that Clint can have hope and a chance to reunite with his wife and children.
Avengers: Endgame is the victory that resolves the tensions that came as the result of the snap at the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. I enjoyed both movies, and wish to watch them over and over again. I believe they both illustrate love defective and love perfected. Love perfected is the quality that makes heroes of the story so great.
— WGN
- The Infinity Saga is a series of 22 films thematically connected to six powerful objects called the Infinity Stones.
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