More than a decade has passed since Marvel’s The Avengers hit theaters in 2012, officially assembling Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on-screen for the first time and launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the stratosphere. The film was a groundbreaking achievement, not just for superhero movies, but for blockbuster storytelling at large.
But even in all its glorious team-ups, wormholes, and shawarma jokes, The Avengers left behind a handful of confusing plot threads that, over a dozen years and 30+ MCU entries later, still don’t quite make sense. Here’s the five that have haunted our minds for over ten years, and cause us to wake in the night.
1) Clean Energy Clean Out the Window
The Avengers movie takes place after the first two Iron Man movies. By this time Tony Stark is fully committed from distancing himself from the arms-dealer racket… Well, except for – you know – his army of Iron Men… But those are just for him. Instead, we see him at the beginning of The Avengers, testing out a clean energy prototype that was first thought up by Pepper. He manages to power the entire Stark Tower with the self-sustaining clean energy source of an arc reactor that emits zero emissions and could theoretically revolutionize the world’s energy crisis.
And then…nothing. Seriously, what happened to that technology? The Avengers facility later runs on the same tech, but there’s no indication Stark ever shared it with the public. He naturally got a little bit preoccupied with weird aliens rampaging around Manhattan, and, sure, he had to deal with some serious trauma. But Pepper was still about. He also obviously had the blueprints to this creation and could have easily expanded upon it.
Stark’s clean energy breakthrough could have been a huge deal but the MCU just… forgot. In a world where Wakanda has run its nation on vibranium and opens its borders and Peter Parker’s suits are powered by nanotech, it’s baffling that clean energy wasn’t one of Stark’s real legacies.
2) Loki’s Scepter
Loki’s scepter is his ultimate weapon of control in The Avengers. It allowed him to manipulate minds, open portals, and wreak havoc across New York. But in Avengers: Age of Ultron we learned that the scepter housed the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones Thanos would later spend years collecting. So, why did Thanos let it out of his sight in the first place?
It seems extremely naïve or foolhardy for Thanos to simply give one away, especially in part for his minion to collect a second one. Perhaps we can chalk it up to arrogance. After all, he also sent Ronan to retrieve a stone, rather than do it himself (until he gets reports that people keep failing him). But what’s even more puzzling is that Loki loses the scepter during the Battle of New York and Thanos doesn’t bother retrieving it. Instead, it just hangs out at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base for years before HYDRA gets their hands on it.
This is as one of the biggest, and most infuriating inconsistencies in the Infinity Saga. Thanos giving away a literal piece of his endgame only makes sense if he somehow didn’t realize what was inside the scepter, which seems unlikely for a cosmic warlord obsessed with the Infinity Stones.
3) Thanos Was “Courting Death,” And Then…?
Which leads us to another Thanos misstep. The Avengers treats the audience to a mid-credits tease of the Mad Titan himself. As The Other warns that challenging Earth is to court death, Thanos turns and smiles knowingly, clearly referencing a deeper motivation than just conquest.
For longtime Marvel Comics readers, this seemed to be a clear nod to Thanos’ obsession with the cosmic embodiment of Death. In the comics, Thanos doesn’t want to destroy the universe for balance, he wants to impress Lady Death herself. It’s dark, twisted, and frankly way more dramatic than the whole “perfectly balanced” ideology we get in Infinity War.
But the MCU never goes there. Lady Death is never mentioned again, and Thanos’ motivations shift to a utilitarian obsession with population control. Endgame tries to retcon this by having Thanos technically dying at the hands of Earth’s heroes two times, once on his farm-like retreat (but it was an Asguardian not an Earthling that makes the final blow), and then finally in a literal puff of ashes. Now that final ‘click’ was handed out by Tony Stark, on Earth, but it’s a long, winding road to get there.
This tonal shift from love-sick nihilist to resource-management extremist is never really explained. And for fans who clocked the “courting death” line back in 2012, it’s still a major what-could-have-been moment.
4) The Waitress’ Longing Looks
If you thought there was something oddly intimate about the way a random NYC waitress looked at Steve Rogers during the Battle of New York, you’re not imagining it. The server, played by The Last of Us franchise star Ashley Johnson, gets a surprisingly generous amount of screen time for an unnamed civilian, and the fact the shots pan back to her constantly looking at Cap with more concern than a standard stranger would just makes no sense in the theatrical release.
Though many may have seen the deleted scene where her character, named Beth, was supposed to strike up a subtle flirtatious arc with Cap, in the context of the original release it just comes off a bit Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. In the cut sequence, Stan Lee even tells Steve to “ask her out” after she’s taken his order. The missed opportunity stings even more when you realize who Ashley Johnson has become to fans, thanks both to The Last of Us and Critical Role. Imagine dating a badass killer of mushroom people – that’s someone you want in your corner!
5) The Hulk Safety Pod
Possibly one of the biggest things that doesn’t make sense is Hulk’s special containment pod aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, created to deal with Bruce Banner if he ever Hulks out mid-flight. In theory, it makes sense – Banner gets green, and the pod will be expelled from the ship. But it’s not Banner’s cabin, despite his sarcastic joke that Fury rented his room to Loki. So, how was that pod supposed to work?
Was everyone just expecting Banner, mid-rage change, would calmly walk himself into a trap-door tube so S.H.I.E.L.D. can yeet him into the ocean? This assumes Banner always has enough self-awareness and proximity to get there in time. And we know that at that time, he most definitely did not. What if he’s on the bridge? What if he’s across the other side of the ship? The fact that he does turn into the Hulk, and smashes his way through the ship, tells us that S.H.I.E.L.D. probably came up with this idea late on a Friday afternoon.
The pod ends up being used (kind of) when Loki tricks Thor into stepping inside it instead. But the entire plan for Hulk containment feels wildly naïve considering how unpredictable Banner’s transformations are. And for a team that built a flying fortress, you’d think they’d come up with a better backup plan than “hope the super angry rage monster calmly walks into his small, confined prison.”
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