One of the biggest mysteries surrounding ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is how Steve Rogers managed to return as an old man after traveling through time. The movie establishes that Steve goes back to return the Infinity Stones.
However, instead of coming back through the time machine, he appears years later sitting on a nearby bench.
Steve May Have Never Returned To The Avengers’ Timeline
Steve’s return works emotionally, especially because he finally gets the life he wanted with Peggy Carter. But from a time-travel perspective, the scene has always raised questions. A new theory involving Loki and the multiverse offers a surprisingly complicated explanation.
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In ‘Endgame‘, Steve is supposed to return the Infinity Stones to their proper moments before coming back. Instead, he chooses to remain in the past and live a quiet life with Peggy. The problem is that this could create a branched timeline.
According to the theory, Loki eventually warns Steve that his continued existence in that timeline could create serious consequences for the multiverse. That becomes even more complicated with the TVA involved. If the timeline containing Steve and Peggy is eventually considered a threat, Loki could offer Steve another solution: move somewhere else entirely.
Rather than erase the life Steve built with Peggy, Loki could relocate him to another universe where his presence doesn’t interfere with the timeline he originally left behind. And this is where the theory gets really wild.
If Steve leaves his original branch, the Avengers are still expecting him to return. After all, they have no reason to know that he has moved to another universe. The theory proposes that Loki solves the problem by disguising himself as Old Steve Rogers and appearing at the location where the Avengers expect Steve to arrive.
So How Is Steve Rogers Returning In ‘Doomsday’?
Steve Rogers’ return in ‘Avengers: Doomsday‘ raises an obvious question: how can Marvel bring back a character who already received what seemed like a definitive ending in ‘Endgame‘? The multiverse gives Marvel an easy way to revisit Steve without undoing his original story. The MCU has already established that different timelines and universes can contain alternate versions of familiar characters.
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That means Doomsday could introduce Steve from another reality, allowing Chris Evans to return without simply resetting the ending of the original Captain America. This would preserve the meaning of his decision to leave the Avengers while giving him a new reason to fight alongside Earth’s heroes one more time.
The key is that Steve doesn’t necessarily need to become Captain America again permanently. ‘Doomsday‘ could use his return as part of a larger multiverse story, bringing back a familiar version of the character for one final confrontation while keeping his ‘Endgame‘ ending intact.
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