Avengers: Endgame Pays Homage to Marvel's Secret Wars

By now it's no secret that Avengers: Endgame contains enough Marvel Easter eggs to start its own holiday. Virtually every minute of this culminating chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes reference to Marvel Comics history or pop culture, or the previous MCU films -- including one big action moment that a lot of fans were probably too tense during to realize was a Easter egg reference.

Warning, this article contains massive SPOILERS!

The moment in question in the final act of Avengers: Endgame, when 2014 Thanos (having discovered the Avengers' "time heist" plan) has 2014 Nebula impersonate present-day Nebula, and use The Avengers' time tunnel to bring Thanos and his armada to present-day Earth. The Mad Titan wastes no time, using his ship Sanctuary II's weapons to entirely level Avengers HQ!

The Avengers are caught totally off guard, and a few of their ranks (Hulk, War Machine, Rocket) end up falling into the bowels of the base, getting completely buried in the rubble. Hulk eventually regains his composure, and it's (literally) on him to lift the entire structure up, so that he and his teammates can get clear of the rubble.

Hulk's rubble-rescue moment wasn't just the biggest show of strength the Jade Giant had in Avengers: Endgame - it was also a major homage to Marvel's Secret Wars comics from the 1980s. As you can see below, issue #4 of the original Secret Wars miniseries featured Hulk having to hold up a collapsed headquarters for the Marvel heroes, until they can be freed:

As stated, Avengers: Endgame is chock full of these kinds of Easter egg references - an entire history of Marvel Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe moments captured in one film. What's especially nice about this particular homage moment, is that Endgame directors The Russo Bros. have been especially vocal about their love of the Secret Wars storyline. Here's what they told a French website last year before Avengers: Infinity War's release:

"If Disney's takeover of Fox goes through, there's a lot more characters to work with all of a sudden, it might be interesting to do something like Secret Wars..."

Joe Russo followed up that sentiment by later adding, "I feel like the mission of the Marvel Universe is to keep expanding and surprising people. Surprise them with casting choices, surprise them with story choices. If we're moving into this world of crossover events, certainly that affords opportunity for other large-scale stories from the books like Secret Wars — which was another favorite comic of mine as a kid. There's big potential moving forward if the Fox/Disney deal closes."

Since that time, the Disney/Fox deal has indeed gone through, and Marvel Studios now owns the Fantastic Four and X-Men brands. The Russo Bros. are moving on from the MCU now that they've completed the epic arcs of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, but the possibility of this homage they put into Endgame eventually growing into something more -- like an actual Secret Wars movie event -- is still here.

Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel are now in theaters. Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 5th.

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