Avengers: Endgame Directors Name the Smartest Avenger

Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo gauged audience reaction at San Diego Comic-Con [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo gauged audience reaction at San Diego Comic-Con to determine the smartest Avenger after narrowing the field to Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Shuri (Letitia Wright).

Despite pulling off the melding of brain and brawn to create the amalgamation Smart Hulk, Joe's suggestion of Banner received mild applause. "Now Banner tried to solve time travel, but he didn't," Joe said. "Who solved time travel?"

When Joe put forth Stark, who ultimately perfected the Avengers' ability to travel through time and retrieve the six Infinity Stones needed to reverse Thanos' (Josh Brolin) universe-halving snap, the armored Avenger won rowdy applause.

Anthony then nominated Wakandan princess and inventor Shuri, responsible for developing much of the advanced technology utilized by brother T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), drawing even more applause.

"Shuri's the smartest avenger," Joe said.

Long before Stark solved time travel, Black Panther producer Nate Moore said it was agreed the 16-year-old's genius dwarfed even Stark's.

"As far as the technologically advanced side, in our mind and in our incarnation, Shuri is the head of the Wakandan design group. So she is, in our mind, the smartest person in the world," Moore told ComicBook.com during a 2017 set visit.

"Smarter than Tony Stark, but she is a 16 year old girl, which we thought was really interesting. Again, black faces in positions of power, or positions of technological know how, that's a rarity. So it's something that a big part of the film."

For Wright, that designation is "super cool."

"Because, you know, we sometimes — when we see people who are 'super intelligent' and 'super smart,' they don't really look like me. Do you know what I mean?" Wright previously told ABC Radio.

"So, to have that is really, really cool, and [for] Marvel to be behind it and to be brave enough to say, 'She is the smartest girl in the universe — in the Marvel Universe' and 'Yes, she's younger than everyone… Her and Peter Parker are pretty much the smartest kids on the block.'"

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