Avengers: Endgame Writers Address Theory Old Captain America Attended Peggy Carter’s Funeral

Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely give their blessings to speculation time travel made it possible for an elderly Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) to quietly attend the funeral of wife Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) in 2016's Captain America: Civil War.

"I would very much like that. There is no set explanation for Cap's time travel," Markus told the Los Angeles Times when asked if Endgame's Old Man Rogers attended Peggy's funeral alongside his younger self.

"I mean, we've had public disagreements with [directors Anthony and Joe Russo] about what it necessarily means [laughs], but I love the idea of there being two Steve Rogers in the timeline. One who lived a long life with Peggy and is in the background of that funeral scene watching his young self carry his wife's coffin up. Not just for the time travel mumbo jumbo of it, but for the just weird, personal pain and satisfaction that would be happening between two Steve Rogers there. I kind of love it."

Asked if an exact explanation would require retconning, McFeely answered, "It depends on what kind of stories Marvel wants to tell going forward, and I don't know if they want to."

"Do they want to tell stories with characters who are gone? Do they want to do prequels? [Black Widow], is that just a straight prequel or is that in some sort of alternate timeline? Do they want to embrace the multiverse or not? And if they do, they tell one kind of story," McFeely continued.

"Captain America could save [John F.] Kennedy in a story, right? Is that a story you want to tell? I don't know. But they're retraining the audience. My grandmother might not be able to understand multiverse, but I think a lot of audience members might be down for it. So I don't know."

Markus and McFeely earlier declined to engage with questions about there being a pair of coexisting Captain Americas when appearing at San Diego Comic-Con, but McFeely once told THR it was "always our intention that he was the father of those two children" born to Peggy, admitting "there are time travel loopholes for that."

When explaining their approach to time travel to FOX 5 DC, the Russos said 2023 Captain America's trip through time to return the six Infinity Stones to their rightful places created a branch reality.

"Now he would exist in that branch reality with a second Captain America who was frozen in ice," Joe Russo said.

Added Anthony Russo, "Peggy understood that he was dead at that point in the storytelling because Cap went back to a point in time where nobody knew he still was alive, frozen in ice."

"Now what's also a story for another time," added Joe, "is, of course, if he created a branch reality, he would then have to use a Pym Particle to come back to this reality to hand that shield off."

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