Every Time The MCU Broke Endgame’s Time Travel Rules

The time travel rules established in Avengers: Endgame have been broken on some notable occasions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avengers: Endgame didn’t just deliver the Infinity Saga’s finale – it also laid out the MCU’s official time travel rules. Since 2019, however, multiple Marvel movies and shows have contradicted or bent those rules.

According to Smart Hulk in Endgame, changing the past does not rewrite the future. Instead, actions in the past generate an alternate branching timeline, while the traveler’s original timeline remains unaffected. This system was deliberately different from Back to the Future–style paradoxes, avoiding inconsistencies and ripple effects. However, since Endgame, the MCU timeline has ignored or directly contradicted this.

Let’s be clear, this list isn’t a criticism of Marvel’s handling of continuity. Contradictory lore and retcons are a classic staple of the comic books, the MCU should be no different. If anything, these are areas that simply need to be addressed. More interestingly, though, some of them could directly set up Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Old Man Cap Should Be In A Different Timeline

Old Steve Rogers gives the Captain America shield to Sam Wilson in Avengers Endgame

Old Steve Rogers gives the Captain America shield to Sam Wilson in Avengers Endgame

One of the most H๏τly debated Endgame moments comes at the very end. After returning the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers chooses to stay in the past with Peggy Carter. While one of the greatest final scenes in superhero history, this breaks the movie’s own logic.

According to the rules established earlier in the movie, this decision should have created an alternate branch reality where Steve lived out his days. Old Man Cap would therefore have been in a different universe when he handed the shield to Sam. As perhaps the most notorious example of the MCU’s time travel logic, many have suggested it has a greater significance.

Some theorize that Steve’s remaining in the past is the event that caused the incursion in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, prompting Doom’s emergence. This could explain why Evans has been confirmed in the cast. Still, the biggest unanswered question is how Cap returned to Earth-616 to pᴀss on the mantle.

Alternatively, Steve could have lived his life with Peggy in an alternative universe and then returned to Earth-616 as an old man. This would explain why Steve took four Pym Particles during the Time Heist, keeping two for his return journey. However, this doesn’t quite explain why he appeared on a bench rather than the time travel platform.

Eyes Of Wakanda Sent A Black Panther Back In Time

Eyes of Wakanda scene showing the future Black Panther and their suit

Eyes of Wakanda scene showing the future Black Panther and their suit

Disney+’s Eyes of Wakanda created one of the clearest contradictions of Endgame’s rules. Eyes of Wakanda episode 4 depicts a Black Panther from hundreds of years in the future who travels back to the 1800s to alter history. Her mission is to prevent Earth from falling to an alien parasite centuries later.

By Endgame logic, this act should have created a new branch reality, with her present unchanged. However, the episode implies that altering the past directly impacts the future. This “ʙuттerfly effect” approach is closer to traditional depictions of time travel (even within Marvel Comics), where small historical shifts have mᴀssive ripple effects down the timeline. This is precisely what Smart Hulk insisted couldn’t happen.

Ms Marvel Somehow Created A Time Loop

Kamala Khan Ms Marvel Bangle Time Travel

In Ms. Marvel episode 5, Kamala Khan finds herself pulled back to 1940s Parтιтion-era India. There, she saves her grandmother Sana, helping her board the train that leads to her family’s survival. This creates a bootstrap paradox – a causal loop where Kamala must exist in the present in order to ensure her grandmother survives in the past.

This in turn allows Kamala to be born. According to Endgame’s rules, Kamala’s intervention should have simply branched a new timeline. Instead, the show frames it as a closed loop where her presence was always necessary, creating an origin story without a true beginning.

This “time loop” paradox has no place under Endgame’s multiverse system and directly contradicts Hulk’s lecture. While narratively satisfying, it muddies the MCU’s overall time travel logic. Whether intentional or not, Ms. Marvel adds yet another layer of complexity to Marvel’s timeline rules.

The Infinity Stones Don’t Control The Flow Of Time Anymore

The Ancient One explains the balance of time to Bruce Banner

The Ancient One explains the balance of time to Bruce Banner

In Endgame, the Infinity Stones are treated as the pillars of time and reality. The Ancient One explains that they control the flow of time and removing them would doom a universe. Yet, at the beginning of the movie, Thanos destroyed the Infinity Stones.

In doing so, Thanos should have surely ensured Earth-616’s destruction. As the MCU continues to unfold, the Infinity Stones presumably are no longer necessary for the flow of time. However, this could also once again be critical for Secret Wars.

Thanos destroying the Stones may be the apocalyptic event that triggers Doomsday and the multiverse to merge as in the second “Secret Wars” comic story. It could have also prompted the incursion in Multiverse of Madness. If the stones are truly as important as the Ancient One claims, their absence must surely impact something in the MCU’s future.

Loki Season 2’s OB Scenes Break The Endgame Rules

Loki and Mobius looking at OB in Loki season 2

Loki and Mobius looking at OB in Loki season 2

The celebrated Loki season 2 breaks Endgame’s rules in a particularly blatant way. In episode 1, Loki suffers from uncontrollable time-slipping, bouncing between the past, present, and future. When he and Mobius visit Ouroboros (OB), Loki meets him in the present, then immediately slips to the past.

There, Loki tells OB how to solve the issue. OB remembers the conversation in real-time, instantly creating a Temporal Aura Extractor in the present. This means Loki’s actions in the past changed the present. Yet according to Smart Hulk in Endgame, changing the past shouldn’t affect the present at all – it should only branch a new timeline.

By showing a character directly rewriting the future, Loki upends Hulk’s lecture entirely. While it makes for fun paradox-driven storytelling, it erases the consistency that grounded Endgame. This could be explained as a TVA anomoly. As the TVA exists outside the normal bounds of time, it could have its own rules that do not impact the timelines.

Cable Tried To Change His Future In X-Men ’97

Cable speaking to Madelyne Pryor in X-Men '97 episode 5

Cable speaking to Madelyne Pryor in X-Men ’97 episode 5

The animated X-Men ‘97 continues the time-travel traditions established in the original X-Men: The Animated Series. In episode 5, Cable (in his traditional manner) returns from a dystopian future to warn mutants about an impending danger, hoping to prevent the horrors that shaped his timeline. This is directly at odds with Smart Hulk’s rules.

Cable’s entire existence depends on trying to rewrite history, echoing his comic book arcs. Unlike Hulk’s multiverse-based framework, X-Men ‘97 treats time travel as a tool for altering destiny – a much more traditional approach. What makes this interesting is that Marvel now considers the series canon within its multiverse framework.

That means Cable’s actions are happening within the broader MCU continuity. This is essentially contradicting Endgame. Unless later reframed as Cable hopping across branches, X-Men ‘97 is yet another instance where Marvel storytelling favors classic tropes over Endgame’s carefully defined rules.

Thanos Traveling Forward In Time Means That The Avengers Didn’t Save Earth-616

Thanos looking at Nebula while plotting time travel in Avengers Endgame

Thanos looking at Nebula while plotting time travel in Avengers Endgame

One of Endgame’s most overlooked contradictions comes from Thanos himself. In 2014, the Mad тιтan learns of the Avengers’ plan and uses Nebula’s time-travel device to leap forward into 2023. By Hulk’s rules, this should have created a branched timeline when Thanos disappeared in 2014.

This means that the Avengers didn’t save Earth-616 – they saved the timeline 2014 Thanos created through time travel. This paradox undermines the core stakes of Endgame’s final battle. It’s a fascinating contradiction, because the movie never addresses the consequences of Thanos leaving his original timeline.

The alternative is that the 2014 Thanos was himself a variant from the multiverse. He could have travelled from another timeline to Earth-616, completely independent of the mainline Mad тιтan. What was once a triumphant ending could now be reframed depending on how Marvel eventually explains the multiverse fallout in the years after Avengers: Endgame.

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