One of my favorite sequences in Avengers: Age of Ultron has always been the nightmare visions that Scarlet Witch gave to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Either as foreshadowing or just because, I’ve always been a sucker for a good dream sequence. Be it from A Nightmare on Elm Street or the world being eviscerated in Terminator 2: Judgment Day or even whatever the Hell was going on at the end of Mulholland Dr., I can never seem to get enough of them.
And when it comes to nightmares, Wanda really outdid herself. Cap was tortured with a life in the past that he could never have in real life. Thor was warned of his sister Hela’s coming by a now-blinded Heimdall. Black Widow was forced to relive her traumatic training as a Russian spy. And then, of course, there’s Tony.
As with all things, Tony has to steal the spotlight from everybody else. His vision was nothing short of the absolute destruction of the Avengers. After one of the Siege Leviathans from the Battle of New York makes an overhead pass on him, the Iron Avenger finds himself on the barren, alien world that the Chitauri came from in the first movie. And there, on a series of ascending rocky steps are the Avengers, his friends, broken at the feet of Thanos.
Although doubled-over, Hulk breaths in weak, sporadic breathes, pin-cushioned by long and wicked spears. Hawkeye is bent over in a sitting position and completely still. Black Widow’s dead eyes stare glassily in Stark’s direction. Thor lies bloodied on his back, Mjolnir slipped just out of reach from his grasp. And then, chillingly, we see it: Captain America’s star-spangled shield, shattered. Next to it lies Captain Rogers’ body, seemingly dead, though with just enough life in him to lurch at Stark when he meekly moves to check his pulse. He just barely manages to say “You could have saved us. Why didn’t you do more?” before he slumps backwards, well and truly dead. And as the camera pans out from Rogers’s dead-eyed stare and Stark’s horror-stricken visage, we see dozens more Leviathans, armed and carrying hundreds Chitauri raiders, heading through a portal directly for the Earth.
It is a sobering moment not just in the one film, but the entire franchise. It gives us insight into Tony’s mindset, for one: why he would make dozens upon dozens of specialized suits of armor, why he would make Ultron, why he would make Vision. For another, it shows us exactly what the Avengers have to lose should they fail in their mission, and that is everything.
Having seen Infinity War, having had time to mull over it, having had time to revisit — movie-by-movie — the entire MCU lineup, this, I think, is the greatest tragedy of the latest film. It’s not that Thanos wins (not exactly, anyway). It’s not that Wakanda fell to his armies. It’s not even that this or that Avenger died when all was said and done. It’s that Scarlet Witch was right.
When the final battle for the fate of the universe ended, Stark’s vision had come to pass almost perfectly. He stood on an alien world, all of his allies dead at his feet, his enemy victorious over him and his home world invaded by his endless armies.
It’s as the man said: “ I’m the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I didn’t tell the team, how could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world, too. It’s because of me. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t do all I could.”
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