When directors Joe and Anthony Russo insisted that fans would have to watch Avengers: Endgame Encore — the anniversary screening of Marvel’s record-breaking team-up film, this time with more exclusive footage! — to understand what was going on in Avengers: Doomsday, it sounded very much like bluster. To any Marvel fan with at least a little ball knowledge, Endgame lived up to its namesake: it was designed to close the chapter on the franchise’s Infinity Saga, and it did so with aplomb. Marvel was meant to move on from that adventure with the films to come, and Doomsday was meant to be the end of a new saga. To watch the Russos breathlessly building a bridge between one story and the next has been a little disheartening, especially since the Multiverse Saga hasn’t been Marvel’s most coherent.
Endgame Encore only adds to the franchise’s strange strategy. Its “extended” footage is actually from the filming of Doomsday; only one scene is a tactile continuation of any scene from Endgame. The rest could very likely be sequences plucked from the upcoming film and tacked onto Endgame Encore as post-credits scenes — and one in particular might not pay off until Doomsday’s sequel, Secret Wars.
