Avengers: Endgame Encore Retcons The MCU's Perfect Iron Man Tribute

Published Sep 24, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic. Seven years on from its release, it’s never been clearer just how much Avengers: Endgame rewrote the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the almost flawless build of the Infinity Saga, the Russos’ enormous tentpole retired three major Avengers in Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow, blew the Avengers Initiative apart, and left such an irresistible mark that the MCU struggled to move away from the story. As if to underline that fact, Endgame is back in theaters, albeit renamed Avengers: Endgame Encore with new footage added and a conscious agenda to build a more obvious narrative bridge to Avengers: Doomsday. And you have to admire the boldness of going back to a classic that has only grown in stature over the past seven years, even if it doesn’t always work out. George Lucas truly believed he was improving Star Wars’ Original Trilogy, after all, and you only need to look at the excitement for the theatrical cuts finally returning to theaters in 2027 to see his misjudgment. Back in 2019, the Russos were very clear that they saw Endgame as a definitive ending point, making the very idea of a post-credits scene redundant. They had no intention of looking to the future - it was someone else’s future after all - and while Endgame’s ending did have some nods to what came next in the Multiverse Saga, it did feel right that there wasn’t an immediate speedrun to what would replace Iron Man’s story. That sentiment changed when Avengers: The Kang Dynasty fell apart and Marvel Studios’ head honchos turned back to the Russos to give them their dream of making Secret Wars. The directing duos’ plan included not only bringing back Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom for Avengers: Doomsday - the first part of a Multiverse-ending crossover - but also explicitly making Doomsday a direct sequel to Endgame. And what better way to achieve that than by adding in the post-credits scenes Endgame was originally missing? The only issue is that one of those new scenes retcons one of Endgame’s most gently brilliant moments. Avengers: Endgame Encore's Doctor Doom Retcon Explained This isn’t the first time Avengers: Endgame's ending - or at least the way it’s read - has been changed since its release. In fact, the MCU has retconned and expanded Endgame’s ending multiple times, including specific changes to Iron Man’s death. Most prominently, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness revealed that there actually wasn’t only one way to defeat Thanos, so Iron Man wasn’t fated to die. Then there’s the fact that the James Rhodes who mourned him wasn’t even the real one, thanks to Secret Invasion’s shocking Skrull twist. Those are somewhat forgivable as narrative choices, but the final Avengers: Endgame Encore post-credits scene fundamentally changes one creative choice that was perfect in the theatrical version. When the credits ended, all we got was the sound of Tony forging his first armor from Iron Man in 2008, but in Avengers: Endgame Encore, the audio clip is repurposed, and Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom is shown forging his iconic mask. It’s a clever move, because it repurposes the moment to suggest that Endgame always set up Doom’s arrival, and we just didn’t realize it at the time. In other words, it’s opportunistic storytelling, that retroactively steals a detail to expand the lore. Like the space jockey in the background of Alien becoming the basis of the Prometheus prequel timeline. It was never intended, but why not use it? The problem with the new post-cedits scene, though, is that it comes at a cost to the original moment. Avengers: Endgame's Tony Stark Tribute Is Massively Different Now In the original cut, the Russos were making a statement about Tony Stark’s story being the founding stone of the MCU, and his death definitively bringing an important era to an end. It was a subtle tribute to his legacy, and a gentle reminder that looking forward to the future was inappropriate. At the time, the MCU had never broken its post-credits trend, which further underlined the importance of the decision. Not only was it a full-circle moment, it was important enough to basically ignore one of the brand’s major selling points. The major issue with changing the subtle tribute into a conscious set-up of Doctor Doom isn’t just that it breaks the Russos’ 2019 promise that Endgame was a definitive full-stop - because we’re beyond that now with Doomsday’s existence. It’s that it removes a reverent tribute to the MCU’s first most important character. It says a lot about the shift in priorities, and it’s hard not to see this as another admission that the post-Endgame MCU plan simply didn’t work out as it was intended. Losing the emotional weight of the moment in pursuit of a cool teaser is a bold choice, and, ironically, a far bigger statement about the past than it is about the future and Doom. Avengers: Endgame Encore is in theaters worldwide now. Release Date April 26, 2019 Runtime 181 Minutes Director Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Cast Steve Rogers / Captain America Avengers: Endgame, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, concludes the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Infinity Saga. It follows the remaining Avengers as they attempt to reverse the destruction caused by Thanos.