The Marvel Theory

|Marvel Fan| She/Her ~ Adult ~ I love to watch marvel movies and I’ve been working on getting some of the comics. It’s become a big part of my life and I thought that I would keep a blog along my journey. I’m just going to take the time to share my thoughts and theories about Marvel and sort of review the movies and comics.

[themarveltheory]

Tony Stark is Doctor Doom

Tony Stark was always Doctor Doom, there was no Tony Stark to begin with, or at least for a very long time.

In Endgame we see that Steve and Tony have to return to 1970 for both the tesseract and the PYM particles. This was the only way they could retrieve both the tesseract and make it back home.

During this scene Tony asks Steve if he trusts him. Steve says he does and they hold up their wrists.

"0-4-0-7-1-9-7-0"

This is the date that Tony gives Steve. He says that he's sure that the Tesseract and more PYM particles are there. At first this could be Tony saying we're going to April 4, 1970.

But there is a possibility that April could be wrong. We can hear in the accent of his AI's. J.A.R.V.I.S had an English accent and F.R.I.D.A.Y has an Irish accent. Both of his computers are programmed to be in a European accent. In Europe they use DD/MM/YYYY. Knowing his own computers he could have said the date using this. Meaning he meant to go to July 4, 1970.

One thing to further support it being July is Howard hands Tony some sauerkraut. This is a staple in America during the fourth of July.

Another is Tony's reaction to Howard saying that Maria is pregnant. With it being July, he would be confused as to why he reacted this way. In a deleted scene of Avengers (2012), we see Steve looking through the S.H.I.E.L.D. files. During this we see that Tony's birthday is May 29, 1970.

Tony’s reaction to the announcement that Howard and Maria are expecting is something that really says they may have travelled to July 4, 1970 instead of April 7, 1970.

So here’s the theory, we’ve seen variants. Some look alike and some don’t. We can see that Deadpool variants (like nicepool) have variants that look similar to what Deadpool looked like before he became Deadpool.

But then we have variants like Peter Parker, as we saw in No Way Home. Each variant looked different and not identical. For the most part they seem similar, like you see the similarities the brown hair, the nerdy quirks. They are similar but we as fans know this was due to the recasting throughout the years.

So if Victor Von Doom is a variant, he has Tony’s face, perhaps Tony was never Tony. We have seen variants but we’ve never seen a variant with the same face be another character. It wouldn’t make sense for Tony’s variant to be Victor Von Doom unless he himself was also Victor Von Doom.

Here’s the big what if!

Howard and Maria had their baby, sometime after July when Tony and Steve went back in time. There may have been complications either during birth or just after. But the baby doesn’t survive.

Losing a child, especially so young is hard on anyone. But what if it was too much for Maria. She couldn’t function afterwards. Howard could have arranged for a new baby to replace the child they lost. A baby to care for so that he doesn't lose his wife.

In order to keep this child a secret, they would have a better chance of it staying a secret if he went out of country for the adoption. Perhaps even Latveria.

But where's the proof?

There's no definitive proof. But there are some scenes that can support this.

In Iron Man 2, we see Nick Fury talking with Tony. During this talk we hear what Tony's thoughts about Howard is.

"He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me."

From this we can see that Howard and Tony had a strained relationship to say the least. Perhaps Tony felt this way because Howard was never able to build that bond with him. Howard knew that Tony was adopted. He knew biologically Tony wasn't his. Unlike Maria, Howard wasn't able to build that relationship with their son.

This left Tony with the lack of a father figure in his life. Howard was left without a child but Maria was close with Tony and that's all he wanted, his wife back. This is why Tony never felt loved or cared for by his father, because he never was.

But what about the video that Tony found?

It's no mistake that it's shown Howard was talking to Tony on the video. Tony hears that Howard is claiming the greatest creation is Tony. This is still true. If Tony was Victor Von Doom, and he was adopted after the Stark's son didn't make it. This is still Howard's greatest creation. Just not in the way that Tony thinks. Howard had created a son for his wife. It was never about Tony and It was never about getting a son. It's about being there for his wife. Not wanting to deal with his wife's grief.

Tony was never Tony. Anthony Edward Stark was always Victor Von Doom, he was just raised as Tony.

[themarveltheory]

Bob was a risk to himself!

Trigger warnings: Topic of suicide will be discussed.

Robert “Bob” Reynolds is a complex character from the start. We see him when he awakens from a box in Valentina’s vault. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of trauma Bob holds. We learn a lot about Bob throughout the movie and it’s easiest to start at the beginning.

Bob grew up with an abusive father. It is not said if his father battled any kind of addictions, but it’s safe to say there was probably a factor of some type of alcohol or drug abuse involved. Despite that, Bob did try to step in to help his mother. But as much as he tried to help, his mother always told him that he “was making things worse”.

Growing up in an abusive household lead to addiction issues. Bob states that he had a job as a sign twirling chicken; but also that he was addicted to meth at the time. All of this lead to Bob accepting to. Be experimented on for project: Sentry.

After the project is terminated due to Valentina’s investigation. Bob was supposed to be terminated with the other test subjects. This lead him to being put in the vault where Valentina planned to get rid of her loose ends. Escaping the incinerator, Bob touches Yelena’s hand.

This brings his powers out and he briefly brings Yelena to her first “shame room” in the Void. Up to this point Bob has been in the dark. He’s not quite sure of what is going on and he’s not quite sure about his powers. He is fairly naive about everything and he’s very nervous. He’s often fidgeting or stuttering out of nervousness.

Soon after an argument with John, where Bob is seen to be very nervous. Due to his abusive past, he doesn’t stand up to John immediately. But when he does he calls John an “asshole”. John retaliates by pinning Bob against the wall. This is when the Sentry powers begin to come out with the change of his eye colour.

After breaking up the argument Yelena brings Bob aside and has a talk with him. Bob tells Yelena that it would be best if they left without him.

“Oh, no, you’ll die down here.”

When Bob says that everyone is better off if he stayed put, is when Yelena sees it. She recognizes the feeling and sees it in herself when she describes it as a void feeling. Bob is suicidal, he thinks that things are better off without him. Yelena recognizes that and convinces him to come. Telling him that he can do whatever he wants when they get out.

Yelena is essentially talking Bob off the ledge, keeping him alive just a little longer. Bob is now on Yelena’s own version of suicide watch. But this didn’t stop there, it was constant.

After climbing out of the vault they run into Valentina’s team. Here, they know they will have to fight their way out. Yelena takes charge and they come up with a plan. Ava to get a car, John to wait for Yelena to shut off the lights and turn them back on.

Bob’s job: Stay behind Yelena.

Even when the plan doesn’t go as planned Yelena remains adamant about Bob staying behind her. Even so much as to tying Bob to her with a fire hose. This is because Yelena knows Bob is suicidal, he already said so. What better way to end things than to sacrifice himself to save others. Knowing this about Bob, Yelena has her reasons for keeping Bob safe.

This is why Yelena keeps Bob by her side and doesn’t let him have a chance to sacrifice himself. Essentially ending his own life. Bob being in the back of the car gave himself the opportunity he’s been looking for. He overhears the trouble with getting out past the security. So he takes the gun and creates a distraction.

“Oh no, Bob helped.”

This is the opportunity he’s been looking for and the one Yelena was trying to prevent. He takes the gun and in the distraction, Valentina’s team starts firing. An array of bullets that should have killed him. You can see it right before they open fire, he’s about to see what happens when it’s all over.

To everyone’s surprise Bob ends up surviving. This is a big surprise to Bob as well, since he thought he would be ending his life there. This instead activates the Sentry powers that leads him to getting caught.

Bob’s self esteem is already shot, he’s looking for validation. Valentina gives this to him. She makes him feel wanted and like he can make a difference. So he agrees to finish the Sentry project.

He ends up fighting and forcing the Thunderbolts* to retreat. When he refuses to do as he’s told by Valentina, he ends up killed. By Mel using the safe guard they put in. This brings out the void.

After taking a risk and stepping into the void, Yelena finds out how the shame rooms work and she finds Bob. While talking she again comes back to their talk back in the vault. She essentially talks him down again. Off the ledge of just wanting to hide in the void.

When they get up to leave is when the void attacks Yelena and Bob. With a curtain choking Yelena and Bob, Bob says:

“There’s no death here. The pain only gets worse.”

This leads back to Bob being suicidal, he’s attempted suicide in the void. But he discovered there was no death, just pain. He is still very much in the mindset of the world is better off without him.

It’s when the rest of the team come in to save them that he starts to see. At least enough for them to work their way out. Going through his abusive father, his time when he was addicted to meth, and making it to when the void first appeared.

It’s here that Bob faces the void, essentially his darker half. This is a representation of everything that Bob was dealing with. The depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, addiction. It was the void, the parts of himself he didn’t like or wanted to hide. He thinks he needs to fight his demons.

When they see that fighting the void is what is turning Bob into the void the team stops him. The void is the feeling he’s been fighting all along. Stopping Bob is how they show him that he’s not alone. He has people that are there, through even the worst of the shame rooms. They saw his darkest side and they’re still there. That makes the void go away, releasing them from the endless shame rooms.

Effectively starting him on his journey of healing and working past those suicidal tendencies.

[themarveltheory]

The Winter Soldier is in more than one movie, here’s why!

We first meet James “Bucky” Barnes when he helps Steve out in a back ally fight. He comes in with his army uniform and makes one of the best entrances to the scene. We can see in this scene, for the few moments what kind of person Bucky is like. He helps Steve by getting the man off him and effectively chases him off. But he doesn’t pursue him, he’s not there to show up Steve or to be the hero. He’s simply helping a friend in need, something he’s probably done a lot while Steve grew up.

We can see that Bucky is not the type of friend that will leave Steve behind. He’s very loyal, which we see when he sets up the double date. He finds ways to include Steve. It’s his last night in New York and he spends it with Steve at a science event. He’s just a guy that enjoys science expos and wants to have his friend with him. Nothing about him screams murderous assassin that Hydra turns him into. These scenes before Bucky goes off to war are the last we see of Bucky.

The next time we see Buck is when Steve is saving him from Azzano where he’s found in a lab. He was being experimented on by Dr. Arnim Zola. Steve breaks him out and brings him back to camp with thousands of other soldiers. When they get back to camp we see the injuries to Bucky’s face. If we look side by side with a later image of The Winter Soldier’s memory being wiped. The injuries line up with the machine. You can see his left forehead and cheek line up with the machine.

This tells us that he wasn’t just getting experimented on, he was already being put through memory wiping. They were beginning to turn him into the Winter Soldier. He’s no longer just the Bucky we saw before the war, but a mix of both. He’s in the early stages of becoming the Winter Soldier. This is shown in the scenes with Bucky and Steve. When Steve looks away you can see subtle changes in Bucky’s face. He seems like the same old Bucky, but there’s a look he gets when Steve doesn’t seem to be looking at him. These could be subtle changes to his mind.

We see him when Steve rescues him, he is stating his name, rank, serial number. It’s what soldiers are trained to do in the event they’re taken. But for Bucky, since his memory is being wiped, he is trying to hold onto who he is. When he’s with Steve, he’s trying to get his memory to come back and stay. He’s working on keeping the memories. The Winter Soldier and Bucky’s mind are in a battle for control here.

The unfortunate death of Bucky Barnes is the last straw. He falls off the train, but thanks to the experiments and Hydra’s version of the super soldier serum, he survives. Only for Hydra to find him and complete the transition to The Winter Soldier. Where they begin training him and molding him into the asset they need. Building on top of any skills he already has. As we see during his missions with the howling commandos, he’s a sniper. He has certain skills they didn’t need to teach him, and they built on that foundation.

The next time we see Bucky is in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CA:TWS). This is where we see all The Winter Soldier and what Hydra made him into. This is predominantly where we hear about the Winter Soldier. But at the end when Steve manages to break through the programming with his most famous quote.

“I’m with you ’till the end of the line.”

We can see that The Winter Soldier recognizes that line. You can see it that is where Bucky is fighting to come back in control. But that’s not Bucky. It’s the soldier that is starting to remember. The memories are wiped, time and time again. It will leave memories hazy and in pieces. The soldier recognizes that Steve is not a threat and just trying to help him remember. So he saves Steve and pulls him from the river.

We then see him going to the museum and in Bucharest. He is reading the museum to learn more. Because of Steve unlocking a memory he’s re-learning who Bucky is. We know this because when Steve finds him in his hideout, he says.

“You’re Steve. I read about you in a museum.”

This is still not Bucky. He is the soldier that is learning about Bucky. He’s reading about Bucky’s life and filling in what blanks he can with hazy memories and nightmares. He is keeping a journal to sort through his memories. Being brainwashed for so many years would make it hard to determine what memories are his and what Hydra put in.

Now here’s where Bucky does come back in.

Trying to keep The Winter Soldier from escaping after Zemo activates him, Steve falls off the building with the soldier and the helicopter. When the helicopter hits the water, we can hear that the Soldier hits his head. That hit is what brings Bucky back.

A bit of back track to why we know this works. When Clint Barton was under Loki’s control. Natasha gets him back when she knocks him out.

“Cognitive recalibration. I hit you really hard on the head.”

The hit that Bucky took on that fall is what reset his brain, essentially. So when he wakes up and Steve asks “Which Bucky am I talking to?” That is really Bucky. He recalls old memories that you can’t read about in a museum. This is what Steve recognizes. He does still have the Winter Soldier in him. But this is where Bucky is fully in control.

This is where we begin to get Bucky back, at least a version of him. This Bucky is not the one we saw in the 1940’s before the war. No, this Bucky is traumatized and working through some seriously traumatic events.

“I remember all of them.”

He is dealing with nightmares and the guilt of what he did. We learn in Falcon and the Winter Soldier (FATWS)that he is in therapy after the blip. He states that he had “calm” in Wakanda. This is Bucky working on his trauma. He’s gone from one fight to another and he’s avenging and fixing the wrongdoings he did as the Winter Soldier. Sam is helping with this.

Not only is Bucky dealing with the trauma of being a trained assassin. He is grieving the loss of his best friend when Steve left. Sam tries to be there for Bucky, but we see that Bucky isolates himself. He is reluctant to open up to his therapist and he doesn’t try to let himself be happy.

He ends up in another fight, one where he’s thrown back into The Winter Soldier role. We can see how easily it is for him to fall back into the fighting style at the club. When they’re undercover and he attacks when Zemo tells him to. Bucky isn’t fully better, he may never be. But it’s the help of Sam that Bucky works through the trauma. He’s in the midst of dealing with the PTSD and bringing himself back to where he was.

It’s like an abusive relationship, one that he was in for seventy years. That much trauma, you forget who you are and you’re working to get back to who that is. So he is Bucky here, but not the same Bucky that was there before the war.

It’s after his talk with Sam that he is really starting to heal from the trauma. Sam brings in the tough love and tells it to Bucky how it is. Sam is a counsellor and works with soldiers that have PTSD which is why he works so well with Bucky. This is where Bucky is really starting to get back to who he was, or at least a version of his old self.

This is why we see a different version of Bucky in Thunderbolts*. This is Bucky, the real Bucky. He’s not quite the same as the one we first saw, but a version of him. He’s healing from the trauma and a congressman. He’s smiling and being his usual flirty self. He can make jokes and smile. This is the first time we see Bucky as Bucky. Past the trauma, no more Winter Soldier programming. All his memories back. Thunderbolts* Bucky is just Bucky, no Winter Soldier.