When You Realize That Tony Was Right

Since Avengers: Endgame, I’ve been trying to figure out this emotion I’ve been feeling, and I finally think I’ve got it. It’s hopelessness. I fear that, for the rest of my life, I’ll ever see anything like The Infinity Saga again.

I’ve tried to put a pretty spin on it. I keep telling myself that this is just evolution. Not so much the evolution of cinema, but my own maturity coming to the surface. That only makes it worse. I’ve never really wanted to mature, and if evolution feels like this, I’m not sure I want it.

You could say that’s weak, and I suppose it is. Maybe I should be happy knowing that I lived to see such a treat in my lifetime. I am, of course, but that’s the problem. Now that I’ve witnessed such an astounding feat, it feels like my life will end before I can ever see it again. And, when I really pin it down, it’s the idea of my own mortality that’s got me down most.

It works like this; in 2008, the world was rocked with Iron Man. An arrogant, greedy genius with a God complex. Tony was everything I wanted to be. Nearly heartless, impenetrable, flashy and one of kind. But over the years, he changed. And I changed with him. Gone were the selfish ambitions, exchanged for uncomfortable thoughts about the needs of others. Was I doing all I could to help? I grew to hate the man I was, the same way I imagine Tony did. So much so that whenever my old self comes calling, I actually feel sick.

It’s that connection that makes the last ten years of Marvel films so much more than movies. We’ve been given, for the first time that I’m aware of, a chance to grow alongside heroes on the big screen. And it’s not just the fact that those heroes are gone, it’s that heroes CAN be gone that gets me the most. Now I’m not entirely ignorant, I know death is a real thing, it’s just that those moments when you are confronted with your own mortality seem to be getting heavier and more frequent the older I get it.

I’ve always hoped that supersuits, superpowers, and superheroes were a possibility. And with every passing day, and especially with Endgame, I’m starting to accept that they’re not. If you would’ve told me when I picked up my first comic book that I’d feel like this a couple of decades later, I might have thought twice. And if I’d have known that watching the latest Marvel entry would make feel like this, I might not have watched the first. But here I am, ten years older than when it all began, a different man altogether. And for that, I suppose, I am grateful.

I recognize now, and admit, that I have limits. I have regrets and crushed dreams and a graveyard full of failure in my wake. And unlike The Avengers, I can’t go back in time and correct any of it. And for whatever time I have left, I’m going to have to live with all that. Because “every journey has an end,” right? Even a heroes. Even a nobodies.