Finishing strong stories came up over and again in Avengers Endgame. It makes sense considering the question at hand: how do superheroes retire? Morally, it seems, if they plan to end well. For power, money, pleasure, and honor remain insufficient — even now with great power, great money, great pleasure, great honor comes still greater responsibility. Even in the dotage of waning power and prestige (and with Hulk, there’s a lot to wane…) Here’s how each character manifested their various “finishing strong stories,” starting with Thor the (literally and figuratively) centrifugal force of the film:
Thor is fat. Like hilariously fat for Thor. Like beer belly of my grandpa who died of heart failure fat. And fat shamed. And playing Fortnite and cussing out noobs on the headset. He’s fat because he has failed the hero’s journey and has become not worthy. But why? He really just misses his mom. Not in a Freudian way, just in an I’m sad that my mom died kind of way. And his *whole* story comes down to (1) accepting that he can’t bring her back, (2) accepting that worthiness has nothing to do with physical strength or power and everything to do with moral character, (3) being willing to literally share his toys, and therefore (4) inspiring worthiness in others. And once he understands the moral core, he doesn’t need to be strong or sexy anymore. He literally starts out as the stereotypical sportsbro Dad reminiscing on old conquests of sports and girls and he ends up being the most secure leader in the bunch by the end, happy to play second fiddle to STARLORD of all people. It’s a shoutout to masculine culture about real masculinity: rather than denigrating masculinity or indulging masculinity, Thor’s arc develops it. He has retained the moral high ground of a hero’s power precisely by implementing heroic deference: giving up his hammer to Cap, giving up his command to Starlord, giving up his throne to Valkyrie, giving up his mother to be killed again. And his quest to become worthy has emboldened the others to seek worthiness: rather than hammer, throne, ship’s helm (wheel), coffer, or flagon — he seeks the grail.
Hulk has suffered the consequences of a science experiment gone wrong (the snap to bring them back) — but this time it’s a consequence he knew about ahead of time and it has likely substantially neutered his power both to do science and to fight. He’s the quintessential injured man of science whose efforts, contrary to our initial assumptions, depend heavily upon the body. He may well have to retire into obscurity. He has retained the moral high ground in the scientific field and is now worthy.
Captain America, like the classic Greatest Generation soldier, retains his morality and recaptures his marriage and first dance, but is old. Like really, really old and will likely die soon. He has retained the militaristic high ground — shield first, hammer second — and therefore has become worthy to be even a god of Thunder.
Iron man dies for all the right reasons. This is where we’ve headed for a long time: making Iron Man into a good father rather than the kind of playboy absent father that he remembers his father being. He has retained the high ground of the billionaire precisely by yielding up safety, control, and even self-sufficiency for his family.
Black Widow has a bit of a salon blowout. She reminds me of the theater major whose only community in her old age are the drinking buddies at the bar. She has no family, she has no power: she only has her little committee. And so it makes sense for her to give her life for the people that nag her on that committee: they are her family. And she dies young. She retains the moral high ground of administration and reconnaissance by watching out for her committee members first.
Hawkeye has committed untold crimes and sins because of the death of his family. He snaps (figuratively) and starts mass murdering people in Japan. Yet by the end of the film, he regains his morality first and then his family. He has regained the moral core of an archer: losing his arrows only when a higher morality calls him to do so. He’s also something like the quintessential boomer: hard life, lots of mistakes and selfish responses to pain, even the bad boy haircut and tattoo, but by the end of it he confesses and repents and changes. And he gets everything back through a series of his own “finishing strong stories.”
How will the next generation finish strong?
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