A WORDSLINGER STORY CUT

Marvel spent more than a decade building toward Avengers: Endgame—and when it finally arrived, the movie gave its characters real consequences, real sacrifice, and real endings. So why does it feel like Marvel has spent the years since then undoing the very things that made Endgame matter?

With Avengers: Endgame Encore bringing the film back to theaters and Avengers: Doomsday on the horizon, Kevin Tumlinson takes another look at Endgame from a storyteller’s perspective: what Marvel got right, where the movie stumbled, and what writers and filmmakers can learn from one of the biggest franchise finales ever made.

We’ll look at the incredible decade-long setup that made the Avengers work, the importance of the five-year Blip, why consequences give stories weight, what went wrong with Thor and Hulk, the incredibly convenient rat that saved the universe, and why time travel and the multiverse may have done more damage to Marvel storytelling than good.

Most importantly: When you give a beloved character a satisfying ending, should you ever open that door again?

Because if death can always be undone, timelines can always be rewritten, and another version of any character can simply walk in from another universe... what happens to the stakes?

And what can Avengers: Doomsday learn from Endgame before it’s too late?

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TIMECODES:

00:00 Welcome to Wordslinger Story Cuts
00:53 Avengers: Endgame Encore and why Endgame still matters
03:06 How Marvel spent 10 years earning the payoff
06:33 The importance of developing characters before the crisis
10:51 The Snap and the power of a great cliffhanger
11:52 Why the five-year Blip made Endgame stronger
14:28 Where Endgame went wrong with Thor
16:48 What happened to Hulk?
18:38 Hawkeye, Black Widow, and character sacrifice
19:31 The rat that accidentally saved the universe
20:36 Did time travel weaken Endgame?
22:03 What Endgame Encore could reveal
23:02 Why the multiverse makes death meaningless
24:27 Why satisfying character endings should stay ended
26:15 The Avengers story Marvel should have told
29:05 What writers can learn from Marvel’s shared universe
31:15 Marvel needs a new generation, not the old one
32:29 Final thoughts on Endgame Encore and Doomsday

If you love great stories—or you’re a writer learning how to build better characters, stronger worlds, satisfying endings, and stories readers can’t put down—subscribe to the channel. Wordslinger is where writers and storytellers come for practical guidance on writing, publishing, storytelling, and building a creative career.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Kevin’s books:
https://kevintumlinson.com/books

The Dave Cullen Show and Computing Forever on YouTube

FIND KEVIN:

Find Kevin and his books:
https://kevintumlinson.com

Join Kevin on Substack:
https://kevintumlinson.substack.com

Wordslinger Podcast home page:
https://wordslingerpodcast.com

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