Earlier this year, the MCU’s 23-part “Infinity Saga” reached its climax with the penultimate installment, Avengers: Endgame, certifiably the biggest movie in history (well, unadjusted for inflation). The team at Marvel went to great lengths to find a way to fit every single major character from the franchise so far into the movie, if they were alive in the canon and fit organically into the storyline.
This allowed certain characters that we don’t usually get to see share the screen to team up and show off an unexpected bond with one another. So, here are 10 unlikely partnerships we loved in Avengers: Endgame!
Iron Man and Nebula
Let’s start off with the unlikely pairing that kicks off the movie. Cosmic genocide leaving them stranded on an alien planet is the only reason that Tony Stark and Nebula would ever have to spend a whole month in each other’s company. But they turned out to have a lot in common. They’re both expert technicians.
In their downtime, Nebula found that she loved paper football. They’re both emotionally closed-off and find it hard to let people in. Stuck in a survival situation together, Tony and Nebula became endeared to one another. Nebula even helped Tony to get comfortable after he passed out on the night he was supposed to die, right before Captain Marvel showed up to save them.
Spider-Man and Valkyrie
While he was trying to get the Iron Gauntlet away from Thanos’ soldiers during the Battle of Earth, Spider-Man hitched a ride on Valkyrie’s Pegasus. Despite the fact that he was flying through the sky, surrounded by floating alien battleships, with a cosmic warlord on his tail, Spidey maintained his polite manner, telling Valkyrie, “Hey! Nice to meet you.”
Valkyrie has quickly emerged as one of the MCU’s most popular characters because Tessa Thompson has played her brilliantly as a booze-soaked badass Viking space warrior and the fact that she takes down those alien battleships from the back of a Pegasus doesn’t hurt.
Smart Hulk and Ant-Man
Most of Ant-Man’s fellow Avengers treat him like the resident moron in Endgame, despite the fact that he came up with the plan that they were all working to carry out. Nebula dryly warns Rhodey about “an idiot in the landing zone,” then Rhodey calls him “regular-sized man,” and later, Rocket looks Scott Lang in the face and condescendingly says, “You wanna go to space, puppy? I’ll take you to space.”
But Smart Hulk is nice to Scott. When the Benatar blows away his taco upon re-entry, Smart Hulk is nice enough to give Scott two of his own tacos.
Black Panther and Hawkeye
The central conflict in the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, apart from Earth’s mightiest heroes squaring off against Thanos and his armies, was getting the Iron Gauntlet and all the Infinity Stones across the battlefield to the time machine in the back of Luis’ dinged-up van.
Hawkeye had it at first, having recovered it from the wreckage of the Avengers’ headquarters. Black Panther took it from him in the first step of the relay. What’s significant is that T’Challa called him “Clint,” having previously told him he didn’t care when he introduced himself in Captain America: Civil War. Turns out he did care, after all.
War Machine and Nebula
Most of the duos that paired off for the “Time Heist” in Avengers: Endgame made sense. They were already friends, like Thor and Rocket or Black Widow and Hawkeye. But War Machine and Nebula didn’t really have an established relationship. Over the course of the five-year time jump, they’d become friends, and it makes sense.
They’ve both lost parts of their bodies and had them replaced with cybernetic synthetics. For Rhodey, it was falling out of the sky after being accidentally hit by a beam shot at him by the Vision. For Nebula, it was the penalties for losing fights to Gamora that Thanos forced them into.
Captain Marvel and Spider-Man
On the way to Luis’ van in the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, the heroes all passed the Iron Gauntlet amongst each other. It ended up with Spider-Man when Thanos decided he’d had enough and ordered his warships to fire upon the battlefield. Just before the cannons opened fire, Captain Marvel came blazing through it from outer space, saving the day.
She came down to get the Gauntlet from Spidey. He introduced himself as Peter Parker, not Spider-Man, and Captain Marvel smiled, “Hey, Peter Parker.” This one quick moment was enough to get Marvel fans excited for a Spider-Man/Captain Marvel team-up.
Rocket and Smart Hulk
When the Avengers needed to recruit Thor for the “Time Heist,” they sent his two closest friends from the team: the Hulk, who Thor liberated from Sakaar, and Rocket, who was with Thor when he got Stormbreaker and failed to stop Thanos.
Rocket and Smart Hulk got a lift in the back of a truck down to New Asgard, where Valkyrie told them they’d have a tough time getting Thor to join them. He’d become depressed, overweight, addicted to alcohol – the last thing he wanted to do was join the Avengers. But Rocket and Smart Hulk talked him into it because they know him best.
Iron Man and Ant-Man
Tony Stark rolled his eyes when he first met Scott Lang and realized his plan to save the universe was based on the logic of Back to the Future. But after accidentally discovering the key to time travel and making the plan a reality, Tony decided to give Scott a chance. And after Tony himself made a mistake that screwed up the plan, Tony became endeared to Scott.
He called him derogatory names like “P*ss-Ant,” but when they were bantering about Scott smelling AXE Body Spray on Tony’s t-shirt and what Scott could do to 2012’s arc reactor without killing him and “America’s ass,” they made a terrific team.
Captain America and Spider-Man
When we saw Captain America and Spider-Man share the screen in the past, they were fighting each other at the airport in Berlin, or Cap was appearing in pre-recorded PSAs in Peter’s high school.
So, it was great to see them working as allies in Endgame. As Spidey struggled to get the Iron Gauntlet across the battlefield, Cap launched Mjolnir – which he’d just revealed he was worthy of wielding – for Spidey to attach a web to. Before he did it, Cap said, “Hey, Queens, heads up!” as a callback to their earlier conversation in Civil War about being fellow New Yorkers.
All the female Avengers
The “girl power” moment in Avengers: Endgame has garnered a mostly positive response from fans. Blockbuster cinema has given us countless shots of all-male superhero squads going into battle, so it was great to see an all-female group finally get a shot at cinematic glory.
As Captain Marvel prepared to take the Iron Gauntlet across the battlefield, she was joined by all the MCU’s awesome female characters: Gamora, Nebula, the Wasp, Okoye, Shuri, Valkyrie, Rescue, and Mantis. This moment has led to rumors of an A-Force movie, which would prove this wasn’t just pandering fan service.