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On The Road to Doomsday: Endgame Still Hits 7 Years Later.
I put makeup on before seeing Avengers: Endgame Encore because I thought maybe, somehow, knowing exactly what was going to happen would deter me from sobbing my face off.
It did not help.
At all.
7 years later, Avengers: Endgame still hits.
Every beat. Every person we lost. Every fight we lost before we finally won one. Every sacrifice. Every callback. Every action sequence. Every impossible team up. Every time the entire squad comes back together.
I knew Natasha was going to say “See you in a minute.” I knew Morgan Stark was going to tell her dad, “I love you, 3000.” I knew Tony would say it back in the recorded message he left behind.
None of this information made any of it easier.
And maybe that’s the first thing Endgame Encore reminded me of: This movie was never powerful simply because we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was powerful because we cared about the people it was happening to.
Endgame Is Still Full of Grief Disguised as Plot
Watching Endgame again in 2026 means watching it with 7 more years of context attached to almost every character.
That is something Marvel executed extraordinarily well throughout the Infinity saga. It grounded increasingly impossible stories in people whose lives, relationships, fears and victories mattered to us.
I was one of the Thursday-night Marvel premiere people. Midnight when midnight screenings were still the ritual. Friends assembled. Sleep sacrificed. Work the following morning became future Me’s problem. So, seeing everyone together again doesn’t just feel nostalgic, it feels like revisiting a part of my own life.
One of the reasons I think I actually appreciate Endgame more now than I did in 2019 is because we know what came after it. At the time, there were things that felt unanswered. Now we know that many of those endings were actually doors. Whether the Russos intentionally left those doors open is up for debate.
The Multiverse Saga didn’t erase the ending of the Infinity Saga. In some cases it made that ending more meaningful. And I think that is part of why this movie has aged better for me.
Endgame Feels Different After the World Changed
There is also another layer to watching Endgame now that simply did not exist in April of 2019. We have lived through a global pandemic. The emotional impact and story of Endgames five-years-later world feels much less abstract after living through our own period of worldwide loss, isolation and upheaval.
The survivors in Endgame are technically living in a world that has moved forward. There was a whole scene with Steve leading a group therapy session about it. That part feels different in 2026.
I like Endgame More Now Than I Did in 2019
For the record Avengers: Infinity War is still my favorite of the two. (Save for Loki’s tragic demise)
Back then, I probably would have given it somewhere around a 7 out of 10. Now? I am closer to a 9 out of 10. Not because it suddenly became a perfect movie. It didn’t and it isn’t. But 7 years of additional storytelling changed the context around it.
Which brings us to the “Encore” part of Avengers: Endgame Encore. Because Marvel did not simply put the movie back in theaters and say “Remember when everybody cried?”
They changed how we see it by changing how it looks forward.
Seeing Avengers: Endgame Encore in Laser Ultra Made It Feel Like an Event Again.
I saw Avengers: Endgame Encore at my local MJR theater in Laser Ultra with Dolby Atmos on an Infinity-Vision certified screen.
And yes, it mattered. More than I thought.
The screen was enormous. The picture was incredibly clear. The sound made sequences I already knew, (almost frame by frame) feel physically immediate again. On a massive premium screen, every beat of the film feels bigger and more immersive. And maybe, that is part of the trick. Encore doesn’t convince me that I’ve never seen Endgame before; it reminds me what it felt like when seeing an Avengers movie was an event.
For a few hours, it felt like 2019 again.
Until the ending changed.
Avengers: Endgame Encore Makes Doomsday Feel Like A Continuation, Not A Reset
This is ultimately why the re-release works for me. I expected nostalgia. I got nostalgia. I expected to cry. Again. The makeup remains proof. What I DIDN’T expect was how effectively Endgame Encore itself would reconnect me to the emotional stakes heading into Doomsday.
The reason Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame worked is because we cared about and shared a connection with who was standing inside those worlds. The spectacle worked because the people mattered first. And that is the thing I hope Marvel remembers most heading into Doomsday.
You can give me Doom. You can give me mutants. You can give me Avengers, crossovers, call-backs, and enough information to theorize and study until I perish in an internet rabbit hole somewhere. But none of it means anything unless the people do. Avengers: Endgame Encore still works because underneath every giant action sequence is someone desperately trying not to lose someone else; and we’re included in that. 7 years later…. that may still be Marvel’s greatest special effect. Encore throws us right back into those emotional investments and carries them into Doomsday.
Should You See Avengers: Endgame Encore?
Yes.
Especially if you were part of that original Marvel era. Not because the movie has suddenly become something different.
But because YOU have. We have. And Marvel has, too. Marvel kept building after 2019; those later stories and worlds created new connective tissue, and those connections make Endgame more meaningful when you revisit it now.
The inspiring and sentimental moments still pull at your heart. Cap lifting Mjölnir still hits. The portals still give goosebumps and make you feel part of it. Vormir still hurts. Tony and Peter still hurt. Tony and Morgan STILL hurts. Apparently, everything hurts, but my birth year starts with 19.
But the thing that surprised me the most was realizing that the years and content since Endgame haven’t weakened it for me. They’ve added layers. Encore is telling us that the story we thought ended in 2019 was never quite finished.
And somewhere, in the dark, another man wearing Tony Stark’s face is hammering away a very different mask into shape; but the task never changed.
My rating did: Originally this was a 7. I am giving Avengers: Endgame Encore a:
How to See All Encore Footage
Avengers: Endgame Encore directed by the Russo brothers’/ AGBO films is in theaters now, including premium formats such as IMAX and Infinity Vision-certified auditoriums depending on your location. (Those are also the formats that show more post credits footage.)
Stay tuned for my follow up article on the new cut scene footage and what it could mean for Doomsday.
Because we’re not done connecting the pieces before Doom arrives.
VisionQuest: Here’s What We Know
What Comes Next?
Avengers: Doomsday arrives December 18th, 2026. Between now and then, we’ll be continuing our Doomsday Prepping series at Nerd Initiative across all socials; summarizing the films, shows, characters, and lore leading into Marvel’s next Avengers event, so you don’t have to.
Because after all…
ALL ROADS LEAD TO DOOM.
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