The newest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ms. Marvel, has made its debut on Disney+. While there is plenty to unpack about the first episode, the charming opening scene brought back questions that have been on the minds of MCU fans since 2019. What do the ordinary people of Earth know about the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame? It is something that has never been directly dealt with, and we have received bits and pieces about it since Spider-Man: Far From Home. But the first episode of Ms. Marvel gave viewers a few more answers.
The animated opening montage features Kamala Khan’s own reenactment of the final battle of Endgame, apparently termed the “Battle of Earth.” So clearly, the citizens know a good amount about what transpired there—the Avengers fought Thanos, who was trying to use the stones. Even the detail as to Captain Marvel coming in last minute and punching Thanos in the face is common knowledge. How did people even come to learn those kinds of details?
Far From Home offers one answer to that question. From glimpses of airplane movie options, there were documentaries about “The Snap” floating around. So the Avengers must have made some of their knowledge of the Battle for Earth available to the public. It also stands to reason that those who did survive the Blip would have been given some sort of explanation as to why half of Earth’s population disappeared all at once. So half of the planet post-Endgame likely already had information about Thanos and the stones for years.
The Battle of Earth took place without warning and out of the public eye, so it did not seem observable. It is possible that there could have been satellite imagery or that Stark Tech could have recorded parts of the battle, which would make the most sense in terms of the public knowing precise details of the battle, as noted in WandaVision. But Kamala revealed that Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is a frequent guest on podcasts where he would be interviewed about the battle. So, details about who did what during the fight may make their way to the public from things like that as well. Still, if Scott Lang is a major source of what the public knows, it might make us question the accuracy or version of the main version story circulating.
So there are some obvious ways that citizens of Earth came to learn some of the information, but just how much do they know? This might be a little trickier, because they certainly do not know every detail of Infinity War and Endgame, and there are good reasons for that. On one hand, they clearly seem to know about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, so information on basic Infinity Gauntlet assembly is probably out there. The public deserved an explanation of what had happened, so this makes sense.
But they probably were not told in detail about how there are universal threats that could annihilate them at any moment. Do they know what happened to the Stones after the Battle of Earth? This is unclear. Considering it would be worrying to think that the Stones were all still floating around, the public was probably told they were destroyed. But past that, it would be surprising if they knew much more.
For them to know that the Stones were returned to their original timelines, ordinary citizens would have to know that the Avengers invented and used time travel, which is knowledge they almost certainly do NOT possess. If time travel was common knowledge, there would surely be more interest in it. And if they knew about it, they would have to completely understand the mechanics of it for there not to be a segment of the population demanding it be used to fix certain events, like the Blip. Plus, it was not fully understood by the Avengers themselves, and a true understanding of it would lead to discussions of the multiverse. Peter Parker, who surely has a bit more information about how the Blip was reversed than others, was shocked that the multiverse was real in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The public knows that Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark sacrificed themselves, but questions would seem to linger about the fate of Steve Rogers. No one seems to believe he is dead, and Sam Wilson was asked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier if the rumors of Rogers living on the moon were real. Ordinary citizens likely do not know that he aged dramatically, either, as it has never been mentioned and that would potentially require them to know about the time travel.
Lastly, will the public learn more as time goes on? The easy answer is yes, as naturally more information comes out over time. But will anything major or of consequence be revealed within the MCU to ordinary people? Probably not, with the exception of Steve Rogers. The MCU does not seem to be wrestling with the concept of keeping certain things from the public. But considering the viewers have yet to find out what happened to Rogers after Endgame, it is possible that the greater reveal (if ever) of that could be simultaneous to the real world and MCU people. For example, if we find out he died or has been dead, we might learn because the public learns and mourns. However, if we find out he has been a secret moon agent, that might remain a secret.
You can watch Kamala’s reenactment of the Battle of Earth in the first episode of Ms. Marvel, now streaming exclusively on Disney+.
