Spider-Man Actually Solved Time Travel In Avengers: Endgame

Spider-Man might have been a pile of dust for most of Avengers: Endgame, but he actually played a bigger role than you'd think.

After the movie's surprise five-year time jump, the remaining Avengers start to look to time travel to bring everyone back. Smart Hulk doesn't have the knowledge though, so they need Tony Stark's help and he doesn't seem to want to do it.

Related: Avengers: Endgame theory makes it even more heartbreaking

He's left the superhero life and living peacefully with Pepper and their daughter Morgan, so Tony doesn't want to potentially mess it up by playing around with time – something he doesn't think is possible anyway.

And yet, over one night, Tony manages to create time travel, but really, we should be thanking Spider-Man instead.

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Before Tony solves the time travel problem (and after he bizarrely dries plates before putting them on the washing-up rack), he looks at a picture of himself with Peter Parker and a fake Stark Industries certificate.

Shortly after this, Tony decides to have one last try at the time travel simulation, seemingly because of the guilt he felt over Peter's death in Avengers: Infinity War.

But there's a key detail you might have overlooked.

ScreenRant suggests that the fact that Peter is holding the Stark Industries certificate upside-down is the reason why Tony is able to solve the timey-wimey conundrum.

"I've got a mild inspiration. I'd like to see it if checks out. So, I'd like to run one last sim before we pack it in for the night. This time in the shape of a Möbius strip, inverted please," Tony tells Friday after this moment.

He says a few other science-y bits, but the main change is inverting the Möbius strip like Peter did for his certificate.

And given the timing, it seems that the "mild inspiration" could well be that certificate. Lo and behold, turning it upside-down worked and the rest is history.

Related: A major Avengers plot hole about Thanos has finally been resolved

We're sure time travel is more complicated than just looking at it upside-down, but they did have a time heist to get on with.

So, technically, this also means that Spider-Man is inadvertently responsible for Tony's eventual sacrifice to save the world.

Sorry about that.

Avengers: Endgame is out now on DVD, Blu-ray, 3D, 4K and digital download, and is available on Disney+.

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Ian Sandwell

Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.