Audi May Have Spoiled Who Saves Tony Stark In Avengers 4

This article may contain spoilers for Avengers: Endgame

So much for keeping secrets, huh, Marvel?

From the moment they witnessed half of their favorite superheroes disintegrate into gray space dust at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel fans have been teetering on their edge of their seats to find out which characters might return for Avengers: Endgame. Marvel finally — after what felt like a millennium spent waiting – released the Endgame trailer in early December 2018. But when the studio dropped the footage, it also broke a few hearts: the first look at the film showed Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) floating aimlessly through space, running out of food and oxygen, and recording a farewell message to his fiancée Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). 

As many began preparing to say goodbye to the billionaire-bad boy-turned-father-figure-to-Peter-Parker, countless others started speculating that another hero could swoop in and rescue Tony from his almost-certain death. Heck, even we collected evidence to support the idea that maybe Pepper would assume her superhero alter ego Rescue and do the saving herself, and came up with a hefty list of other potential rescuers as well. 

But a recent announcement from Audi may have squashed those theories by seemingly spoiling who saves Tony in Avengers: Endgame. 

During its presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show, which ran from January 8 to January 11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the automobile manufacturer announced that it had partnered with Marvel to develop a virtual reality experience that gives fans the opportunity to venture through space from the backseat of Audi's e-tron Vision Gran Turismo, a concept car unveiled at the Audi Competence Center Motorsport back in April 2018. As revealed in a past announcement trailer for the vehicle, the e-tron GT will appear in Endgame – with none other than Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man getting behind the wheel. 

This seemed to confirm that Tony will eventually make his way back to Earth, alive and well enough to zip around the streets in a sweet luxury two-seater, but an important question remained: who would be the one to rescue him from space and be responsible for his safe return home?

According to Audi's announcement at CES 2019, Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) might be that hero, as the upcoming VR game is titled "Marvel's Avengers: Rocket's Rescue Run" and has players slide into the e-tron GT's backseat and control another vehicle as if they were Rocket on a space-faring rescue mission.

Though the name of the game alone doesn't specify who Rocket is rescuing or what all the VR experience entails, it certainly implies that Rocket may come to Tony's aid. That would be reason alone to believe that Audi successfully (though likely unintentionally) spoiled that particular aspect of Avengers: Endgame, but thanks to an in-depth account of the experience Sean O'Kane of The Verge had previewing "Marvel's Avengers: Rocket's Rescue Run," it appears that's exactly what has happened. 

In a piece published on January 7, just ahead of Audi's presentation at CES, O'Kane wrote, "Iron Man needs help. He's being chased through outer space by some of Thanos' baddies, so Rocket Raccoon and I rush to his aid. We make a few jumps using the Universal Neural Teleportation Network, and a few rollicking minutes later, I've helped blast the enemies to bits. Rocket sets off a few fireworks to celebrate. After that, I take off the virtual reality headset, hand over the controller, and step out of the car."

Admittedly, it's pretty wild to think that the famously unforthcoming Marvel — the studio that has garnered a reputation for being tight-lipped, ultra-secretive, and obsessed with ensuring little to no information about its projects makes its way to the masses ahead of schedule — let a spoiler like this slip out before Endgame launches this April. It could be a case of the studio actually planning this "spoiler reveal" in a bid to subvert its secret-keeping standard and give fans clues as to what happens in the fourth Avengers film. On the flip side, it might be that Marvel made a mistake and Audi genuinely did spoil part of Endgame. Both seem equally likely, but it's difficult to believe Marvel didn't want the information to get out, or didn't know well in advance that Audi would be announcing "Marvel's Avengers: Rocket's Rescue Run" at CES 2019. 

Either way, there's a solid chance Endgame will see our beloved galaxy-saving trash panda Rocket head to space, traverse through an asteroid field, save Tony, and haul his butt back to Earth — where he can meet up with the surviving heroes, formulate a plan to take down Thanos (Josh Brolin) for good, revive the fallen heroes from the dead, and then take a joy ride in his cool new car to celebrate a job well done. 

And in all honesty, Rocket saving Tony would make a lot of sense. The Endgame trailer revealed that Tony and Nebula (Karen Gillan) escape Titan and board the Benatar, the ship Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) commandeered in the Guardians of the Galaxy duology ahead of Avengers: Infinity War, and that the pair were the only heroes who survived Thanos' Decimation that took place on that planet. Rocket was over in Wakanda on Earth when the intergalactic genocide took place, and he watched as several heroes fell away to nothingness. Being that he was the only Guardian of the Galaxy to have made it out of the mass murder alive and that the Decimation marked the second death of his best buddy Groot (Vin Diesel), it's within the realm of reason that Rocket is fiercely determined to locate his missing teammates. 

In Endgame, Rocket might find a ship (Wakanda is brimming with state-of-the-art technology, after all) and head to space in search of — you guessed it — the Benatar, as he probably believes that's where the remaining Guardians are. Once locating the ship, he'll come face to face with Tony Stark, who won't have to do much persuading to convince Rocket to take him home. In the fight against Thanos and his Black Order, the more of Earth's Mightiest Heroes that are together, the better. There's strength in numbers, and the Avengers and co. are going to need all the power they can muster. 

As plausible as this all sounds, no one but the bigwigs at Marvel can offer any confirmation on whether Rocket will rescue Tony at some point during Endgame. It's certainly a tasty little something to chew on in the months leading up to Endgame's premiere, but fans will have to wait until April 26 to find out what will really happen.