MY REJECTED SLATE PITCH Endgame spoilers

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I've been reading Slate since the late '90s and today I made my first (possibly second?) pitch today. It's about Endgame and timely and I don't really feel like shipping it around and so, as it was rejected in about three hours, I just thought I would throw it up here. If anyone wants to persuade me to write the thing, I'm listening.

We probably have another week in which people are interested in reading about Avengers: Endgame, and although I found the movie satisfying, as it rolls around in my brain, I'm starting to find issues with it.

Ragnarok, for all its destruction (all of Asgard destroyed!), ended upbeat and saw Thor finally growing into his destined role as king.

Infinity War immediately ruined this cheerful close with Thanos's arrival. You could say, That's real life! Sometimes bad things happen! but this is movies and that entire argument is equivalent to arguing Endgame itself shouldn't have been made at all.

(Here, if you think it's appropriate, I could talk about my affinity for the films of Taika Waititi and how I think Ragnarok is a fine example of his personal work, which makes the rest of my take so upsetting to me personally. We could also leave me out it. Although I've been reading Slate since the very beginning, this is my first time pitching you. I don't have much ethos with your readership.)

As Infinity War flushed the Yay! Asgard! portion of Ragnarok, Endgame flushes Thor's personal development.

It's fine that he's been sad for five years and hasn't risen to the occasion. It's less fine that he appoints Valkyrie to be the #1 stay-at-home mom of Asgard (link to Slate's failed-feminism-of-Endgame piece) so he can leave his mancave and spend the rest of his life bowling with Star-Lord, a rabbit, and, one presumes, either John Goodman or Steve Buscemi in Thor 4: Asgardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

In sum, all of Ragnarok's success and meaning have been rendered moot. One of Marvel's finest movies is now irrelevant. Thanos wins after all.

On the bright side for fantasy lovers, even if you get fat and drunk, we now know you never have to grow up. You can stay an eternal adolescent.

Yay?

(And, if it fits in naturally, we'll have a Falstaff reference.)

I left out the stuff about my portfolio.