There’s A Pretty Basic Reason Why This MCU Character Doesn’t Show Up In ‘Endgame’

Spoilers ahead for Avengers: Endgame. The Marvel fandom is still dealing with the events of Endgame, posting reactions, theories, and a lot of intense feelings all over the internet. Those emotions include a little bit of disappointment over the absence of one extremely important character. While dozens of characters from the MCU's history show up during the course of the three-hour movie, one furry little guy is missing. So, um, where was Goose during Endgame?

If you want, you can just imagine that Goose, the Flerken from Captain Marvel, was either chilling at the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in New York or perhaps in space with Carol, herself — she, too, is largely absent from Endgame. In the comics, Carol's Flerken, named Chewie, often accompanies Captain Marvel on her cosmic adventures, so it's pretty reasonable to imagine that Goose was simply left in space when Captain Marvel returns to earth.

The good news is that Goose's noticeable absence from Endgame probably doesn't indicate that the kitty finished off her nine lives between 1995 and Endgame's climactic battle, which takes place in 2023. If she were a regular cat, the reasonable conclusion would be that Goose wasn't around any more by the time the Avengers take on Thanos for round two, but Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has previously hinted that Goose has a longer life expectancy than regular cats. "The question is “how long — what is the lifespan of a Flerken?” It’s a good question," Feige said to Slash Film.

While Feige didn't exactly straightforwardly say that Goose is still alive during the time that Endgame takes place, he definitely hinted that Goose lives longer than a regular cat. Another clue that Goose is still alive comes from an Audi commercial/Endgame promo which features both Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Goose.

The April Audi commercial shows Captain Marvel learning about the technologies of the future, the ones that developed after she went away to space, presumably at the end of Captain Marvel. Despite there being continuity errors with Larson's long hair in the commercial compared to her short 'do in Endgame, the fact that Goose appears in the back of car suggests that she's still kicking.

Of course, the Audi ad isn't exactly a part of the Marvel canon, but it could be considered a small clue that you haven't seen the last of the adorable alien cat that's responsible for Nick Fury's eye patch.

Logically, you can chalk Goose's absence from Endgame up to complications in the filming schedules of Endgame and Captain Marvel. As IGN reports, Endgame was filmed before Captain Marvel, despite their swapped release order. Perhaps the directors of Endgame, Joe and Anthony Russo, didn't expect that Goose would factor into Captain Marvel as much as she did. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel inspired a ton of theories about all the ways in which the powerful little Flerken could have actually been the key to defeating Thanos. All of those were debunked by Endgame, but that doesn't mean that Goose won't turn back up again someday.