The Avengers have dealt with some serious threats in their time. Loki. Ultron. Zemo. Thanos. However none have proven themselves to be quite as devious as the mysterious gamer known as NoobMaster69.
An evil genius that operates from the shadows, it's clear NoobMaster69 has been playing the long game. The first time we heard the name was in Avengers Endgame, but he's been messing with Earth's Mightiest Heroes for much longer.
Before I get into that, some background is needed. When we pick up with Thor in Endgame, he's been destroyed by the events of Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War. It's clear he's a wreck. In the space of a few years, the God of Thunder has lost to Thanos a handful of times. His people, and half the universe, paid the price as a result of his perceived failures.
This would be enough to drive anyone to their lowest ebb, and so Thor retreats. He spends five years locked inside in the dark, eating junk food, drinking beer, and playing video games. Okay, that actually sounds kind of great on paper, but I suppose it's not so hot when you're doing it because you've lost everything that matters to you.
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NoobMaster69 comes to Thor during this dark period of his life, through Fortnite of all things. The villainous gamer constantly harrasses Korg and Miek - two of the only friends our hero has left - to the point that Thor is repeatedly forced to threaten violence. Of course it's unlikely that Thor ever really knew who NoobMaster69 was or where he lived, as Endgame makes it clear he'd tormented the hero and his friends in Fortnite multiple times.
We assumed we'd never learn who NoobMaster69 really was, until earlier this month.
As part of a new series of Xbox Game Pass promotions in partnership with Falcon And The Winter Soldier, we see Anthony Mackie in character as Sam Wilson (AKA Falcon) chatting with a video game store employee in an attempt to catch up with all the games he missed out on in the five years since he was blipped out of existence by Thanos.
This employee seems like a nice enough dude, right up until the moment he casually reveals to Sam that his gamertag is *gasp* NoobMaster69. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now so connected that even the damn adverts connect to the larger story.
Now, as gamers we know that it's not possible for two players to have the exact same gamertag, don't we? We can deduce from this that the video game store employee is the same NoobMaster69 that took advantage of Thor during his lowest moments. But here's where it gets interesting: we've actually met NoobMaster69 before.
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The actor who portrays NoobMaster69 in the advert is a gentleman called D.C. Pierson. The plot thickens, as Pierson previously appeared in the fantastic Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a character that the MCU Wiki tells me is called Aaron.
Aaron, admittedly, played an incredibly small role in The Winter Soldier, to the point that you're probably trying to recall who the heck he actually was. Captain America and Black Widow meet him while undercover in an attempt to evade Hydra. Here, Aaron/NoobMaster69 is nothing more than a humble Apple store employee working in a mall in Washington D.C who very nearly blows the pair's cover in his eagerness to help out. That's it. That's all there is to it. Or is it?
I submit to you that this was NoobMaster69's first attempt to foil the Avengers. Playing the part foolish employee perfectly, he aimed to distract Cap and Black Widow long enough for Hydra to catch them. He failed, and lost his job at the Apple store as a result. Years later, and still furious from having been fired from his relatively cosy job at the Apple store, he tried once again to keep the Avengers apart by keeping Thor alone and afraid in the dark by constantly trolling him and his friends. His latest scheme clearly shows he's attempting to get Falcon hooked on Xbox Game Pass so that he never takes up the mantle of Captain America as Steve intended. But why? Because NoobMaster69 doesn't want to live in a world with Avengers in it, obviously.
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Maybe Hulk dropped a building on his mum during the battle of New York, maybe Tony Stark slept with his sister and never called her back. Maybe Hawkeye looked at him funny on the subway once. Maybe I'm clutching at straws because it's a slow news day. I'll let you decide, but I do believe that something one of the Avengers did to Aaron at some point in his life has inspired him to play the long game, clashing with the iconic heroes in a variety of truly mundane scenarios so as to conquer them one by one in such a dull manner that he pulls it off completely undetected. Hell, that still makes more sense than Zemo's convoluted AF plan in Captain America: Civil War.
You might tell me I'm thinking about this too deeply and that lockdown has gone to my head, but Thanos was just a purple guy in a floating chair years before he took centre stage in Infinity War. Marvel is sewing the seeds for something big, and NoobMaster69 is smack-bang in the middle of it. Probably. Until future Avengers movies come along to prove me otherwise, I'm just going to assume I'm right, and you can't stop me. Just like Thor couldn't stop NoobMaster69.
And hey, if you don't like that theory, let's just say NoobMaster69 is actually Mephisto, shall we? If only because WandaVision is over and I kind of miss everyone speculating about the devil pulling the strings behind the scenes, and only someone intimaitely familiar with hell could come up with such a shit gamertag.
Featured Image Credit: Marvel