Chasing the Dragon: Jonesing for Another Endgame.

"You’ll be swell, you’ll be great, gonna have the whole world on a plate!”

Our old record player crackled with Merman, Streisand, and Garland. My mother sang "Everything's Coming Up Roses", even though very little in our lives suggested roses were imminent.

But I believed her, or at least, the song.

Movies and music were my first taste of magic and the easiest way for me to escape when I needed to - and I needed to a lot back then.

I don’t remember the exact first time I saw The Wizard of Oz, but I remember the ritual of my mother ceremoniously wheeling the TV into my room. We'd pile into bed with a mixing bowl full of popcorn - extra butter, of course.

And when Dorothy stepped into glorious Technicolor? Sigh.

I'm still a sucker for those moments. Case in point: I recently sobbed through the second half of Me Before You while my family looked on with secondhand embarrassment.

It was awesome.

My cinematic education was eclectic, to say the least. I knew every word of Dance: Ten, Looks: Three before I even had boobs and genuinely thought When You're Good to Mama was about helping with chores.

Thanks to VHS, I got completely hooked on musicals like Fame, A Chorus Line, and Staying Alive. I couldn't get enough of those big show endings.

But when I actually got to go to the movies, it was even better. Nothing beats the feeling of a whole room getting completely caught up in the same thing.

Years later, my daughter and I created a movie tradition of our own.

She was eight when Iron Man launched the MCU, already a superhero nerd like her mother.

At that age, I was wearing out videotapes of Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Star Wars. So Marvel became our thing, and we collected memories like Infinity Stones. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Then we made it to Endgame: opening weekend with a sold-out crowd. For three hours, we laughed at all the callbacks and inside jokes, basking in every full-circle moment.

When Nat sacrificed herself for the Soul Stone, we sat there in stunned, dewy-eyed disbelief.

When Mjölnir flew into Cap’s hand, the crowd blew the roof off that theater.

Then, that static crackle of "Cap, on your left".

Portals opened, and one by one, our heroes returned; the crowd lost its ever-loving mind. When T’Challa yelled, “Yibambe!” we roared back like we were all gonna throw down on Thanos.

And then:
“Avengers… assemble.”

Talk about endorphins; people were screaming and high-fiving total strangers. It was the Super Bowl, a Comic-Con reveal, and a biblical rapture all rolled into one.

That entire scene earned every second of the eleven years it took to get there.

And then, this happened:

Oh, we were not ready. At all.

One second, we were riding this glorious high of victory, and the next, Marvel bitch-slapped us with the greatest loss in the MCU.

Iron Man was the anchor being we'd all grown attached to after a decade of wisecracks, upgrades, close calls, bad decisions, and all the “I shouldn’t love him, but I do” moments.

He was also the foundation of the MCU for eleven years, which meant this thing had lasted longer than my first marriage.

And then little Morgan said she wanted a cheeseburger at her father's funeral.

Ugh, my heart.

But that's how they get you, and you freaking love it.

Most of us would give anything to experience all that again for the very first time.

Lest this becomes some piece genuflecting at the altar of Marvel, I offer this small sample of stories that need no introduction:

I've been just as affected by movies that had nothing to do with superheroes (take that, Scorsese): Schindler's List, Children of Men, Saving Private Ryan, The Neverending Story (hello, childhood trauma), and The Father.

I've only seen The Father once. Once was enough.

It's exquisite, but it puts you right inside his deteriorating mind without you even knowing it, as you get more and more confused as the movie plays out.

By the end, you're just as disoriented and scared and helpless as he is until the scene pulls away and you realize exactly what's been happening to "you" the entire time.

I loved it, but I never want to see it again.

What made Endgame different was all those years of inside jokes, silly debates, and fun little moments my daughter and I had along the way.

The post-Endgame years were a whole different experience, unfortunately. But I wasn't done chasing the dragon that was the MCU.

In July of 2026, I flew across the country for Comic-Con and spent an absolutely stupid amount of time trying to get into Hall H, just to see if I could.

There were lines, dear God, there were lines, and not much sleep. I remember at one point our group guarding our position like we were holding the line at Helm's Deep (which felt perfectly reasonable considering what we'd collectively gone through to get there).

I even found myself exhausted and wondering why the hell I was undertaking such a crazy, taxing weekend aside for the love of the game and the quest for content.

Then, despite all the drama, (and I experienced a lot) I managed to get inside.

My seat sucked, full stop. I sat halfway back in the room, right behind a giant concrete pillar, which is so helpful when you're 5'2".

Every time everyone in front of me stood up, I couldn't see shit.

Then Robert Downey Jr. appeared, and I was not about to miss that, so I stood up on my chair while the room was going bananas.

Every time that crowd erupted reminded me exactly why I'd subjected myself to such ridiculousness in the first place.

It was such a payoff to hear the voice of Victor von Doom before the rest of the world. We saw Endgame: Encore and Avengers: Doomsday footage that nobody else had seen.

The X-Men and New Avengers themselves appeared from the back of the room, and before I knew it, Red Guardian, Ghost, and Beast were high-fiving me.

(Now that's something I never thought I'd say.)

A few hours earlier, I'd whined over the phone to my husband that the whole weekend had been long, tiring, frustrating, and expensive, and I was too old for this shit.

Afterward, I called back and told him I might be coming back next year.

Had the same reaction the first time I gave birth.

I'm actually still on the fence, to be honest; probably why I only ever birthed one child. But I digress.

I was low-key pissed about my choice of seat until I learned about the hundreds of fans that somehow never made it inside. Then I felt grateful to have experienced the day at all.

My shitty seat didn't matter anymore. We'd all put up with the same ridiculousness for essentially the same reason: we wanted to lose our collective shit together.

So now, here we are, with Endgame: Encore around the corner and Doomsday on the horizon. I've been rewatching Age of Ultron with the startling realization that it's aged like fine wine. Details hit very differently now.

I'm discussing fan theories with my daughter and wondering if any of my favorite characters are gonna get killed off this time (I swear to God it better not be Loki again).

I don't expect another Endgame. But I don't simply want something good, either.

I need another hit of that cinematic bitch-slap.

If you do too, you're among friends here.

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