How Did Tony Know To Go Back To 1970?

I’ve seen Endgame countless times ever since I first saw it on opening night back in 2019. But there’s one thing that still confuses me on every single viewing.

How did Tony know that going back to the New Jersey Military Base in 1970 would allow them to acquire another copy of the Tesseract as well as get more Pym Particles? Was there a line/scene earlier in the film (or in a previous MCU film) that I missed that would’ve explained this? From the looks of it, it seems like Tony just gets the idea out of nowhere

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nikenike2026-01-19 02:40

I mean he is a genius and it’s not hard to imagine he knew the entire history of the Tesseract after learning about its existence, same with Hank Pym and Pym Particles after learning about Antman

No-Control-43192026-01-19 04:39

Saw another potential reason was he learned it when he was going through his dad’s files that were givin to him by Fury in IM2

QStackz2026-01-19 05:12

This is the answer

BeardySam2026-01-19 10:23

Yeah it’s literally his father. He just knew about his research?

IamJohnnyHotPants2026-01-19 13:59

Yeah, nobody, including a super genius, who at the time knew nothing about Hank Pym, memorized the exact date Hank Pym and his father were on a military base the same day 50 years earlier, while also not remembering it was when his mom was also pregnant with his very self. It’s simply a plot hole.

a_natural_chemical2026-01-19 14:05

I never had any feeling he knew his dad would be there or that it was even relevant. He knew that shield had the tesseract there at that time and that Pym was working there at that time. The exact date didn't matter. Who was there at the time didn't matter. The plan to distract Hank was an audible call by Steve.

IamJohnnyHotPants2026-01-19 14:07

The reason the Tesseract was there is because his dad was there. His dad was the one studying the Tesseract. In Iron Man 2 he is studying his father’s notes for the purposes of arc reactor technology, not the Tesseract notes specifically. He knows that date because he knows his father is there and it’s an educated guess that the tesseract would also be there. When he suggests the date to Steve and mentions that they “both” might be there, he is talking about Hank and his father. Not Hank and the Tesseract.

IolausTelcontar2026-01-19 16:27

He is talking about the tesseract and the pym particles (both).

IamJohnnyHotPants2026-01-19 18:07

He is not. He’s talking about the two scientists and is hoping that them being associated with the Tesseract and particles will lead to them finding the two items. There is absolutely no reason he would know the whereabouts of those two things. But he knew both guys worked for Shield at the same time and those things were their primary focus. It was a total hunch, which is why he asked Steve “do you trust me?” Steve would have no other reason to even question it if Tony knew those two items were certainly there.

IolausTelcontar2026-01-19 19:21

You are incorrect.

LTM4382026-01-19 16:02

A plot hole is "There are security cameras in Toy Story 3 but no one knows the toys are alive." Tony knowing when to go back is not a plot hole, it's a detail of the film that the film expects you to be able to figure out.

juliopeludo2026-01-19 17:12

lmao thats a good one. my head cannon is that they did find out, buuuut then what do you do? get rid of all the toys and shut down your daycare? nah just leave it be, and know you aint gotta deal with the living toys, the workers and kids have to.

LTM4382026-01-19 17:34

Ha I mean, fair. But the jig is kind of up when you realize that Sunnyside is far from the only place with cameras ha Pixar does this all the time, they bend logic to its limits for the sake of the story, which like, fine, they often make good films, but NONE of anything from Cars holds up under the slightest scrutiny: How do they build things if the forklifts are the only ones with opposable appendages? Why do they eat things? Do they need to eat things? I thought they just needed to drink gasoline. Car Pope is in the second one, does that mean there's Car Jesus? Was he crucified? How do you do that to a car? Why do the tractors not have sentience?! See? You pull on one single thread and the whole spool becomes unraveled. THOSE are plot holes. Well, not all of them, a lot of them are just weird things that Cars does.

IamJohnnyHotPants2026-01-19 18:08

Anybody downvoting this is a moron.

Stunning_Box87822026-01-19 14:34

His father specifically passed on all his research to Tony, because he was "Limited by the technology of his time".

He wanted his son to continue his work.

Gambitismyheart2026-01-19 10:46

Given* 🙂

Obvious-Water5692026-01-19 09:29

I think it's simpler than that.

He probably spent a lot of time learning about his dad and what he did with his life and career. Once he got through the door at SHIELD, he would have had a lot of that information.

haolee5102026-01-20 11:35

In the publicly released script for Endgame, there was supposed to be an easter egg shot of a young Howard, Peggy, and Hank Pym under a SHIELD logo somewhere in Tony's cabin. The scene didn't end up in the movie(if it was even shot at all), but from there it's easy to see how Tony would know that for some period of time, SHIELD(which we know was established in Camp Lehigh) housed both the Tesseract and Pym's research.

OneAngryDuck2026-01-19 02:41

General knowledge about when/where his dad and Hank Pym both worked and the type of work they were involved with in the past. They don’t specifically explain how he has that knowledge, but it’s reasonable that he would know it.

LmaoYetStillDied2026-01-19 02:41

Probably part of their research, it’s only a few minutes shown in the movie, but that research had to have been at least weeks covering every branch of their history.

ninety4kid2026-01-19 03:23

If Howard never shut his mouth about Captain America I'm sure he also told a story or 2 about Hank Pym Ant-Man (the good and the bad) and that's where Tony got the info that they worked together right before he was born (Howard's having a kid soon in 1970, Tony is born in 1970).

AmaterasuWolf212026-01-19 13:42

And they still chose an extremely complicated route

How2trainUrXenomorph2026-01-19 02:41

He hacked the hellicarrier in the first Avengers movie for all the secrets they had. He should've found out about Bucky at that time too but ...

Checkers9232026-01-19 02:50

Bucky wasn’t in Shield’s files and was alleged to have made it look like a car crash. The missing super soldier serum would have been there though.

How2trainUrXenomorph2026-01-19 04:50

What about when Black Widow **released all of Hydra's files**?

marioxb2026-01-19 05:47

That was two years after the battle of New York.

Rek072026-01-19 08:23

All of their digital files. That video could have only been in hard copy in Siberia.

rara81222026-01-19 02:41

His dad did work there. I think he knew he worked on the tesseract and worked with Hank pym? He didn’t know the exact time frame though—just the general idea.

richard-5642026-01-19 18:41

Yeah, he just knew he was working there when he was born, so he picked that day.

butterflya822026-01-19 02:41

Yeah it’s in previous films. Tony’s dad worked in that base and so was Michael Douglas character

AdvertisingWaste86242026-01-19 02:44

“Michael Douglas Character” is Hank Pym also known as the original Ant-Man

NovaBridger2026-01-19 02:41

Tony had read a lot of old SHIELD files during Iron Man 2, so he likely picked up this info during that time (or even during similar instances off-screen).

JohnnyKarateX2026-01-19 02:42

I don’t there’s anything specific but his Dad worked with the Tesseract and he likely knew Pym was there too. Tony’s position within SHIELD and the Avengers would have given him access to information and he would have wanted to know about his Dad’s work with SHIELD and might have learned about other experiments in the same lab.

tommymat2026-01-19 02:50

At the end of the first Captain America, Howard is seen recovering the Tesseract from the bottom of the ocean and then asks them to sweep one more time to look for Steve.

RipErRiley2026-01-19 02:42

Its not connected to a specific past scene but a multitude of things…

- Tony hacked Shield in “The Avengers”
- His father’s notes in “Iron Man 2”
- He likely knew Howard & Hank were working together back then just from personal stories.

Checkers9232026-01-19 02:52

Black Widow put all of Shield’s files on the internet. Jarvis and Friday would have heavily researched that info.

RipErRiley2026-01-19 02:53

Yep, there is yet another avenue.

rastapastanine2026-01-19 17:42

But not a boulevard

dvolland2026-01-19 18:36

A Boulevard of Broken Dream

CaptHayfever2026-01-20 09:58

Well, there's no median.

Funmachine2026-01-19 15:43

They were heavily encrypted. That's a whole plot point in Civil War, and why Zemo knew Bucky killed Tony's parents and Tony didn't know.

Checkers9232026-01-19 19:01

Zemo was not breaking encryption faster than an AI. There is a reason he kept asking for a mission report, the records were not clear that howard stark was assassinated.

Funmachine2026-01-19 19:47

Zemo broke through to the knowledge he gained because he knew what he was looking for, as he said. Also, he was Military Intelligence, there's no reason to believe he couldn't do it. In fact, he explicitly says he did. What we don't have is any indication that Tony tried to look through them.

thechervil2026-01-19 03:04

His father's notes in IM2 was my thought as well.

He had that whole box of stuff delivered to him by Shield, and I'm sure somewhere in those files were details about that.

[deleted]2026-01-19 03:13

[deleted]

John_316_2026-01-19 03:15

Pimp articles 😂

RainMakerJMR2026-01-19 04:11

There was a line in Ant man somewhere Hank put mentions that Starks aren’t to be trusted or that they’re thieves or something. Like he blamed Howard stark for the missing pym particles already, but it was really from the time heist

Rek072026-01-19 08:19

That shouldn’t work based on how time travel is explained to work in Endgame.

Vayro2026-01-19 09:43

But an event like that could have already happened within their timeline by the hands of another timeline!

CA2Kiwi2026-01-19 06:33

Hank Pym decked Howard Stark in the face at the start of Ant Man, so I’d have expected his name to potentially crop up around the Stark household when Tony was a kid.

qcthunder2026-01-19 06:38

I don't think it was Stark. Didn't he punch the guy who eventually bought the suit from Cross?

Bambalorian2026-01-19 10:57

yup

BatmanForever232026-01-19 13:07

Correct, his name was Mitchell Carson

littlebugonreddit2026-01-19 02:43

I always just imagined there was a Convo between Tony and Scott about the last line Tony heard from him, which was "Hank Pym always said you can never trust a Stark"

From then on, it was just about finding a date where Hank, Howard, and the Tesseract were in one place

mgiblue212026-01-19 02:46

He knew where the SHIELD base was, knew when his father worked with Hank, prior to their falling out, and knew that SHIELD had the tesseract.

Latter-Hamster96522026-01-19 02:48

He was born the same year and knew his father cared more about work than his family.

PSN-Colinp422026-01-19 05:36

He was born that DAY. That’s how he knew when to go.

TempAcct200052026-01-19 07:17

Yeah everyone keeps saying all these other theories but wasn’t Howard on the way to Tony’s birth? That’s pretty easy to know when to go back

richard-5642026-01-19 18:37

Right? They're surprised Tony knew his own bday? lol.

haolee5102026-01-20 11:30

It wasn't actually said, but it's one of the more agreeable theory. In the movie, Howard just said his wife was expecting, and Tony even asked how far along she was and Howard only gave a non-committal joke answer, saying she's at the point where she's annoyed by his loud chewing.

natayaway2026-01-20 22:28

Apr 7th 1970 is the day they went back to.

Tony’s birthday was May 29th 1970 from his SHIELD dossier.

antmansl2026-01-21 04:11

The fact that this comment isn’t higher just shows how little people actually pay attention to dialogue

sweens902026-01-19 02:49

What’s more annoying is they didn’t have Rocket and Thor also grab a Tesseract just in case.

BaronZhiro2026-01-19 03:27

Oooo, good point! In fact they should’ve just grabbed it there to begin with, since it was way more out of sight there.

LittleBingo962026-01-20 21:44

Odin's vault might be tougher to break into than Camp Lehigh.

BaronZhiro2026-01-20 22:06

Surely, but I’d assume Thor himself could just walk right in.

LittleBingo962026-01-21 00:41

Isn't the Destroyer still down there?

sweens902026-01-21 02:20

Wasn’t it/he/ or she destroyed in Thor 1. Its in the vault post Avengers and Thor Dark World is where they travel back to in End Game

LittleBingo962026-01-21 18:25

There was supposed to be a scene in Ragnarok where Hela just casually shreds it when she goes down into the vault (because apparently she was the one who originally built it.) But they never bothered doing the FX.

sweens902026-01-21 18:50

But thats after Thor Dark World

sweens902026-01-21 02:19

They didn’t know they were going to Lehigh originally. But Thor knew it was on Asgard.

LittleBingo962026-01-21 18:29

He'd be wrong though. It wouldn't be in Asgard in 2013, because Loki had stolen it again in 2012.

sweens902026-01-21 18:50

In what movie?

LittleBingo962026-01-21 22:56

Endgame. (Of course, that means Loki shouldn't be in the Asgard prison either)

sweens902026-01-21 23:03

No, thats wrong. End Game time travel rules establish that there events don’t affect the future for the other events.

The Tesseract that gets stolen by Loki ends up in the TVA and in Loki that altered timeline gets pruned.

So the Tesseract stays in the vault and is there for Hela to comment in Ragnorok and Loki to take so that he has it at the beginning of Infinity War.

LittleBingo962026-01-21 23:54

So, how quickly do each of those timelines diverge?

(,I know Cap goes back to return the tesseract to 1970, but he doesn't have a second one to return to 2012. Is that why that timeline gets pruned in Loki season 1? Sorry, Ancient One. You tried, at least.)

linkman05962026-01-19 03:27

From where? The time period rocket and Thor traveled to, the tesseract was in hydra's hands so would be difficult to get to without a huge battle.

sweens902026-01-19 03:39

No. Thor brought it back after battle of New York

linkman05962026-01-19 03:41

Right, I got it confused with the scepter. That would be in odin's vault though, so maybe not easily retrievable.

RyukenRyusei2026-01-19 03:46

Rocket and Thor travelled to “Thor:The Dark World” period.
The Tesseract would have been in Odin’s vault (since Thor took it with him at the end of Avengers).
It’s why at the end of Thor 2, Volstagg and Sif gave the Aether to the Collector as it was “not wise to have TWO infinity stones…on Asgard”.

tapdancinghellspawn2026-01-19 02:53

He read the script.

ABC_Dildos_Inc2026-01-19 03:04

In Iron Man 2 he researched his Dad's projects.

There is no way the military didn't keep records of the Tesseract or Hank's Pymn Particles on their base.

In The Avengers, as soon as Tony enters the Hellicarier, he captures all of Shield's database.

Hanzzman2026-01-19 03:19

"Hank Pym always said you can never trust a Stark" said Scott Lang in CA:CW. Probably Tony investigated a little.

Probably Hank claimed that Howard Stark stole some of his pimp articles. they also knew that Shield had the Tesseract, from their experiences in Avengers. Tony connected the dots.

PoniesCanterOver2026-01-20 00:02

pimp particles

Hanzzman2026-01-20 14:21

[https://imgur.com/gallery/that-time-deadpool-taskmaster-stole-pimp-articles-yAWgROI](https://imgur.com/gallery/that-time-deadpool-taskmaster-stole-pimp-articles-yAWgROI)

gusefalito2026-01-19 03:20

They did a lot of research during the time heist planning montage. 2012 was the safest option since they could send one team to gather three stones but it wasn't the only option and they knew that.

Hotwater32026-01-19 03:34

The exchange between him and cap was always really weird to me. He tells cap "I know, and I know how I know" which sort of implies that he received that information through an important plot point that the audience would be aware of. Like it's a secret he needs to keep from Cap.

Another thing that bothered me about this plot device is it would have been far easier for Cap, Lang, and Stark to just go to San Francisco and get more Pym Particles from 2012 Hank Pym.

Just knock on his door and say "Hey Pym, I'm Tony Stark. I know you hate me and all but are you watching the news right? Do you see what's happening in NYC? Do you see me fighting a bunch of aliens, do you see me standing right in front of you at the same time? See this guy you've never met wearing your suit? Yeah...we are from the future. We need Pym Particles to save the universe."

And if Hank said no Cap could just knock him out and they could steal them.

BatmanForever232026-01-19 13:10

>Another thing that bothered me about this plot device is it would have been far easier for Cap, Lang, and Stark to just go to San Francisco and get more Pym Particles from 2012 Hank Pym

A) why bother when you know you can get more particles and the Tesseract in one fell swoop?
B) Who's to say that Hank Pym is gonna be easy to track down in 2012?

C) It's a really boring way to do the movie

Drogo252026-01-19 03:41

Was it not part of Ironman 2?

Nick Fury gave him all the data on his father's research. The tesseract was mentioned in one of the documents if I am not wrong

Type_1002026-01-19 03:44

SHIELD has the Tesseract for years, and Nat leaked all SHIELD files in Winter Soldier.

Tradman862026-01-19 03:44

Iron Man 2, he gets all his dad’s notes and stuff which includes a drawing of the tesseract.

Bigpappa362026-01-19 05:10

IRON MAN 2 he read all the Shield files that Fury gave him from Howard stark to build his new arc reactor which is how he had the inclination it might be there. Pretty sure the arc reactor was based off the tesseract or inspired by

redmerchant92026-01-19 05:22

He knew that SHIELD had it and he also knew that the New Jersey facility was the first SHIELD base. It wasn't hard to conclude that the cube was there.

lance8452026-01-19 05:23

In Iron Man 2 he is given cases of all of his dads notes and records including journals studying the tesseract. He dug through those materials looking to discover and solve the new element, but also had all his dads other work. Including what he studied about it and where and who his colleagues were.

So yeah. He knew where it would be. And he knew pym was working there too.

Big_Malo2026-01-19 05:41

Ant man mentions it

ItWasInTheScript2026-01-19 06:07

it was in the script

MMFRESHSW22026-01-19 06:11

between his dad's files & what Cap told him about his Dad

snidece2026-01-19 07:30

Cut scenes that were later hacked released show he did research but it was considered boring 3-4 mins so cut from theatre release.

rekzkarz2026-01-19 07:53

I have to say this --

Its a freakin' comic movie, bro!

We don't need tons of deep analysis for this one.

Stark's a genius, he solved time travel & beat Thanos, he can know some history, no? Also weapons dealer / maker with deep govt contacts, and he wears AI robot all the time

rohithkumarsp2026-01-19 08:02

Even that confused me he says "ask me how I know" to Steve... What are they talking about? How does Steve know what he's talking about.

GreyFoxNinjaFan2026-01-19 09:51

Theres a scene which shows a pic of Pym and his dad together with a date i think?

Sparrowsabre72026-01-19 10:08

This is one of those things where I think audiences need to just enjoy movies. Like this is such a minor thing that any person giving it.more than a seconds thought could explain away, but it's the second thread I've seen about it this week.

It's like people can't fill in the blanks when something happens offscreen. Training is a big one "oh my god how does Rey know how to fly a spaceship" maybe she learned in the however many years she's been on Jakku? Doesn't *really* matter, we don't need tonsee training montages for every little thing, nor do we need to have every minor thing explained to us.

IronBobBerserker772026-01-19 15:03

In Iron Man 2. Fury brought to Tony all of Howard's research on the Tesseract. Which lead to Tony creating the element that replaced palladium in his chest reactor. In those notes it had to have mentioned the Tesseract being in the underground S.H.E.I.L.D. facility under Camp Lehigh.

takoyama2026-01-19 15:30

[Avengers: Endgame - How Tony Stark Knew To Time Travel To 1970s](https://screenrant.com/avengers-endgame-tony-stark-time-travel-1970s-infinity-stone-how/?utm_source=copilot.com)

AnonymousFriend802026-01-19 16:14

He had access to information that Pym was working out of that location at that time, Pym was using his Particles.

Plenty-Swordfish50492026-01-19 18:10

I'm more interested to know about a year they travelled to, shown in all the year log, they went way back into the past which has no connection with MCU

crono142026-01-19 19:46

Giant box of files Fury gave to him in IM2 about his Dad. Or Jarvis breaking into shield files aboard the helecarrier in Avengers. Many ways he could have learned where the Tesseract was kept.

seansnow642026-01-20 02:08

He read the script

EndriasKassa2026-01-20 02:30

I remember once seeing a deleted scene that explains how he knew that, but I can’t find it.

bythog2026-01-20 14:24

He didn't know for certain. He straight up says that he had an educated guess that he was pretty sure was right. "I have a vaguely exact idea."

He knew that his father researched the Tesseract for SHIELD (The First Avenger shows Howard Stark recover the Tesseract, and he's their main researcher) and that Pym worked with his father at that same time (Antman reveals this). He knew where their headquarters were located (Winter Soldier, probably Agent Carter). He deduced that since they both worked on top secret stuff for SHIELD that it was likely they could get both things they needed. He had to guess at the year.

LittleBingo962026-01-20 21:30

Tony does his homework. He has read about Hank Pym and his particles and when he started working at SHIELD and developing them. He also knows that SHIELD has the tesseract in NJ, but at some point ships it out west to Project Pegasus.
1970 is probably their best shot at getting both. Maybe the camp is about to close and SHIELD is moving out?

(Remember, earlier in the movie the Avengers are researching the history and locations of all the Infinity stones. And hell, they could have just flown to San Francisco in 2012 after the Battle of New York to get a fresh supply of Pym particles.)

natayaway2026-01-20 22:24

Doesn’t Stark literally say he doesn’t know how he knows, he just does?

WarlockProdigy2026-01-21 17:06

I mean Tony's father worked at that base prior to his birth. Perhaps he put together that his father was into secret govt programs. After all in Civil War the memory indicates Tony is familiar with his Dad's spiel of being gone from home. This along with the fact that the base is the same military base Cap trained in. Combined with Howard's obsession with Steve and Pyms involvement in working at the same base, might lead Tony to conclude they can find both the PYM particles and another tesseract. Perhaps Howard and Pyms work are correlated through relativity. After all each represent macro and micro styles of timetravel. or insintaneous transmission of information.

Independent-End-8702026-01-25 02:50

In Iron Man 2 Fury gives Tony his dad's files for the ark reactor to cure himself. The notes show he had the tesseract and used it to develop the ark reactor. He also has the files he hacked in the Avengers and the files cap released in the Winter Soldier.