'Avengers: Age of Ultron' 10th Anniversary: 10 Best Pieces Of Foreshadowing In The Film

May 1, 2025, marked the tenth anniversary of the worldwide release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the second Avengers film, and penultimate entry in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Initially deemed the weakest Avengers movie by some, the film has gained appreciation in recent years for the amount of set up it managed to accomplish for future films.

Here's some of the best pieces of foreshadowing in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

1. Tony's Vision

Towards the end of Age of Ultron's opening sequence, Tony Stark's mind is invaded by Wanda Maximoff, forcing him to experience a vision of a dark and tragic future, with a battle the Avengers obviously lose. The vision inspires Tony to use Loki's sceptre to speed up work on his peacekeeping Ultron initiative, hoping to prevent what he saw. Things of course go horribly wrong.

Wanda manipulated Tony's mind to induce his absolute worst case scenario. Nothing he saw was supposed to be real.. and yet, some of it still comes to pass before the end of the Infinity Saga.

2. Cap's Broken Shield

Tony is particularly shaken by a dying Steve Rogers, who tells him "You could have saved us.." before his final breath. His shield, made of near indestructible vibranium, is also broken.

While Cap himself technically survives to the end of the Infinity Saga (Though whether or how long he lives beyond that is up for debate), his Shield is broken by Thanos during the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, along nearly the same crack as in Tony's earlier vision.

3.The Death of Natasha Romanoff

Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, also appears to be dead in the vision. A devastated but alive Hawkeye, the only Avenger to have escaped the slaughter relatively unscathed, sits near her body.

Whether or not it was intended at the time, some fans see this moment as foreshadowing Natasha's eventual death in Avengers: Endgame, when she sacrifices her own life so Hawkeye, her best friend, can obtain the Soul Stone needed as part of the plan to restore those lost to the Decimation, including Hawkeye's family. After Natasha's fall, her body lies in a very similar position to Tony's vision.

4. Cap almost lifts Mjolnir

As the party at Avengers Tower to celebrate the team's successful retrieval of Loki's sceptre winds down, the Avengers take turns trying to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, which is of course enchanted so that only the worthy may lift it. All the attempts fail until Steve steps up, appearing to move the hammer just slightly. He stops short of actually picking it up, claiming he could not.

Many fans theorised that Cap chose not to lift Mjolnir to spare Thor's feelings, and that on some level, Thor probably knew this.

The theory was more or less confirmed in Avengers: Endgame, when Cap takes up Mjolnir to save a struggling Thor as they battle Thanos. Thor memorably declared:

"I knew it!"

5. "Up there, that's the Endgame"

When the other Avengers angrily confront Tony on what they deem his irresponsible use of the sceptre to create Ultron, he tries to defend his decision by claiming he was simply trying to protect the Earth from future intergalactic threats.

"Up there, that's the Endgame."

While the Ultron project went badly awry, Tony wasn't exactly wrong. Just three years later, Thanos's evil forces arrive on Earth in Avengers: Infinity War. Tony's above quote also foreshadowed the eventual title of Infinity War's sequel, Avengers: Endgame.

6. The Fall of Asgard

While confronting Ultron in Johannesburg, the team learns that he has joined forces with the Maximoff twins. In the ensuing battle, four of the six Avengers fall victim to Wanda's mental manipulation. Thor experiences a dark vision of his home, Asgard, where his all-seeing friend Heimdall has been blinded, and claims:

"We are all dead!"

The vision seems to foreshadow the Fall of Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok. Thor initially sees the vision as a warning to prevent this fall, but while he is able to save Asgard's people, he cannot avert the predestined loss of the city.

7. The Snap

As Ultron is attempting to download his consciousness into the synthetic flesh/vibranium body that will eventually become The Vision, Wanda realises that she can now read Ultron's mind, and is horrified to discover his plans to destroy not just the Avengers, but Earth itself. This leads to the Maximoff twins defecting to the side of the Avengers.

Specifically, Wanda sees a bright flash cross over the planet, and notably, Ultron was not just connected to the body, but an Infinity Stone, the Mind Stone, in the soon-to-be Vision's forehead.

The flash she sees is also quite similar to the one that occurs when Thanos snaps his fingers while wearing the fully loaded Infinity Gauntlet in Infinity War. For this reason, some fans theorise that rather than just Ultron's plan, Wanda may have seen a premonition of the Decimation.

8. The Infinity Stones

Wanting to revisit his earlier vision in the hope that he can gather more information from it, Thor briefly embarks on a sidequest with his old friend Erik Selvig. While revisiting the vision, Thor among other things, sees all six Infinity Stones.

While the stones were fully explained for the first time in Guardians of the Galaxy, Age of Ultron marks the first time all six are seen in an Avengers film. The scene also foreshadows future events, as the location of the Time and Soul stones were not known to audiences at this point.

9. The extent of Wanda Maximoff's powers

Following the death of her twin brother, Pietro, Wanda Maximoff vaporises a large group of Ultron-bots in an explosion of grief fuelled energy. She had not displayed this level of power before this point, and while her power does grow over the following films, doesn't again for some time, until an even larger outpouring of grief results in Wanda's creation of the Hex around Westview in WandaVision.

The Age of Ultron scene was an early indicator of what Wanda would evenually be capable of.

10. Order and Chaos = Vision and Wanda

As the other Avengers escape the fall of Sokovia, The Vision seeks out the last remaining Ultron-bot. Before he destroys it, they share a conversation on their differing views on humanity.

The content of their conversation foreshadows much of the romantic relationship that unfolds between Vision and Wanda. Both in the comics and the MCU, Vision is the Order that balances Wanda and her Chaos.

The relationship, like Vision and Ultron’s view on humanity, was doomed, though through no fault of their own. There’s a chance that this could change in the future.

With all its set-ups and foreshadowing, Avengers: Age of Ultron played a huge role in shaping the MCU content that followed, and for that, the film deserves to be appreciated.