[Valiant]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

But with Gamora being brought back from a different timeline and inserted into this one, haven't the Avengers effectively defeated mortality? I mean, why can't they go back a bit to a timeline where Stark is still alive, take him out of it and drop him into this one?

I guess I can only come up with a single answer to that one and it's that removing someone FROM a timeline means that timeline would then exist without that person. So for Gamora, that's no big deal because she's not needed in that timeline anymore (and now I guess that timeline has a completely different outcome? One where she's not there to form up the Guardians of the Galaxy at all?).

But for Tony, the only way he'd be relevant in the 'new' timeline is if you took a Tony out that had already gone through the events of the Infinity War and had his kid. So you'd essentially need to scoop one up from right before the major battle and since Strange says there's only 1 outcome where they win, removing him from THAT timeline would serve to wreck it. So what's the point apart from being strictly selfish?

Best answer I can come up with, at least as it relates to Tony - he would effectively have to stay dead either way.

So to make the timeline thing work, you have to kinda understand what The Ancient One was getting at - anything you do for YOUR timeline still creates an alternate timeline where that thing has an impact. If you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul, I guess you leave well enough alone?

Kang the conqueror solves this dilemma.