While the Avengers: Endgame re-release didn’t turn out to be as much of a must-see as it had seemed last summer, Marvel did eventually share a whole load of deleted footage from the event movie via the Infinity Saga boxset which came out in November. The only trouble is that its hefty price tag means there are a great many fans who haven’t been able to get a look at these fascinating unused scenes.
Step forward Reddit user u/Spiderjjr45, who’s shared a screenshot from one such sequence today which reveals the return of a long-running MCU “character” from the Iron Man trilogy. As you can see in the image below, this scene finds Mark Ruffalo’s Smart Hulk busy working in Tony Stark’s lab. One of the versions of the Iron Man armor can be seen over his right shoulder and over the other is DUM-E, Tony’s faithful robot that used to aid him in his workshop.
The Redditor points out that this sequence may explain why there was a LEGO set of Tony’s lab released prior to Endgame hitting theaters. Another user, meanwhile, commented that Disney deliberately created LEGO sets based around scenes that were irrelevant to the plot this time around, after the models for Avengers: Infinity War allowed fans to work out big story developments. In this case, the scene was so irrelevant that it ended up being removed from the final cut. But we can now get a look at DUM-E’s cameo via the gallery below.
Of course, the original DUM-E was destroyed in the Mandarin’s attack on Stark’s Malibu home in Iron Man 3. Spider-Man: Homecoming revealed that the assistant had been rebuilt, though, as it was seen helping Happy Hogan with the move out of Avengers Tower. Unfortunately, this new DUM-E must’ve died again when Thanos blew up the Avengers compound in Endgame‘s third act. Rest in pieces, robot.
The Infinity Saga boxset, featuring Avengers: Endgame alongside the previous 22 MCU films, is hard to get hold of, but you can find it online, usually for upwards of $1,500.