A small detail on Captain America’s suit mysteriously shows up for one film only and then is never seen again despite its ability to give Steve a huge tactical advantage in his fights.
If you go back and watch Age of Ultron, you might notice that Cap’s suit has gotten a little upgrade, it’s nothing major but it does make his shield a lot more useful in fights. Eagle-eyed Redditors spotted the device on Steve’s fore-arm that looks like a couple of magnets. The device is actually some sort of vibranium magnet that allows him to call his shield back to him from almost anywhere.
We see Cap using the device multiple times throughout the movie and he incorporates it into the fights in some pretty creative ways. Like calling it back to him so Thor can hit it into a bunch of Ultron bots. It’s quite a good tool to add to his arsenal, and yet, after Age of Ultron, we never see it again. The Redditor pointed out that the device would have been useful in Civil War and Endgame.
Fans have some theories, although there’s not really a solid in-universe explanation for why Steve would just stop using it. Some believe it was too high-tech for Cap, so it was written out. This does fit with Steve’s character, but it’s odd that it was never addressed.
The comics offer an explanation, as Cap states that magnets interfere with the “delicate balance” of the shield. Maybe a deleted scene has Steve give a similar explanation, although the shield’s balance looked just fine in Age of Ultron, so it surely couldn’t be affecting it that much.
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by u/Freeagnt from discussion What happened to the shield magnet Cap had in AOU to summon his shield back? This would have come in handy during a lot of scenes in Civil War and Endgame.
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There were other theories that were just as plausible, if not more so.
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by u/keinish_the_gnome from discussion What happened to the shield magnet Cap had in AOU to summon his shield back? This would have come in handy during a lot of scenes in Civil War and Endgame.
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That would definitely be reason enough to want to get rid of the device.
It could also be because the heads at Marvel Studios thought that the device operated too much like Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, and thus decided to ditch it, especially considering Steve does end up wielding the hammer in Endgame.
Whatever the reason was for Captain America to stop using such a useful piece of tech, fans are in agreement that the new Captain, Sam Wilson, should definitely bring it out of retirement. After all, he doesn’t have the same level of physical strength that Steve Rogers had, so he’s going to need all the tactical advantages he can get.
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by u/Spaceman-Spiff from discussion What happened to the shield magnet Cap had in AOU to summon his shield back? This would have come in handy during a lot of scenes in Civil War and Endgame.
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We’re all probably just focusing too much on something the writers at Marvel never even really gave much thought to. The device was a cool concept and a nice detail for that movie, but it hasn’t really affected the overall trajectory of the MCU. Besides, the MCU forgets things all the time, like when Tony Stark blew up all of his Iron Man suits at the end of Iron Man 3, only to be back as Iron Man in Age of Utron.
