
Originally Posted by
CentralPower
Option three is a possibility. Are there any interviews or notation from Hickman that address this?
That would have defeated the purpose of the "no-win" scenario. If the Avengers had simply died with uniform nobility, "Time Runs Out" would have been a pointless cliffhanger, the worst sort of Bronze Age comics that we all should have moved beyond. By showing major characters fail, operationally and morally, Hickman made it more significant that some characters held to principle.
All of them, aside from maybe the Hulk, share some blame.
Bringing in Starbrand would have been a bad idea because the kid had not discretion. (He would have made a FaceBook post to the effect of "saved the world from multiversal collapse today".) Hyperion was unable to stop the incursion that destroyed his world. He was able to slow the planets down, not change their direction.
No win.
Not quite. The Society was focused on stopping the incursions without killing a planet full of nice people, similar to DaCosta and his crew (Thor, Hyperion et al). As soon as Rogers got his memories back, he was focused on kicking Tony Stark in the nuts, rather than on stopping the incursions.
Steve Rogers failed because he ignored the main problem in favor of his grudge with Tony Stark.