Avengers: Endgame-Tony stark dies in avengers end game

An exhaustive breakdown of the terrible toll Thanos just took on the Avengers.

his post contains frank discussion of the most crucial plot points in Avengers: Endgame. If you’re looking for a spoiler-free, risk-free review, you can find it here. But if you’re about to wander into the article below, it means that you have either already seen the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or that you really, truly don’t mind knowing what’s to come. We’re going to give you one last chance to bail out—but after this GIF, the gauntlets are coming off.

It should come as no surprise that most of the carnage done by Thanos in Infinity War was undone by the time the credits rolled in Endgame. After all, there are sequel films to be made, T’Challa! But it should also come as no surprise that this truly was a final farewell for a handful of characters who have been with us from the very start. In Vanity Fair’s 2017 cover story reporting from the Endgame set, there was a feeling of finality in the air: “I feel a lot of joy for the next generation,” Scarlett Johansson told me at the time. “It’s a bittersweet feeling, but a positive one.” Deaths are not always permanent in the tricksy world of comic books—we’ll get to you, Gamora—but may stick more when they involve actors who have fulfilled their film contracts. So, who, other than Thanos, is actually gone for good in the franchise, and who will live on? Let’s break it down.

TONY STARK

The radiation from an improvised infinity gauntlet toasted Tony in the end, but he got to save the world before he left. This one felt pretty definite, yeah? The guy who started it all has hung up his suit for good. A good deal of planning went into making sure Robert Downey Jr.’s final goodbye was a big one: “It took them three months in planning this scene to have everyone there,” Sebastian Stan told The Independent last April of the massive funeral that closes out Endgame. “You look around, and you just saw everyone from Samuel L. Jackson to Michael Douglasto Michelle Pfeiffer. Everybody was there.” On the set of Endgame, Downey was in the mood to wax poetic about “the inevitable end to it all.” So yes, that’s it for Iron Man. But what a way to go.

BLACK WIDOW

Clint Barton had to lose someone he loved, Natasha, in order to get the Soul Stone. The old friends fought over who would take the fall, and Natasha won—sitting out the final battle entirely. The movie seems very adamant about the idea that while everything else can be undone, Soul Stone sacrifices are permanent. (I said we’ll getto you, Gamora!)

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You’re confused; didn’t you hear that Black Widow has a spin-off movie in the mix? She sure does. But it’s a prequel, one set even before the events of The Avengers. So while Johansson herself isn’t necessarily saying goodbye to those healthy Marvel paychecks, we wouldn’t recommend, say, Bruce Banner hold out hope of seeing her again. “Personally, it feels like a loss,” Johansson said of leaving the Avengers team. “There’s a gain that comes with that for each one of us. It’s very surreal for me to watch these new cast members come in and get their feet wet and breathe new life into these characters who are so iconic. I feel good about the work we’ve done and the work I’ve done.”

STEVE ROGERS

Well, no. He’s not dead. But boy, is he retired. Cap hung up his shield and traveled back in time to live out the rest of his days with his best girl, Peggy Carter. Chris Evans has been the most vocal Avengers actor about wanting to leave the franchise; he wrote this lovely goodbye in October of last year:

So, is it possible we might see some kind of prequel adventure in which Cap and Peggy zip around, fighting Soviets or something similar in the past? I mean, maybe.But that seems deeply unlikely.

GAMORA

She’s alive! Kind of! O.K., so: if Soul Stone deaths are permanent, how is Gamora going to be a part of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? Well, given Endgame’s fast and loose rules around time travel, evil (ish) versions of Gamora, Nebula, Thanos, and a whole teeming host of bad guys from 2014 were able to pop forward in time and appear in 2023 to fight the Avengers. Evil Nebula got shot and killed, Thanos and his cohorts were dusted by Tony, but 2014 Gamora—now a lot less evil—survived. We see Peter Quill searching for her at the end of the film. I would imagine the plot of the next Guardians film will cover that quest; interestingly enough, she’ll have no memory of the time she spent with the Guardians. In other words, Quill will have to woo her all over again.

LOKI

Lives! I thought for sure everyone’s favorite trickster god was toast at the end of Infinity War. That seemed like a death that might finally stick. But then we saw him hop out of the past, thanks to a bungled handoff of the Tesseract back in the Battle of New York sequence. And as all Tom Hiddleston fans know, Loki is getting a Disney+ streaming TV show of his very own. So it seems like Loki lives, for now.

VISION

We saw not a glimpse of Scarlet Witch’s boyfriend, Vision, in this movie. There was also no mention of re-assembling him, even now that the Mind Stone—which powered his great intellect—has been flung back into time. But we know that Paul Bettany also has a Disney+ show with Elizabeth Olsen called WandaVision—so what’s happening there? Well, Olsen recently confirmed that the series takes place in the 1950s. So honestly, your guess is as good as mine.

HEIMDALL

The Idris Elba character who was brutally murdered by Thanos in Infinity War is still dead, along with most of the original Asgardians—as part of a way to give Chris Hemsworth’s Thor a clean slate for future films that are less self-serious Shakespeare and more Ragnarok-esque silliness. It looks like Thor’s future, by the way, may lie either with the Guardians of the Galaxy, or with some other team-up mixture. “I want as much help as I can get—especially if it’s a Thor movie,” Hemsworth told me on the Endgame set. “I’m like, ‘Give me Hulk, give me Spider-Man’—give me someone to help me take the weight of responsibility off my shoulders.”

EVERYONE ELSE

Is alive! Pretty amazing for no other hero to get so much as a major bruise from that huge Thanos battle. But the fun, new Asgardians—Valkyrie, Korg, and Miek—are fine. So are the Guardians—Quill, Drax, Mantis, Rocket, Groot, Nebula, and Thor! Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange all have sequels in the works. And after earning over $1 billion worldwide at the box office, a Captain Marvel sequel seems like one of the safest bets in Hollywood. We’d also be surprised if that’s the last we saw of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Bucky, Falcon, Wanda, and Hawkeye are all zooming off to their own Disney+ adventures. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk has at least one more film in his contract. Tony Stark’s crew—Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy—are fine. Nick Fury and Maria Hill are all in one piece. The future of the franchise is feeling healthier than ever.

WANDA MAXIMOFF’S THICK SOKOVIAN ACCENT

Still dead in a ditch somewhere, after dying without fanfare or mention somewhere between Civil War and Infinity War. We may never see its likeness again.

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