This is probably the biggest cultural question since Who Shot Mr. Burns?
Marvel movies do a lot of things fantastically, but the thing they don’t do well is kill off their characters.
Sure, a lot of villains have been murderized in the 10 years and 18 movies to date, but in terms of actual good guys biting the dust, not so much.
Here comes your SPOILERS warning, but they’ve either been killed and come back in the next movie (Loki, Bucky Barnes), been killed and come back in a TV show (Agent Coulson) or been killed and come back in the same movie (Nick Fury, Loki again).
As far as we can tell, the only two to have been permanently written out of the MCU to date have been Quicksilver in Age Of Ultron, and Yondu in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2.
However, with Infinity War on the horizon (in Irish cinemas from Thursday 26 April), we have been promised deaths aplenty, especially since the Avengers roster continues to fill up with more and more new additions.
Check out our chats with the movie’s directors The Russo Brothers right here, and from there on, we’re getting into the nitty gritty of who is most likely to kick the bucket in the new Avengers movies:
So here we go, from Least Likely To Die in Avengers: Infinity War, and ending with the Most Likely.
Starting with:
THANOS
Considering that we know that the Infinity War is actually the first half of a two-parter, it would follow reason that Thanos is still going to be around for the second one, so that the Avengers still have… y’know… the Infinity War to fight. So he’s definitely still going to be present for the currently untitled second half of this war movie, due to arrive in May 2019.
ANT-MAN / THE WASP
Ant-Man & The Wasp is released in cinemas in July 2018, three months after Infinity War, so… yeah, they’re fine.
BLACK PANTHER
Considering the epic box office clout this movie has had this year – it’s currently on $1.3 billion worldwide and counting – there is no way they’re killing off their latest money-maker. In fact, we imagine T’Challa will be placed front and centre as the new Avengers leader in the aftermath of the Infinity War.
CAPTAIN MARVEL
We haven’t been properly introduced to Brie Larson’s new addition, but we have it on good authority that Infinity War will fix that. Her standalone movie (MCU’s first female-headed film) is due for release in March 2019, so again, it would be very weird to kill her off before then. Having said that, the Captain Marvel movie is apparently set in the ’90s – the directors have said their biggest influence on the movie is Terminator 2! – so who knows?
SPIDER-MAN
He stole the show in Civil War. His standalone movie Homecoming was fantastic. And the sequel is due in July 2019. That being said, if they were to kill him off, it probably would be the most shocking death of the lot.
DOCTOR STRANGE
Marvel have been very quiet about what is happening after Infinity War. Ant-Man 2, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man 2, Guardians 3… and that is it so far. However, we’ve only had one Doctor Strange movie so far, and having set up the mystical side to the Marvel universe, it would be weird to drop it so suddenly.
BLACK WIDOW
This is where things get… murky. Reportedly, Marvel have hired a screenwriter for the Black Widow standalone movie, but there’s no guarantee that it isn’t some sort of prequel. The upcoming Captain Marvel movie features both Ronan The Accuser (Lee Pace) and Korath (Djimon Hounsou), both of whom were killed off in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, so it is possible Black Widow could be killed. Possible, but unlikely.
WAR MACHINE
Two-thirds of the way through Civil War, we thought we’d witnessed our first proper Avengers death when Iron Man’s best mate hit the ground at terminal velocity. Turns out he was only really badly injured, so to kill him off in the very next movie would just be mean.
ALL OF THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (except for one person)
As we already mentioned, there is a third GOTG movie on the way, due sometime in 2020. But just like the Avengers themselves, they’ve been stacking up on members, with Mantis joining the crew, and GOTG2 hinting at the arrival of Adam Warlock (who is a big deal in the Marvel-verse). So we imagine the majority of these folk will be just fine for the foreseeable future, with the exception of one character, which we’ll get to later…
HULK
On the one hand, killing off Banner right as he is reunited with Black Widow would be the biggest emotional gut-punch imaginable. On the other hand, after the success of his chemistry with Thor in last year’s Ragnarok, as well as the issue that we’re not 100% sure that the Hulk can actually be killed, we’re putting him right in the middle. There is a chance that Mark Ruffalo could leave and Hulk can be constantly CGI going forward, though.
HAWKEYE
We were all a million percent certain that Hawkeye was going to fire his last arrow in Age Of Ultron, but he’s stuck around to save the day a few more times, despite being in semi-retirement since then. The directors have said that they have “a bit of a long game” for him (check out their full comments in our interview above), but since when can we trust that? Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch definitely wasn’t going to be Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness? Or Christoph Waltz definitely wasn’t going to be Blofeld in Spectre? Trust nobody.
NICK FURY
Back in the day, Sam Jackson said he had a nine-movie contract with Marvel. Infinity War would be his seventh. However, he’s also appearing in Captain Marvel (which is set 20 years ago), which would leave him with just one movie left. 50/50 odds if he doesn’t die in Infinity War, he’ll die in the sequel.
BUCKY BARNES
In the comic books, when Steve Rogers hangs up his shield, Bucky Barnes takes up the Captain America mantle. However, while The Winter Soldier and Civil War have been pretty great, whenever Bucky Barnes plays a “nice guy”, it doesn’t seem to quite work. Again, killing him off just when Captain gets his BFF back for good would be a pretty good way to shock the audience.
THOR
A year ago, we would have had Thor right near the top of this list. Hemsworth’s contract was coming to an end, and the first two Thor movies aren’t exactly anyone’s favourite in the MCU. But then Ragnarok came along, made over $850 million worldwide, and Thor is suddenly very popular again. Plus, they just gave him an eyepatch. That being said, they’ve probably had it planned to kill him off in Infinity War regardless, so even his recent successes and new aesthetics might not be enough to save him.
SCARLET WITCH
It has never really felt like Marvel knew what to do with spider-fingers Scarlet Witch, and there is nobody clambering for a standalone Elizabeth Olsen superhero movie. The only thing saving her from absolute impending doom is the fact that her would-be boyfriend is even more likely to die.
FALCON
Captain America’s other BFF has had a good run of it, but in terms of collateral damage, he does just seem like the most likely to get swatted out of the sky.
IRON MAN
RDJ’s contract has actually expired since Iron Man 3, but he’s still popping up here and there, most likely to give Tony Stark a proper send off. We’ve got a gut feeling that he’s going to survive this one, only to die in a moment of self-sacrifice in the Infinity War sequel to mirror the ending to the very first Avengers movie. Or maybe he’ll be fine and get to spend his days happily ever after with Gwyneth Paltrow? Nah.
NEBULA
Yep, the one part of the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies that is highly unsafe going into this war. We know that both Gamora and Nebula are daughters of Thanos, so there is definitely some kind of epic Shakespearean angle to be played out there. Considering Nebula’s recent semi, kinda, but not really, but maybe really turn from evil (also known as “Doing A Loki”), her turning on her even-more-evil Dad and dying in the process is about as Shakespearean as it gets.
CAPTAIN AMERICA
The clean-shaven, square-jawed, all-American hero has a beard now, so you know he’s troubled. Chris Evans has been talking for a while about being kind of done with the idea of playing Captain America, and his contract has also run dry. He very nearly lost a fistfight with Tony Stark in Civil War, even with the help of one of his bestos, so him properly going toe-to-toe with Thanos does not bode well. Consider his almost certain death to be the “All hope is lost” point that the first Infinity War movie will semi-cliffhanger end on.
LOKI
Thanos already HATES Loki, having disappointed him several times over, all the way back to that first Avengers movie. If we were a betting person, Loki will be the very first to go.
VISION
Scarlet Witch’s wannabe lover has an Infinity Stone in his head, and is the only reason he’s alive. Thanos has arrived to collect all of the Infinity Stones to become the ultimate power in the universe. Sorry Vision, but there is no way you’re getting out of this alive.
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