In 2019, with Avengers: Endgame, directors Joe and Anthony Russo staged the death of Iron Man. After 11 years of good and loyal service, the character played by Robert Downey Jr. finds death in the enormous blockbuster of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). If Tony Stark dies during the story, Captain America is fine. Joe Russo recently explained this choice. Why Iron Man and not Captain America?
Avengers: Endgame – the end of an era
So we are in 2019. After the juggernaut Avengers: Infinity War, the russo brothers are tasked with concluding the infinity war arc. So they stage Avengers: Endgame, the immense conclusion of the first three phases of the MCU. The rest you know. Avengers: Endgame receives an incredible welcome. The feature film is nominated once for the Oscars and Above all, it brought in more than $2.7 billion in box office receipts. A record!
The feature film also marks the death of certain characters. In effect, Black Widow and Iron Man find death during the story. Captain America is also sidelined, but in a different way. Indeed, the latter decides to stay in the past, and to live a happy life alongside Peggy Carter.
Why Iron Man and not Captain America?
In a recent interview with Deadline, Joe Russo explained the reasons that led them to kill Iron Man rather than Captain America. According to him, the death of Tony Stark had much more impact than that of Steve Rogers:
If you think of Captain America, you’re like “okay, Captain America’s death is pretty obvious”, right? It’s, you know, something he would do depending on his personality. You know, he’s a guy who offered to be a guinea pig in a science experiment. He is inherently a hero. There’s not a lot of complexity about it. It could have had an emotional impact because you love him. You know he’s a very likable character, but it’s not necessarily the most compelling arc. Tony Stark is a character who had to die. If you look at Iron Man, in the first five minutes of that movie he should have died, but he didn’t. He was saved and he still has a huge ego. And that first movie is about subjugating his ego to be a hero. But that ego feeds him, and sometimes he competes with that idea of being a hero. It seemed to us to be more interesting to take a character who had an ego because in order to die for others, you have to overcome their rights. It felt like the most compelling arc to us. To make it a richer and more complex arc, and that’s why we chose it.
It is true that Captain America would never have hesitated to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He even did it in the past in Captain America: First Avengers. So Captain’s passing was indeed quite expected, and wouldn’t have come as a huge surprise to fans. Tony Stark is a more ambiguous character, more selfish, who loves his life, and who intended to stay alive. In any case, this is what he repeats at the beginning of the story. His death is therefore more surprising, and above all much more meaningful.
