We’re slowly approaching that April 26th date when Avengers: Endgame will hit theaters around the world and finally tell us exactly how our favorite heroes will beat Thanos. Because after all, that’s what we all expect to go down in the fourth installment of the Avengers saga. We’re in the home stretch now, in that one future out of 14,000,605 possible future scenarios that Doctor Strange saw where they win. How will it all happen? That’s another story, and something fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have tried to guess ever since they walked out of the theater when the final Infinity War credits scenes ended.
What is certain is that the Russo brothers, who directed both Infinity movies as well as Captain America: Civil War, will try to shock the audience. That means we should expect a happy end that’s most definitely will not be entirely happy for all the characters. Some of them will have to die or make other sacrifices to undo the snap. And a brand new theory offers us the kind of heartbreaking, bittersweet sacrifice we may soon witness.
Reddit user CaptainSpaceWolf13 thinks that Tony Stark, who will undoubtedly be one of the most notable heroes of Endgame, might die by the end of the film. Robert Downey Jr.’s contract with Marvel has reached its end, and that’s why we expect Iron Man to die or retire after the final film in Marvel’s Phase 3 of MCU films. Downey’s Stark/Iron Man has been the driving force of the Avengers movies for a decade, but he may now pass that burden to someone else.
However, having Stark disappear from the MCU by dying might be too sad for fans. So Marvel could come up with a clever trick for Stark to stick around after death. This Redditor’s theory says that before passing away, Stark could transfer his consciousness to a computer and become the artificial intelligence (AI) that will power Spider-Man’s suit, which also happens to be a Stark creation:
That way his character can continue to evolve, and he wouldn’t necessarily be a major part of the MCU going forward, but he would still always be there. Most recently in the comics, Tony has ‘died’ and uploaded his consciousness into an AI. This way he can still be a part of his world and can still help his friends, while technically being gone. If Tony were to die in the MCU, then this would be the best way for his character to go, and to make it even better he could become [Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s] new AI. This way Tony could still be a central father figure and mentor to Peter, all while taking a back seat to the future MCU while still being important. In the past movies, there has definitely been a deep connection between the two characters and this happening in the future just really makes sense to me. Just imagine Tony dying at the end of Avengers 4 and then in an end-credits scene we see Peter getting ready to go do Spider-Man stuff and then boom we hear Tony’s voice saying ‘hey kid,’ and the movie ends.
I have to say that the theory does sound smart and plausible, and could offer Downey/Iron Man a proper way out. Fans all over the world would miss him, but he’d still be present in future MCU films. Spider-Man: Far From Home will be the first Marvel film from Phase 4. So, whatever happens in Endgame, the credits scenes will likely include some sort of thread that connects the two movies.
What’s interesting is that we already have a reversed version of that theory. Paul Bettany voiced Iron-Man’s Jarvis AI for years before actually appearing in a film as Vision. And Bettany’s voice as Jarvis is pretty iconic. The actor voiced Jarvis in five films, including all three Iron-Man movies, The Avengers, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The latter is also the movie where he became Vision, getting actual scenes in other MCU blockbusters including Civil War and Infinity War. Vision, of course, is now dead, but we expect him to be resurrected in Endgame — though Bettany isn’t credited for the movie on IMDb for the time being.
