Why was Iron Man killed off? Understanding the motive behind retiring Marvel's poster-child

Why was Iron Man killed off? A question that must've popped up every now and then for almost every Marvel fan. With the arrival of Avengers: Endgame, most of the original arcs of the MCU characters came to an end. From Loki to Gamora to Natasha Romanoff, all dying in the film, it was probably Iron Man's death that had tears rolling down fans' cheeks. For those looking for some clarity as to why Iron Man killed off, let us take a look at why the creators decided to take the route.

Iron Man started his MCU journey way back in 2008, where RDJ became the first ever actor to play the genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist Tony Stark. Since the character's introduction to the MCU, fans have loved the portrayal of Iron Man by Robert Downey Jr.

While it was made clear that both Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. were planning to end their Marvel contracts with Avengers: Endgame, it wasn't clear how the characters' stories would turn out.

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Avengers: Endgame writers Cristopher Markus & Stephen McFeely on why Iron Man was killed off?

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for Writing Avengers Endgame (Image via Wikipedia)

In an interview with Vanity Fair, when asked why it was important for the story to have a definitive end to Tony's death and Steve getting to live a full life with Peggy, Markus said,

Because it legitimizes the whole thing. If you just keep going until it peters out or you lose interest, it kind of decays backwards, making (people) think less of everything that came before. To have the opportunity to very deliberately tie all those threads together and have it add up to something and have it end, that's what stories are about. That's how you judge whether something was great or not. If at the end of The Great Gatsby, they got into a car and drove off and then we wondered what was going to happen next? We wouldn't have remembered that.

Stephen McFeely had to say something specific to the lines of the difference between the story arcs of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, here's what McFeely said,

We realized over the course of the movies that Cap and Tony were on crossing arcs. Cap, who started out as completely selfless and was jumping on grenades willy-nilly, was becoming more self-interested. Not to say selfish, but it you watch Civil War, particularly, he's making decisions based on what he wants, even if it breaks up the Avengers. And Tony started out as a brash billionaire playboy, and the stakes are growing for him. We realized at one point, late in 2015, that for Steve to be his best self, he was going to have to get a life, and for Tony to be his best self, he might have to lose his.

The writers' sentiments about the characters' story arcs and their respective endings sit well with the way both the characters originate in the MCU and the impact they had on fans and within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Co-director Joe Russo on why Iron Man was killed off and why Steve Rogers got to live his life?

Joe Russo at an event for Avengers: Endgame (Image via IMDb)

While many fans expected Captain America to have a heroic death in Avengers: Endgame, or any other story arc, it was Tony Stark who got the treatment. This move not only shows the writers' sentiments towards the characters and how both these heroes developed throughout their lives in the MCU, but it is also an ode to the co-leads of the MCU.

Sharing the same sentiments, this is what Joe Russo had to say about why Iron Man died the way he did,

Once you kill a beloved character like Tony, you've got to have hope at the end of the movie in some regard, and the only person to give you that hope is the co-lead. Had we killed both the leads, I feel like people would've been walking out into traffic after the film. The intention is not to destroy people, it's to hopefully tell a complex and dimensionalised story in a way, that makes them feel a varied range of emotion.

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While we do not know if Marvel fans would've walked out into traffic after seeing both Steve Rogers and Iron Man getting heroic deaths in Avengers: Endgame, seeing Tony Stark sacrifice himself for the sake of the universe was the perfect ending to the character's MCU journey.