A few decades ago, the world of superheroes contained an unwritten rule that the biggest heroes don’t die, but in the MCU the old rules don’t apply. This was something that was made devastatingly apparent whenAvengers: Endgamesaw the deaths of Black Widow andIron Man, and the retiring of Captain America - at least in the form of Chris Evans. However, while on the promotional trail for upcoming Disney+ seriesLoki, Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige appeared to confirm that Iron Man, and others, could be brought back to the MCU at any time.
While many superhero franchises still stand by the old belief that, as my granddad often observed, the heroes don’t die because they are in the next movie,Marvelbucked that trend massively inAvengers: Infinity War, where they dispatched a number of their best known characters, includingThor’s Loki, early on. By the end of the movie, half of the characters that fans had come to root for were reduced to dust, and for one of the first times in cinema history, the bad guy actually won.
Of course,Endgamerectified much of the damage, but caused its own share of heartbreak with thedeath of Iron Manin a moment that reduced grown men to blubbering messes. While it seemed that this was indeed a death that there was no coming back from, Feige’s most recent comments have confirmed what fans have theorized about for the last two years; Iron Man, and others, could be brought back anytime Marvel wants without any trouble.
In advance ofLokipremiering onDisney+in June, Entertainment Weekly caught up with star Tom Hiddleston and Kevin Feige, and it was the latter who was quizzed on where they were planning on taking the God of Mischief’s character in the future. Considering Loki was original “killed” inThor: The Dark World, only to return inThor: Ragnarok, which in turn would lead to his heroic death inInfinity War, expecting him to be getting his own TV series at that point would have been nothing more than wishful thinking - something even Hiddleston himself believed.
“It felt very, very final, and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s it. This isLoki’s final bowand a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'” he said.
But, you may’t keep a bad god down, and even though his appearance, and subsequent disappearance by way of the ever-bothersome Tesseract, inEndgamewas only meant to be a plot device for the purpose of the movie, when the discussions of TV spin-offs came up, Feige was quick to pick up on loose end the film had left hanging in terms of where exactly that version of Loki ended up. “I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the timeEndgamecame out, we did know where it was going,” Feige said. “Part of thefun of the multiverseand playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular.”
With numerous rumours that both Downey Jr and Evans, as well as Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow, are not entirely done with the future of the MCU, and the now obvious “multiverse” factor to consider, there are more ways than ever for Iron Man, and more, to be brought back into the fold whenever Feige and Co feel like it.BGRbrought us this news first.
