Of the eleven years and 22 movies of the Infinity Saga, one of the most dramatic moments was the climactic scene of Avengers: Endgame and Tony Stark’s sacrifice, which was recently revealed to have several more gruesome options considered for what the unbridled power of the Infinity Stones would do to Stark’s frail un-augmented human form. And just in case you wanted to visualize those possibilities, some fan art has helpfully created them.
The possibilities mentioned included one where the power of the stones flows up through Stark as seen in the movie, but upon reaching his face causes one of his eyes to pop out of its socket and hang down his cheek by its optical nerve like he’s a cartoon wolf who just saw a beautiful woman.
The other one, the “Two-Face” version, saw half of his face melt into unrecognizability to the extent that it becomes just sinews and teeth, like Batman’s enemy crossed with the Colossus from Attack On Titan.
The images were a creation of BossLogic, an Australian artist whose Instagram features many re-imaginings of comic book characters, including a variant cover for Captain Marvel #16 that sees her sinister black and red suit from the concluding “The Last Avenger” story arc, Christian Bale as Mephisto, a hybrid of John Wick and Cyberpunk 2077, and Groot tackling the Australian bush fires.
All in all, it’s probably a good thing that they went for a more subdued option for Stark’s mutilation in Avengers: Endgame, since, as was stated, anything too gory would have been a distraction from what needed to be a poignant moment. Besides, these were just the extreme end of a spectrum of possibilities never intended to be approached. However, as long as we have dedicated artists ready and willing to bring creatives’ most revolting imaginings to life, we’ll never be short of a way to experience them.
