He may have been one of the few heroes left standing after the calamitous events of Infinity War, but a new fan theory suggests Iron Man will be among those to perish during Avengers 4.
This latest nugget of Marvel speculation comes to us by way of Screen Rant, who claim that it’s nigh time that Robert Downey Jr.’s Phase One Avenger hung up his suit for good.
There’s certainly precedent for Iron Man’s death, given the ways in which his character has adopted a mentor/surrogate father role for Spider-Man: Homecoming and beyond, not to mention the fact that he was stabbed through the torso by Marvel’s Mad Titan.
He’s been through worse, mind you, and the cutting-edge tech at Stark Industries will surely allow Iron Man to make a full recovery. Nevertheless, given that foreboding prediction from Doctor Strange (“we’re in the endgame now”), SR believes Tony Stark will be forced to pay the ultimate price so that the Marvel Cinematic Universe can continue.
Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but the point stands: if and when Iron Man confronts Thanos during Avengers 4, we now have reason to believe that he’ll have no choice but to lay his life on the line so that he can save/resurrect his fallen allies. At least, that’s the latest theory that Screen Rant is pedaling:
“Our theory, which we believe is supported by both Tony’s character arc thus far, and the clues offered by Doctor Strange, is that only Tony can undo the actions of, and eventually defeat Thanos. That’s what Strange saw when looking into the future, and why he suddenly stopped when finally seeing the one way for the heroes to win: Tony Stark can defeat Thanos, but it will cost him his life to do it.”
“By the end of Infinity War, the filmmakers give a strong case that Tony would give his life for Peter’s, if not based on logic or strategy, then as a fatherly sacrifice for the closest thing he has ever had to a son. How poetic it would be, then, that Thanos would sacrifice the child he loves to do the impossible, only to be beaten by the man who would sacrifice himself for the friends, the family, the future, and the child he loves.”
Continuing on, the outlet writes:
“And so we return to that Avengers scene in which Steve Rogers realized that Tony Stark would never make “the sacrifice play” and lie down on the wire so his friends could crawl over him. Tony fired back by claiming he would instead “cut the wire.” If he were able to travel back in time for Avengers 4, and engineer the future to allow his own death to save half the universe, Tony will manage to do both.”
This is nothing more than innocent conjecture, of course, as the Russo Brothers will likely keep the Avengers 4 story on lockdown right up until the moment it’s ready to begin screening on May 3rd, 2019. Still, it certainly presents food for thought…
