Kevin Feige On Avengers: Infinity War’s Death Count: “Be Careful What You Wish For”

With the exception of Uncle Ben and Bruce Wayne’s parents, no one really dies in comic books, right?

That phrase gets tossed around quite a lot when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, too, as the only real person of interest to bite the bullet – so far, at least – is Agent Phil Coulson. And even he was resurrected for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So it’s fair to say that Marvel tends to shy away from permanent deaths when dealing with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and their many allies – Tony Stark fell back to Earth and was rudely awoken by a rampaging Hulk in The Avengers, while in Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill survived an unscheduled spacewalk in order to save Gamora. The list goes on, really. But thanks to Avengers: Infinity War, that’s all about to change.

In fact, as Kevin Feige tells EW, there will be no shortage of permanent (and indeed meaningful) deaths in Avengers: Infinity War, as the MCU begins to make preparations for an entirely new era of comic book movies. Just don’t expect every Phase One Avenger to be killed off; instead, some will be written out of the franchise organically:

People always will jump to that. That’s not necessarily what we’re talking about. I talk a lot, because I’m a big-ass nerd, about Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things.” That to me is one of the best series finales ever. That wasn’t about death. Picard went and played poker with the crew, something he should have done a long time ago, right?

But for those unfortunate souls with their heads on the chopping block, there’s no coming back, it seems.

Yes. I mean, I could always list off the characters that we’ve killed in our movies that haven’t come back, but the big ones, which I know they’re looking at …? [Pause.] I would just say, yes. People need to be careful what they wish for.

On April 27th, Avengers: Infinity War will flip the MCU on its head, and we couldn’t be more excited.