Iron Man made the ultimate sacrifice at the close of Avengers: Endgame. Despite knowing that he wouldn’t survive using the Infinity Gauntlet, he snapped his fingers anyways, wiping Thanos and his goons from existence. When the Infinity Stones are involved, though, death doesn’t seem so final and fans have since wondered why the Gauntlet couldn’t perhaps be used again to bring Tony Stark back.
Endgame scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely spoke to The Hollywood Reporter recently to answer any lingering questions about the movie and they tackled this one head on. In this case, the writers clarified that Iron Man can’t be resurrected as the Gauntlet can only be used to bring back those artificially killed by it (see: the half of the universe reduced to dust by Thanos).
“The Gauntlet, as of yet, has not brought back anybody to life that wasn’t removed by the Gauntlet. Tony was physically killed.”
Sound fair enough, right? After all, Hulk tried to revive Black Widow in a similar way when he used the Infinity Stones, but to no avail. The only wrinkle in this explanation, however, is that Thanos is able to reverse time and bring Vision back in Avengers: Infinity War, after he was killed by Scarlet Witch. The writers argue that this method wouldn’t work in this situation though, which makes sense, as reversing time to before Tony’s death would just undo his good work and resurrect Thanos, too.
The filmmakers have also pressed several times now that any characters dead by the end of Avengers: Endgame will likely remain that way. Some of them received a new lease of life thanks to alternate realities – see: Loki and Gamora – but that’s not the case for Tony and Natasha. Instead, Iron Man’s loss will likely be further explored in Spider-Man: Far From Home this July, while 2020’s Black Widow prequel will finally dive into Agent Romanoff’s origins.
