For a character so rarely seen in the heat of battle, Pepper Potts sure has a lot of blood on her hands. While the Iron Man co-star and current CEO of Stark Industries has usually left the fighting to her partner Tony, fans on Reddit have pointed out that Gwyneth Paltrow’s character has been the one to deliver the final killing blow to Stark’s enemies on more than one occasion.
The observation arose in a thread pointing out how Spider-Man and the Wasp are the only titular heroes of the MCU who are still yet to make their first kill (as far as we know). If that’s the case, then Peter and Hope have some catching up to do, because Pepper’s personal body count is on at least two so far.
The first of the pair comes at the climax of Iron Man, in which Pepper overloads the arc reactor of the Stark Industries building, causing an electrical surge that ends up killing the first main villain of the MCU, Obadiah Stane. Later on, in Iron Man 3, Pepper’s temporary Extremis powers allow her to cheat death herself before dispatching of Guy Pearce’s character, Aldrich Killian. That just leaves Iron Man 2 in the trilogy, but unfortunately, the 2010 film ends with Ivan Vanko causing his own suit to self-destruct, meaning that technically only he can take direct credit for his death.
By most counts, Stark himself has easily surpassed his fiancée’s number, but many are predicting that Iron Man will depart from this life in next year’s Avengers 4. If that does end up being the case, then it’ll be interesting to see if and how Marvel will continue Pepper’s story, with some fans speculating that she’ll be stepping to the fore as her superhero alter ego Rescue. Of course, that’s mere conjecture at this point, but all will be revealed when Avengers 4 comes out on May 3rd, 2019.
