Although the MCU is most known (and criticized) for its quippy dialogue and pronounced sense of humor, evidence suggests what Marvel fans actually love most of all is a good cry.
The tear-jerking trilogy-ending Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was the most successful MCU film of 2023 by some margin and nearly $3 billion was spent on Avengers: Endgame when Robert Downey Jr.‘s Iron Man broke all our hearts by sacrificing himself to stop Thanos. Not to mention everything Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker endures in 2021’s super-smash Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Clearly, one way to fix the wayward franchise is to give the fans more of what they apparently want: emotionally devastating death scenes for all your favorite characters. Well, if that is something Marvel Studios is looking for then the latest Avengers comic has just given Kevin Feige the cruelest way to write Holland’s webslinger out of the MCU, whenever the time comes.
Spider-Man’s newest death would be the darkest way possible for Tom Holland to leave the MCU
Avengers: Twilight is a new miniseries from writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Daniel Acuna which takes place in a dystopian reality where NYC’s superhero population has been decimated by an event called H-Day. The first issue features a flashback to this terrible day which reveals that the heroes’ secret identities were outed to the world, after which Ultron led a team of enhanced supervillains to target their loved ones.
The Avengers did their best to prevent the loss of lives, but in a world where they are practically strangers, they were not entirely successful. In the book’s most tragic moment, Captain America lands his quinjet in the rubble of a building blown by a bomb, whereupon he discovers a dying, impaled Spider-Man. With his last words, the wallcrawler tells Cap that he managed to save his Aunt May, making Steve promise to look after her for him. He then attempts to tell Cap his real name, but passes before getting the chance. “You’re Spider-Man, son,” says Rogers, in honor of his heroism.
While Twilight‘s story exists in another timeline, the scary thing is that a version of this death could easily occur in Spider-Man 4 or one of the upcoming Avengers films, due to where No Way Home left Peter. Don’t forget (pun not intended), nobody remembers who Spider-Man is anymore in the MCU. So Spidey selflessly losing his life in the line of duty and then trying to tell one of his fellow heroes his real name, only to die before finishing, seems all too plausible an ending. Especially as Holland is eager to move on with his career.
Of course, we’ve already sat through 616’s Peter dying once before in Avengers: Infinity War, so to make us do so again might be the evillest thing Marvel’s ever done — and that includes releasing Quantumania. Marvel fans may love a bit of darkness, but even so, Avengers: Twilight turning out to be an eerie prediction of the MCU’s future would probably become the entire fandom’s supervillain origins story.