Avengers: Endgame marked the end of an era in many ways, none more so than the death of Tony Stark at the movie’s emotional climax. His heroic self-sacrifice, wiping Thanos and his army from the face of the Earth at the cost of his own life, was the perfect way to culminate the journey the billionaire philanthropist began on all the way back in 2008’s Iron Man.
But what do the writers of the film that kicked off the MCU a decade ago think of how Stark’s story ended? IGN caught up with Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway and asked them for their opinions on the heartbreaking climax of Endgame. Marcum thought it had to happen, though admitted it wasn’t something they envisioned going down 10 years ago.
“It’s sad, but it had to be that way. What’s surreal about that is ten years ago, we had no idea any of that stuff was going to happen. When we were all coming up with the first movie with Jon Favreau and Kevin Feige, we were just hoping, ‘God, I hope this movie works.’ We weren’t thinking about ten years and however many dozens of sequels there’s been.”
Marcum then summed up his feelings about it by saying that he’s overjoyed that their movie has helped inspire such an enormous universe.
“Really, you look back at that and you’re happy that everybody has seen so many movies and have fallen in love with all these different characters that sprang from the MCU.”
Endgame scriptwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have previously explained that their intention with killing Tony was to reverse the expected fates of Iron Man and Captain America. While Stark began the franchise as narcissistic and Steve Rogers lived to be a soldier, Tony ended up being the hero while Cap retired to live with Peggy Carter.
While Avengers: Endgame was the end of Iron Man, fans still think Robert Downey Jr. might drop by for a cameo in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It remains to be seen if that’ll indeed happen, but we’ll find out when it swings into cinemas on July 2nd.