Highlights
- Captain America’s implied death allows him to live a happy life with Peggy Carter.
- Quicksilver’s heroic death impacts the Avengers and his sister Wanda deeply.
- Natasha Romanoff’s sacrifice for the Soul Stone defines her selflessness and heroism.
No matter how powerful they are, being a superhero always comes with risks, and sometimes fatal threats. The members of the most popular big-screen superhero team, The Avengers, know this well. The threats they battled grew exponentially more dangerous with every movie, and the team changed to better resist those new threats. Those changes were mostly due to someone leaving the team, but this wasn’t always the case.
While there aren’t too many deaths among the Avengers, each one is incredibly impactful and dramatic. Often, the character that meets their demise is an established team member who has appeared throughout multiple movies and is widely beloved by the audience, which makes seeing their character arcs conclude in such a tragic and dramatic way hit very hard for all the viewers.
5 Captain America
A Free Man’s Passing
- Appears in: Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame
Captain America’s death isn’t shown on screen, but it is heavily implied. His last appearance is in Avengers: Endgame, where he survives the final battle with Thanos and is tasked with returning the Infinity Stones to their assigned places in the timeline. However, he doesn’t return to the present after that job is done, and instead chooses to spend the rest of his life in the past with Peggy Carter, the woman he loves.
He appears in the present as an old man and talks to other characters about passing on the mantle of Captain America. While it wasn’t an on-screen death, this is Steve Rogers’s last appearance on the big screen, and it is implied he died of old age at some point shortly after that scene. Despite the sadness of losing one of the titular heroes of the franchise, his death isn’t tragic. Steve managed to accomplish dreams, which he thought were long out of reach, and lived the happy life he deserved. After fulfilling his duty before his country and his world, he was finally free to live for himself.
4 Quicksilver
Redemption In Death
- Appears in: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, WandaVision
Unlike other Avengers, Quicksilver was not a long-standing team member and only appeared in one movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron, although he was introduced in a mid-credits scene during Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Pietro Maximoff started out as an antagonist along with his sister, Wanda. The two of them went through loss and near-death experiences due to Tony Stark’s corporation selling weapons of war, and both wanted revenge, leading to them teaming up with Ultron. However, when they realize Ultron is intent on causing more destruction than Stark, the pair change sides.
Pietro only became an Avenger shortly before the battle in Sokovia, the same battle where he meets his demise. Pietro died heroically, defending both his former rival, Hawkeye, and a Sokovian boy not unlike himself. Despite not being acquainted for long, Quicksilver’s sacrifice profoundly affected The Avengers. His sister was even more affected, as he was the only person she had a strong connection with for most of their childhoods.
3 Black Widow
A Sacrifice For The Stone
- Appears in: Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow
Despite eventually getting her own movie, Natasha Romanoff rarely took center stage until after the Infinity Saga of the MCU. She first appeared all the way back in Iron Man 2, eventually joining the team of superheroes during The Avengers. A veteran spy and killer, Natasha was always a loner, and the movies explore her outgrowing her dark past and becoming a new, much more heroic person. Her newfound selflessness is what defines her eventual death.
When Natasha and Clint came to claim the Soul Stone for the new gauntlet, it was a choice between sacrificing one or the other, as the only way to get a soul would be to sacrifice a person one values. The two of them fight, as both Clint and Natasha are unwilling to sacrifice the other, but eventually, Natasha triumphs and is the one to perish. Her reasoning is that Clint needs to survive and return to his family, while Natasha has no relatives left. It is a tragic and depressing death, yet the Black Widow faced it with dignity.
2 Vision
An Obstacle In Thanos’s Way
- Appears in: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, WandaVision
Vision first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a robotic superhero and an antithesis to the movie’s main antagonist, Ultron. Vision proved to be a key factor in The Avengers’ victory over the rogue AI, as he’s the one to limit Ultron’s influence and prevent him from spreading to new mechanical hosts. He also corners Ultron at the end of the movie, and the two share a short philosophical discussion on the nature of mankind from the perspective of a machine. Ever since, Vision has tried to adapt to life among humans and gain his own humanity.
The fact that he was young and still learning in regards to the world around him makes Vision’s death all the more tragic. He is killed at the end of Infinity War because he houses one of the Infinity stones. The Mind Stone granted Vision his powers and sapience, but it was one of the stones that Thanos needed for his plan. Vision decides to sacrifice himself and tells Wanda to destroy the Stone and kill him in the process. She succeeds, but Thanos can reverse time with the Time Stone, and brutally kills Vision again, extracting the Mind Stone himself.
1 Iron Man
The Price Of The Savior
- Appears in: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, Loki
Unsurprisingly, the top spot is taken by the franchise’s most climactic and simultaneously tragic death. Tony Stark, the Iron Man, was the superhero with whom the MCU’s story began. He started out as a selfish corporate billionaire who didn’t care whether his company’s weapons would harm innocents; all that mattered to him was money. Throughout multiple movies, Stark transforms into a selfless and heroic individual, gradually changing his outlook on life.
This transformation culminates in his death at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Tony uses the Infinity Stones to annihilate Thanos’s army, but the energy he uses up is too much, eventually draining his life. He dies in Pepper and Peter’s arms, sharing his last moments with the people he loved the most. To make it even more tragic, Stark leaves his young daughter behind, sacrificing the opportunity to see her grow and develop, something few would be able to do.
