During the MCU, a thought was going through my mind as I watched these films. Death isn’t really a problem. It can’t be if they want all of these players to show up in Infinity War . In comics the idea of death really has no value since each new iteration of super heroes can be from different Earths, different dimensions, what if scenarios and so on.
In comics death is more of a pitstop than a final destination. This is just a general statement and is not really indicative of the entire medium.
They did try to change that with the MCU towards Infinity War. Even with the Infinity Stones, it is stated that if someone has truly died, then they can’t come back. In a deleted scene during End Game, Hulk has a conversation with the Ancient One about the consequences of removing the time stones from other timelines. In that scene there was some extra dialogue where she explained that if someone dies in one timeline, they were meant to die in all timelines.
Since Thanos willed half the universe out of existence, they could be willed back, but those who died were always meant to die. That has created an interesting set of questions, and while it is a deleted scene, I think we can talk about what that means if Death is Permanent in the MCU.
We can also look at what an afterlife might look like. We can look at other comic book adaptations of the afterlife and talk about what happens to Tony Stark after his death.
Death In The MCU is Permanent
Death like everything is inevitable however in our escapist fantasy stories death is more or less an inconvenience rather than inevitable during the run of the marvel cinematic universe i couldn’t help but think that death wasn’t really gonna be a consequence for the main characters they all had to be a part of infinity war right so they’ll be fine until then however in 2019 there was a deleted scene from avengers end game where the ancient one explains to the hulk that death true death is permanent and that if someone dies they are meant to die in all realities this gave us pause and got us to thinking what could it mean for the mcu if death is permanent well we’ve got a whole bunch of thoughts on that and we would like to share them with you today avengers end game was a game changer in many ways it was the end to a decade-long project that spanned multiple different storylines and all of it culminated into the highest grossing film of all time the two-part finale itself was a web of intersecting storylines with twists and turns and all the other kinds of exciting aspects you’d expect in a hollywood blockbuster it also introduced a new spin on mainstream time travel rather than riffing on an established time travel trope like back to the future or bill and ted’s excellent adventure end game offers up a different theory as hulk explains changing the past doesn’t change the future while this idea of a more rigid timeline has been explored before it’s never been brought to this large of a stage to put it in hulk’s words if you travel to the past that past becomes your future which can’t now be changed by your new future what ulk is getting at here is a modified multiverse theory if you travel back in time that time you’re now in becomes your future since you are now living in that time additionally the present you left becomes your past since you were in the present but are not presently in the past so by that logic the things you do in the past can’t affect your now past present yeah i know it’s a little hard to grasp but bear with me because we are going to discuss a few other concepts now what does this all have to do with death’s permanence in the mcu well for that we have to look at a now deleted scene from end game during the time travel heist to new york hulk runs into the ancient one five years before doctor strange becomes the keeper of the time stone the two have themselves a chat and she explains the flow of time and how if the stones are taken out of different timelines they’ll cause the death of those timelines unless they are put back the deleted segment comes when the ancient one tells hulk that death is irreversible if somebody dies they’re always meant to die what this implies is that those who have truly died either in battle or by being sacrificed to make the soul stone will have died in every reality and thus can’t be brought back even with the power of the infinity stones the rest of the scene plays out like normal with the ancient one explaining that the infinity stones bind the universe together and that by using them and then putting them back everything could return to normal well almost those who were lost gamora black widow and tony stark can’t be brought back arguably ever gamora and black widow were sacrificed in order to get the soul stone their death is necessary for the soul stone to be present similarly when tony stark uses the stones he can’t handle the immense power they generate and is obliterated while also willing out thanos and his presence in the universe [Music] now there are many reasons why scenes are deleted from films mostly it’s because of time but also because it doesn’t quite fit the portion of the scene from the rooftop seemed too small to be deleted it lasted less than 30 seconds after all i think the scene was cut because it contradicts other established events within the mcu it can be hard to keep track of all the comings and goings in a massive cinematic universe like this one but the main event that stands out to me is the ending of doctor strange the ancient one says that death is irreversible but if anyone seen doctor strange you know that death is very much reversible doctor strange traps doramamu in an endless loop where he kills strange only to rewind to moments before and is killed again with the time stone strange essentially made his own mini timeline where he and dormammu would fight and strange would die over and over again now tell me how does this scene exist if death is supposed to be irreversible another excellent example would be the death of vision during infinity war scarlet witch destroys vision in a desperate attempt to make sure thanos doesn’t get the mind stone it appears to work but just like with doctor strange thanos uses the time stone to rewind the clock to just moments before the mine stone was destroyed and take it from the still alive vision killing him all over again again we visit the continuing flow of time the infinity stones bind the universe and keep the flow of time more or less straight skewing only when something like an infinity stone is removed we can deduce that doctor strange visited dormammu in his dimension a dimension that could exist outside of the established time stream if doctor strange were to die but then reset after he could be kind of gaming the system so to speak if he dies in dormammu’s realm and that realm has a different set of rules than his own strange could just be looping and repeating an otherwise irreversible event like his death until his murderer dormammu stopped that was part of their bargain after all if we go with this model then the ancient one’s statement on death’s permanence can still be true after all had strange been killed by dormammu permanently there would be no way to bring him back i think we have to look at the ancient one’s words with a less literal lens i think what she means is that if someone dies in their timeline it can’t be reversed since they would always have died in their other timelines or universes in both the thanos and doctor strange example time was merely pulled back to before the time of death had time continued to flow vision and strange would remain dead and nothing could be done to bring them back we have to remember that the time stone is not like a time machine it only affects the flow of time that may sound semantic to some of you and to a degree it is to put it simply the time stone merely rewinds time to a point and then continues forward on its intended path if we were to use this interpretation it does imply a predetermined path without any deviations why was thanos defeated well because he was always meant to be defeated why did dormammu take strange’s bargain because he was always meant to take it this also brings up a few other points about the flow of time and the permanence of death if death really is irreversible as it kind of should be if we’re being honest what does that say about an afterlife in a world filled with space magic and literally reality warping enigmas surely in heaven or some kind of afterlife is real right well let’s talk about it without cracking open the theology textbooks can we envision an afterlife for the mcu well technically we can since it is a fictional world and really anything is possible wishful thinking aside where did everybody go when they got snapped they were willed out of existence which means they weren’t killed off being made into dust and floating off in the wind isn’t exactly the same as dying although the existential dread sure is there though the best we can theorize is the people thanos snapped were put in some kind of soul world outside of space and time not dead but just kind of pushed out of the universe like they were clipped out of bounds we lost a lot of characters along the way before enduring end game but we will focus on the characters we lost during infinity war for vision we might be seeing something of an afterlife for the sentient supercomputer recently disney released a trailer for one division the first in a new line of marvel studio tv shows while wanda may have been brought back after thanos snap was undone vision was not and remains dead after end game how will they handle vision’s character in wanda’s recovery from the trailer it looks like it’ll be a real trip indeed vision’s a powerful synthetic being and wanda’s powers can bend reality to an extent one division might be a good look into how the mcu portrays an afterlife if one can exist for an ai gamora and black widow are more cut and dry cases they needed to die in order to make the soul stones though make isn’t really the correct term since the infinity stones existed when the universe was created still the soul stone requires a living sacrifice in order to be brought forth as red skull explains it has a kind of wisdom to it black widow is sacrificed in much the same way but a second stone is not made because of it it might be cool to think you can make more than one infinity stone but there can only be one finally that leaves tony stark he was destroyed by using the stones to get thanos out of existence he does dusted thanos and his forces just like he did with half the universe this means that if someone were bold enough and crazy enough to try and gather the stones again thanos could come back too this isn’t dragon ball z where everyone’s fighting over the infinity stones plus they are way harder to get than dragon balls while tony might think himself larger than life he is still just a human it is safe to say that we will not see tony stark in the mcu again mostly because robert downey jr left marvel after end game but because they couldn’t use the stones after tony’s snap the remaining avengers had to put the stones back in the timelines they came from to close everything up and return things back to normal relatively speaking contractual obligations aside it is clear that there is more to the mcu than the films if shows like one division gets proper attention i think that despite the reality warping infinity stones space magic and whatnot death is still the end of a long journey as the kids say life is short but also terribly and insufferably long who’s with me and that is our discussion on death in the mcu and just how permanent it can be do you agree with our assessment we’d love to hear your thoughts and theories as well be sure to give this video a like and content