Kevin Feige Says No Resurrections for Tony Stark
Kevin Feige is echoing one of arch-villain Thanos’ promises. In a recent Vanity Fair article about Robert Downey Jr. (in which Downey is not interviewed because it was written during the actors’ strike), Feige talked about going to bat for Downey when it came time to cast Tony Stark in Iron Man, and he put to rest rumors that Stark’s sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame will be undone. In reference to Stark’s death, Feige said:
“We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again… We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
That’s a bit more committal than his comments on the red carpet for The Marvels, where he danced around the prospect of bringing back some of the dead Avengers. I wonder if he’s wording it carefully to leave open the possibility of a multiverse variant of Tony Stark showing up down the line or even some kind of time-travel mechanic that brought a past version of Tony into the present (since the time-travel rules established in Endgame are out the window now thanks to Loki). Technically, I suppose that wouldn’t “undo” Stark’s snap. They’ve done it with Loki and not batted an eye, and Vision is kinda-sorta back, too. The other possibility is that he’s saying this because he already spoke to Robert Downey Jr., and Downey doesn’t want to come back. I would find that easier to believe than any fidelity the studio that made Phase 4 and Phase 5 has to the ongoing story or character arcs. I can see them getting desperate if more failures follow The Marvels, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and some of the other duds Marvel has produced, and Feige suddenly announcing that the perfect way to bring Tony back just came to him as he was eating breakfast. But until we know for sure – meaning until the movies are out – this is the most definitive word on the topic.
