Avengers Endgame: Iron Man's pitch-perfect ending, explained

Spoiler alert: Let's talk about Tony Stark's character arc.

WARNING: If you couldn’t tell by the headline, this post contains huge, massive, potentially life ruining spoilers for Avengers Endgame. Don’t keep reading unless you want to know how Tony Stark’s character arc ties up.

In hindsight, there seems to have been no other way for Tony Stark’s story to end. With all 21 of the previous MCU films in mind, it feels like it was all leading up the final moment where Iron Man snapped his fingers and saved the universe, but in the process forfeited his own life. While Endgame wrapped up a few character arcs, Tony Stark and Iron Man’s was the only one that was pitch perfect.

There’s no doubt that Iron Man was the corner stone of the MCU and that, without the success of the first film, the subsequent franchise offerings wouldn’t have happened. Endgame honors that by giving Tony Stark the most fitting of send offs. Not only does Tony redeem himself for the Ultron tragedy, but he’s also secured his own legacy into something more positive than just being known for a high body count.

While some characters were short shrifted, Endgame had plenty of satisfying moments for Tony Stark and offered closure on some lingering storylines. Primarily, Tony found the family he always wanted with Pepper, reached a mutual level of trust and admiration with Steve Rogers, and, in a twist, made amends with his father, Howard Stark.

Avengers: Endgame

Endgame picks up right where Infinity War left off, and Tony doesn’t spend much time stranded in space.  As he returns to Earth, he and Steve have an emotional reunion outside Avengers HQ.  The reunion quickly turns into animosity again though, as Tony refuses to forgive Steve for bailing on the Avengers after Civil War.  Despondent, Tony abandons the team, reunites with Pepper and they have a daughter, Morgan.  There are some lovely scenes of Tony Stark as a father, enjoying domestic life that make his eventual decision to help the team try to defeat Thanos again all the more heart-wrenching.

One of the main motivators of his decision is that he still hasn’t gotten over the guilt of having Peter Park vanish in his arms. He knows he can’t be happy if there’s a chance to bring him back. So, he sucks up his pride, figures out of a solution and (finally) reaches an understanding with Steve.

Avengers, doing some more talking.

While Age of Ultron has been among the more poorly received Marvel films, it plays a large role in Endgame.  It would be tempting to think of Tony’s death as tragic, and it is in many ways, but for Tony,  it’s a better end than what he imagined in the vision Wanda induced in Ultron.  As he told Nick Fury at the time, the real tragedy wasn’t that he died, but that he had lived while his friends had all perished.  Thanos has, in affect, been inside Tony’s head since the events of the first Avengers movie, making this final standoff all the more compelling.

Tony’s sacrifice is also a call back to a key scene in the first Avengers film, that shows how much the character has changed and evolved. As he and Captain America bicker, Cap undercuts him by saying that Tony isn’t the kind of guy to lay down on the wire, to let the other guy crawl over him. Of course, he proves that’s not true by carrying a missile through a worm hole, but in Endgame the sacrifice is permanent.

His last words are also a reminder of a pivotal moment in the first Iron Man film, when instead of denying who he is to the public, he simply states, “I am Iron Man.” Those are the same words he utters after Thanos remarks, “I am inevitable.”

The strain of holding all six Infinity Stones and snapping his fingers is too much for him though and he dies surrounded by his friends. It’s the exact inverse of his vision in Ultron. The final funeral scene also features a call back to the first Iron Man film, as Pepper sets the first arc reactor Tony ever had adrift on the river over a bed of flowers.

While it seems clear that Tony really is dead, that doesn’t mean he still won’t show up in subsequent MCU films.

While Chris Evans, who plays Captain America, has been vocal about hanging up the shield for good, Robert Downey Jr., hasn’t yet addressed whether or not he’ll be back to play Tony Stark. Endgame does leave the door open for him to reappear in many creative ways. First there’s the fact that he seems to have recorded many messages for Pepper and his daughter Morgan for them to play back at appropriate times. Plus, considering how adept Tony is at creating artificial intelligence, there’s room to speculate that he creates an AI of himself to be Peter’s guide in the Spider-Man suit.

Plus, the MCU has now introduced time-travel as just a thing anyone can do, so a visit to the past to check in on a younger Tony Stark isn’t out of the question.

While Endgame botched a couple of key endings, Tony Stark’s was an elegy to the power of redemption.