Vote up the MCU characters you forgot took out the major threats.
Do you recall which characters actually ended up killing MCU villains? There have been so many battles across so many movies, it can be easy to forget the Marvel villains who perished at the end of each film. For instance, you probably remember that Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane had an armor-laden battle at the end of 2008's Iron Man - but did you forget about Pepper Potts being the one to actually land the fatal blow on the Iron Monger?
Or that Erik Selvig technically killed Malekith by dropping a massive spaceship on him? Or that villains such as Whiplash, Mysterio, and Ikaris actually were responsible for their own downfalls? So, let's take a stroll down memory lane and run through the MCU to see who actually killed the biggest bads Marvel Studios has given us.
After the beatdown he gave to both Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the entire dang universe in Avengers: Infinity War, you just knew Thanos was going to get a serious comeuppance in Avengers: Endgame. It's the endgame! And we're not talking about the pointless, grief-stricken beheading the Mad Titan received courtesy of Thor during the opening of the film. Had that been all, Thanos wouldn't be remembered as fondly today.
Thanks to some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey nonsense, a time-displaced version of Thanos makes his way to the MCU's main universe so he can beat down the Avengers and, this time, wipe out all life in the universe so it can all start anew. Genocidal maniacs gonna genocidal maniac… what're you gonna do? Well, Tony Stark stepped up to the plate and sacrificed his own life by using the Infinity Stones to erase Thanos and his minions from existence. A fitting end to RDJ's time as Iron Man.
No one is here to argue that Avengers: Age of Ultron is a perfect movie. It's bloated with too many characters, suffers from some lackluster action sequences, and is too worried about setting up future MCU installments for its own good. It does, however, feature one of the best scenes ever featured in a Marvel Studios film.
After the Battle of Sokovia has commenced and all but one of Ultron's drone bodies have been wiped out, Vision and Ultron have a final confrontation. This is not a battle of strength, though, but a war of words between an AI who despises humanity and one who sees the promise of the species. It is a touching rumination on what makes Vision such a unique, interesting character in the superhero franchise and proves that quiet moments can be as exhilarating as loud ones. Oh, and Vision kills Ultron with the Mind Stone.
Including Surtur in Thor: Ragnarok's opening scene proved to be a major Chekhov's gun. The demonic lord of Muspelheim was prophesied to bring a ruinous end to Asgard and bring about Ragnarok. Well, he certainly did do that. That Asgard of the MCU is no more - that's for sure.
In addition to destroying Asgard, Surtur also took out Hela, seemingly once and for all. The Goddess of Death drew all of her power directly from Asgard, which made her too deadly for Thor, Loki, and the rest of the Revengers to fight. What to do? Unleash Surtur, of course! Asgard, the location, was sacrificed in the process - but Asgard, the people, got to live on into the unknown future.
As was shown in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange doesn't have much of a problem with sending evildoers to their ultimate end. The whole conflict between Spidey and Strange in that film revolves around Peter wanting to rehabilitate villains, whereas Strange just wants to leave them to their deadly fate and move on. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who loses a ton of sleep over sending a baddie to the great beyond.
Though Strange tries to end Kaecilius and save humanity in Doctor Strange, he isn't the one to land the final blow on the villain. No, that would be the Lord of Darkness himself, the dread Dormammu. The ruler of the Dark Dimension doesn't actually kill Kaecilius, mind you… he merely turns Kaecilius and his followers into Mindless Ones doomed to spend eternity as thralls in Dormammu's home realm. Lovely!
The ending of Avengers: Infinity War was a gut punch not only to audiences around the globe, but to the heroes of the film, as well. They lost. They lost big. Half of all life in the universe was eradicated in an instant. And though many Marvel heroes involved in the fight against Thanos took their failure quite hard, no one felt it as acutely as Thor.
The God of Thunder had Thanos right where he wanted him. Thanos had gathered all six Infinity Stones at the end of the movie and was about to snap his fingers when Thor came out of nowhere to bury Stormbreaker deep in the Mad Titan's chest. Of course, Thanos uttered, “You should've gone for the head,” and eliminated half of all sentient life right then and there. Thor should've gone for that big purple melon. So, when the Avengers tracked Thanos down during the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, Thor did what he should've done the first time and chopped Thanos's head clean off.
The ending of Iron Man isn't the most bombastic finale in the MCU, but the 2008 film was the franchise's progenitor, so it probably deserves a pass. Fans got to see a bald Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane go full heel turn and become the Iron Monger. Stane and Tony Stark go head to head in an armor-suited battle that proves size doesn't always matter. Of course, Stark isn't the one to take Stane out in the end. That honor belongs to one Pepper Potts.
Stane has Stark on the ropes but, being the genius that he is, Tony decides the only way to effectively take his old business partner down is to blow him to kingdom come. Too busy to do it himself, Tony calls upon Pepper to overload the giant arc reactor housed in the Stark Industries building the battle is taking place upon. Pepper is reticent about blowing the reactor with Tony still up there, but she ends up doing it anyway. And Tony doesn't die because, well, it's his movie!
