How The Endgame Writers Decided Who Would Wear The Infinity Gauntlet At The Film's End

It's no small marvel that the epic clash of heroes and villains that was Avengers: Endgame ever came to be. It's the, well, endgame of over a decade of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that had been working their way toward a major confrontation, finally brought to life in front of our barely believing eyes in April 2019. The movie's copious tiny details and Easter eggs have been more than enough to keep fans talking since its premiere, so it was a Big Thing when Avengers: Endgame directors, the Russo Brothers, hosted an Instagram and Twitter live event of the film on April 27, 2020. Endgame co-writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely joined in as well, and their live-tweet commentary provided all sorts of delicious nuggets of new information. 

One of the newly revealed tidbits concerned the way Markus and McFeely decided which of the heroes would use the Infinity Stones in order to fully defeat Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his troops. The heroic sacrifice ultimately went to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). However, even though the most durable culprit, Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), had already injured himself undoing Thanos' Infinity War actions — where the purple warlord "snapped" half the universe's life out of existence — it's not like they didn't have any other viable gauntlet-wielders on the table. After all, the final battle of Avengers: Endgame also featured powerful heavy-hitters like Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), as well as teams like the Guardians of the Galaxy, who have handled Infinity Stones before. 

So, how did Markus and McFeely decide that the very human — and thus comparatively squishy — Iron Man would be the one to wield the most powerful clothing apparel in all of MCU?

As Markus revealed on Twitter, the decision of who would wield the Infinity Gauntlet at the end of the film was ultimately an easy one, since they knew that Endgame's quest to defeat Thanos would prove fatal to Tony Stark. "When we knew it was how Tony was going to die, we knew it had to be too powerful for a 'normal' human to survive," Markus wrote. "There weren't too many choices after that."

When you think about it, it's hard to disagree with the logic. After all, Robert Downey Jr. has been the focal point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2008's Iron Man, and since his arc was finally set to come to an end, it made perfect sense that he would be the one to sacrifice his life while saving the world (and, with that, the entire universe) one last time. It's hard to imagine a more fitting goodbye for such an important character.