Tony Stark is the character that kicked off the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. For a guy with so many hysterical quips and ass-kicking action set pieces, he’s been at the center of some of the saddest, most heartbreaking moments in the entire MCU. The man who began his story as a billionaire playboy who was profiting from selling weapons to terrorists ended his story by triumphantly giving his life to save trillions of others across the universe from the reign of what basically amounts to a cosmic terrorist. So, here are Iron Man’s 10 Saddest Moments In The MCU, Ranked.
Taking the nuke through the wormhole
If Marvel hadn’t spoiled Iron Man’s survival in the trailers for The Avengers, with a shot of the Hulk catching him as he fell from the wormhole, this moment would’ve had even more impact. Still, we get swept up in the moment. As the world government makes a snap decision to write off Manhattan and send a nuclear bomb to decimate the island, Tony makes his own snap decision to grab the nuke and take it through the wormhole to destroy the Chitauri’s mothership. Even if we don’t believe that Tony will actually die, Tony believes it, and that’s enough to give this scene its power.
Yinsen’s death
In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark is abducted by a terrorist cell and locked in a cave with a fellow scientist named Yinsen. The terrorists force them to build a bomb, but instead, they build a metal suit to help them escape. On the way out, Yinsen gets killed. It was extra sad, because he’d told Tony about his family. This death scene was so powerful that it was reused with the death of almost every subsequent MCU hero’s mentor — Abraham Erskine, Wendy Lawson, Yondu, the Ancient One, Zuri etc. — but it never had as much impact as it did with Yinsen.
His first PTSD attack
All throughout Iron Man 3, PTSD attacks became the norm for Tony Stark, but the first one came as a surprise. A little kid who was requesting his autograph in a restaurant asked him about his near-death experience during the Battle of New York and it suddenly hit him. The feeling of drifting into death in the vacuum of space came back to him.
The fears that an alien threat would one day arrive, one that Tony couldn’t just blow up, started to set in. Shane Black’s threequel is controversial for a number of reasons, but it did a great job of conveying the effects of Tony’s PTSD.
Recording a farewell message to Pepper
This moment actually seemed like it could’ve been the end. Going into Avengers: Endgame, fans were expecting to see the last of one or more major characters, and since Robert Downey, Jr.’s contract was up and there was no Iron Man 4 lined up, there was actually an assumption that Tony Stark would die.
In the film’s opening, Tony is stranded in space with Nebula, having run out of fuel and food. He’s looking emaciated and defeated. Then, he records a farewell message to Pepper on his helmet. Later that night, he sees a bright light, which signified his death — but it turned out to be Captain Marvel saving his life. The living were not done with him yet.
Finding out Obadiah Stane is evil
Any moviegoer could’ve seen the Obadiah Stane villain reveal coming from a mile away, but Tony Stark couldn’t. After Tony’s father died, Obadiah became the only father figure he had left. So, when Tony found out that Obadiah had hired terrorists to kill him and only ever built a relationship with him to eventually dethrone him as the CEO of his company — and while Obadiah is literally ripping his synthetic heart from his chest at that — it was pretty heartbreaking. And to top it all off, Tony then had to crawl across the floor as shrapnel made its way into his arteries to replace it.
Fighting Steve Rogers
2016 was the year for superheroes fighting each other, as it brought us Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. Where the former had a banal fight scene that failed to elicit any emotion from its audience besides unintentional laughter (“Save Martha!”), the latter ended with a really brutal, heartbreaking sequence.
Tony Stark and Steve Rogers fighting over Bucky Barnes’ life is what tore them irreparably apart. There’s a moment where Steve almost brings down his shield on Tony’s head to kill him. He doesn’t do it, but Tony saw in Steve’s eyes that, even for a second, he was ready to.
His final conversation with Howard
Iron Man and Ant-Man losing the Tesseract in 2012 didn’t just throw an obstacle into the “Time Heist” sequence of Avengers: Endgame that ratcheted up the tension; it also gave Iron Man and Captain America a chance to take the penultimate steps in their character arcs. In 1970, Cap saw Peggy, which brought up old feelings that he’d been trying to let go of, and Tony encountered his father, Howard Stark. Under the name “Howard Potts,” Tony talked to his unwitting estranged dad about parenthood and making sacrifices for the greater good. At the end of their conversation, Tony hugs a confused Howard and says, “Thank you, for everything…you’ve done for this country.”
Getting defeated by Thanos
Ever since the Battle of New York, Tony Stark had feared the arrival of a villain that his technology couldn’t defeat. That’s why he started compulsively remodeling his armor in Iron Man 3. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, he saw a vision in which all of his friends were killed by such a villain and he couldn’t save them. Then, in Avengers: Infinity War, he finally met that villain — Thanos. Following a long battle involving many characters on Titan, Tony and Thanos went toe-to-toe, and Tony found himself hopelessly outmatched. Thanos stabbed him through the stomach and set him down, resting a hand on his head as Tony came to terms with the realization of his worst nightmare.
Holding Peter Parker as he turned to dust
The MCU has a way of using poignant scenes to give earlier moments more impact. When Tony Stark dropped Peter Parker off back in Queens following the airport battle at the beginning of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter mistook Tony going for the door for a hug and put his arms around him. Then, a deadpan Tony said, “We’re not there yet.”
It was a funny moment, but it’s made more emotional by a later scene in Avengers: Infinity War. A lot of characters turned to dust at the end, but Spider-Man’s dusting was perhaps the saddest. He ran into Tony’s arms and said, “Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good,” and Tony was helpless as Peter disappeared in his arms.
“You can rest now.”
It was Robert Downey, Jr.’s idea to have Tony Stark stay completely silent (save for feebly muttering, “Hey, Pep…”) as he died, and there’s no denying that it made the scene infinitely more impactful. This is a character that we’ve spent over a decade with, and he’s always had the perfect quip. So, when he suddenly fell silent as he looked upon his soulmate Pepper Potts, his surrogate son Peter Parker, and his best friend James Rhodes for the final time, it was all the more heartbreaking. There’s no doubt that Iron Man’s saddest moment in the MCU was his last.
