While it's true that Marvel would have been absolutely insane to kill off their marquee character at the end of their highest-earning blockbuster to date (not that they necessarily knew that at the time), it would have been an extremely brave move to have left Iron Man dead on the ground after The Avengers' battle with the Chitauri. As hilarious as it was too see the Hulk literally roar Tony back to life, imagine how the board would have been set for all future MCU films had he not? You'd never have the safety blanket of knowing that a company wouldn't kill off the characters responsible for their profits. It would have injected some real stakes into the future of all their movies, bringing some much-needed tension back to big budget blockbusters. Of course, we would've then been deprived of Trevor Slattery, although I'm sure many of you would have been happy with that alteration. But we'd definitely all lament the loss of never seeing the Civil War storyline up on the big screen. Luckily for us, Marvel chickened out and now Captain America: Civil War will feature Tony Stark where he should always be; in Captain America's ear, winding him up.