10 Stupid Comic Book Movie Deaths That Should Never Have Happened
7. Phil Coulson (The Avengers)
For about four years, Clark Gregg's S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson served as an audience POV character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was a general fan of all the superhero stuff he got to be embroiled in, sucked up to the mythic figures he was surrounded by, and always seemed to know more than he was letting on.
This was never more evident than in 2012's Avengers. With all his favorite people assembled in one room, Coulson was ecstatic and played nicely off everyone he interacted with. So his death was inevitable. Sure enough, he was stabbed through the chest by Loki at the tail end of the second act and managed to get the last laugh over his killer before succumbing to his injury.
But then ABC greenlit Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Clark Gregg was slap-dashed back into the MCU. His resurrection was kept secret from the rest of the Avengers and even the audience until the answer was revealed to be aliens. This led into some nonsense with the kree, some further nonsense with the inhumans, and was ultimately meaningless because Captain America: The Winter Soldier had already destroyed the show's central premise. In hindsight, everything would have been much simpler and less contrived if he just hadn't died in the first place.