6 Things Joss Whedon Hated About The Avengers

1. Coulson Lives

Even though some of Whedon's deaths stare deeply into the finality of death in our world, he's indulged the fantasy of resurrection more than once, too. Buffy alone came back from the dead twice. Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men ends with one apparent death (Kitty Pryde), but reverses another (Colossus). Even the Avengers movies have a couple of seeming deaths reversed minutes later-- Tony in the first film and JARVIS (more or less) in the second. Even as Whedon was filming Phil Coulson's death scene, he was planning to revive him and make him the star of TV's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But in an interview this year, Whedon seemed to have some regrets.

The Coulson thing was, I think, a little anomalous just because that really came from the television division, which is sort of considered to be its own subsection of the Marvel universe. As far as the fiction of the movies, Coulson is dead.

But I have to say, watching the first one with my kids€”I had not watched the first one since it came out€”and then watching it with my kids and watching Coulson die but , €œYeah, but I know that he kind of isn€™t,€ it did take some of the punch out of it for me. Of course, I spent a lot of time making sure he didn€™t. And at the time it seemed inoffensive, as long as it wasn€™t referenced in the second movie, which it isn€™t.

There€™s a thing where you can do that so many times and there€™s nothing at stake. But it€™s difficult because you€™re living in franchise world€”not just Marvel, but in most big films€”where you can€™t kill anyone, or anybody significant. And now I find myself with a huge crew of people and, although I€™m not as bloodthirsty as some people like to pretend, I think it€™s disingenuous to say we€™re going to fight this great battle, but there€™s not going to be any loss. So my feeling in these situations with Marvel is that if somebody has to be placed on the altar and sacrificed. I€™ll let you guys decide if they stay there.

A couple of weeks later, Whedon came up with a snarkier way to address the issue.

Yeah, he€™s dead. The entire television series is just a fever dream. It€™s a Jacob€™s Ladder moment he€™s having at the point of death, but we don€™t give that away until after season seven. And there€™s a snow globe. Now I€™ve given it away. !*$%!