7. Phil Coulson
How Would It Change The Franchise?Coulson's death was a shock moment in The Avengers, and everyone immediately started speculating on ways he could be brought backeither because he never really died and Fury was just manipulating the Avengers, or as a Life Model Decoy, or as the Vision. And sure enough, Coulson did come backhe's currently leading his own team on the Agents of SHIELD TV series. The question of Coulson's mysterious return is still up in the air with the show. We know something happened to him. His personality is a bit looser and jokier, he believes that he recovered in Tahiti and refers to it in a bizarre way as "a magical place," and we know that some other characters have expressed belief that something was done to him. My personal theory is that the Coulson on Agents of SHIELD is an LMD. And as a robot, that means that once Ultron appears, Coulson could become susceptible to Ultron's control. Perhaps he could be transformed into the Vision.
Will It Happen?Not too sure. While it might be considered unexpected for Whedon to kill off Coulson twice, it could also come off as repetitive and lead to the launch of "They Killed Coulson!" memes a la South Park. But Agents of SHIELD has, at the time of this writing, only been greenlit for one season, so who knows what the future may hold for it and its leading man?