Avengers: Endgame poster
Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man aka Tony StarkInstagram

Robert Downey Jr. is set to return as Tony Stark/Iron Man in one of the most awaited Marvel projects for Disney+. The character was last seen in Avengers: Endgame and now the movie's writer finally revealed as to why the most beloved MCU character had to die in the first place.

During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Avengers: Endgame movie writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were asked why Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark died while Chris Evans' Steve Rogers got to live his life with Peggy Carter and got to retire as Captain America.

In Avengers: Endgame, we saw the end of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, Chris Evans' Captain America, and Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. In the final moments of the movie, Tony takes all the six Infinity Stones into his armored hand and snapped the finger. In doing the final good act, he ended Thanos' reign but the energy emitted from it also destroyed him.

Acclaimed writer Christopher Markus stated the following

"If you just keep going until it peters out or you lose interest, it kind of decays backward, making [people] think less of everything that came before. To have the opportunity to very deliberately tie all those threads together and have it add up to something and have it end, that's what stories are about. That's how you judge whether something was great or not."

Markus further added that if in the end, they would have simply got together then the audience wondered about their future rather than remembering the past.

Tony Stark
A still from Avengers: End Game trailer

Steve Rogers and Tony Stark's character change

On the other hand, Stephen McFeely talked about Tony Stark and Steve Rogers' character arch shift. In the very beginning, we saw how Tony started as a billionaire guy but later when he got responsibilities, he started to look after the others as well. Contrary to this, Steve started off as a character who always followed the law and thought about the others but in Captain America: Civil War, cinephiles got to see how he was what he thought was best, even though it broke up the Avengers.

"We realized at one point, late in 2015, that for Steve to be his best self, he was going to have to get a life, and for Tony to be his best self, he might have to lose him," McFeely added.

There were rumors in the recent weeks that Chris Evans will have a cameo in Disney+ Falcon and Winter Soldier but it turns out Chris Evans is done playing the role of Captain America for good. That being said, Marvel fans are going to hear Robert Downey Jr.'s voice in Disney+ What...If TV series.