Avengers 4: What does ‘definitive ending’ mean for Iron Man and Captain America?

The Avengers has been on the forefront of Marvel fans since the post-credit scenes of Infinity war.

Ant-Man and the Wasp served as a distraction, but now the Paul Rudd movie is reaching its final few countries for release.

The next Marvel movie, Captain Marvel with Brie Larson, is at least eight months away.

And fans are now left with a big gap of time for fans to speculate about Marvel’s head Kevin Feige’s latest statement.

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Theories have been flying since the aftermath of Thanos’ snap when half of life on earth (and half of the Avengers) were turned to dust.

There has never been any beating about the bush when it came to the end of Phase 3 of the MCU.

Feige has repeatedly said Avengers 4 will mark the end of the current iteration of heroes, with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel expected to be the new face of MCU Phase 4.

“We wanted to do it this way because we think that the best stories have a definitive ending to a storyline.

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“That’s certainly what’s going to happen next year with Avengers 4,” Feige told the Toronto Sun.

Given both Chris Evans (Captain America) and Robert Downey Jr’s (Tony Star/Iron Man) contracts are up, the most popular theory speculates Captain America and/or Tony Stark will die in the upcoming Avengers 4 movie.

“The Universe, the world, many of the characters we’ve introduced will continue onward in unexpected ways, some of which I don’t even know yet,” Feige continued.

“But bringing a definitive conclusion at the 22-film mark, and just over 10 years, seemed like the right thing to do,” he concluded.

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Marvel doesn’t seem to have any plans to create origin stories or spinoffs for the early Avengers.

However, when asked if a character like Black Panther will appear in any trailers for Avengers 4, Feige said, “No. Because he’s gone.”

This ‘gone means gone’ approach can be assumed to apply to everyone – from Star-Lord to Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch and Winter Soldier.

These newer Avengers are well loved by many and most have their own spin-offs on the Marvel calendar.

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Despite having killed off half the heroes (mostly the newer ones) fans anticipate a resurrection of some sort for their dusty favourites.

To make space for the new heroes, however they return to the land of the living, the old ones have to make a permanent exit.

Avengers 4 will undoubtedly figure out a way to make space for them though it may be at the expense of mainstay heroes like Captain America and Iron Man.

Avengers 4 is in cinemas Friday, April 26, 2019.