Every dead character who stays dead in the MCU is potential money that’s slipping through Disney’s couch cushions. So when a hero or villain takes a dirt nap, you can rest assured there was a solid reason for it, and possibly one that will have larger implications down the road. Many spoilers ahead!
Remember the Other? In The Avengers, this double-thumbed alien acted as middleman between Thanos and Loki. In 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s casually murdered by an irritated Ronan the Accuser. The madman wants Thanos’s attention and is frankly quite tired of the Titan’s emissary barking at him.
“I only ask that you take this matter seriously.”
No, the Other isn’t a major character, though fans of early Joss Whedon TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were probably a little disappointed to see him go. The alien was played by Alexis Denisof, who played Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, a Buffyverse character initially so annoying it’s amazing no one ever broke his neck.
In the 2018 prose novel Thanos: The Titan Consumed by Barry Lyga, we learn that Ronan did more than dispatch an annoying intermediary here. The Other is a Chitauri, specifically the only Chitauri to be a bona fide individual. He negotiated Thanos taking over the leadership of his people. The rest of the Chitauri share a hive mind, which is why they all die when their command ship is destroyed in Avengers. When Ronan kills The Other, it’s really a bit like finding the Holy Grail and tossing it into an active volcano. Of course, Ronan is also a psychotic maniac.
When Quicksilver was killed by Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was natural for many viewers to assume the choice was made to forestall any confusion between the MCU Quicksilver played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and the version of the character introduced in Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, played by Evan Peters.
Not according to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who in 2015 told MTV that Quicksilver died to elevate the stakes of Age of Ultron, and more importantly to guide the future of his sister Wanda, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Feige told MTV the speedster’s death acted… keep watching the video to see the MCU character deaths that were more important than you realized!
#MCU #IronMan2
The Other | 0:16
Wanda’s brother | 1:28
All the “decimated” | 2:30
The Celestial | 3:44
A prologue to Ultron | 4:44
The Russian | 6:10
The Ancient One | 7:13
The weapons dealer | 8:30