Yes, All The Dead 'Avengers: Endgame' Characters Are Still Dead

In Avengers: Endgame, there's a fine line to be drawn between death and disintegration. While those who went up in smoke following the Snap in Infinity War ceased to be, they didn't really die – not technically, anyway. As for those who suffered non-dusting fates, well, that's a different story. So how does Endgame go about approaching this? Are the dead still dead? If so, how do some of the actors have contracts for future films? Find out the true fates of the dead Endgame characters below. Oh, and, beware of spoilers – obviously.

Everything dies baby, that's a fact. But maybe everything that dies some day comes back. Unless that thing is in Infinity War and Endgame. After half the universe went up in smoke in Infinity War, directors the Russo Brothers, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, and more all said that everyone who died in that film would stay dead. "Yeah right!" we all cried incredulously.

But those sneaky Marvel bastards had a few tricks up their sleeve. Sure, everyone who got dusted returned in Endgame. But the dusted people didn't count as "dead" – just erased. Meanwhile, the really dead characters – Loki, Gamora, Vision, and now, in Endgame, Tony Stark and Black Widow – are indeed dead. And yet...some of them live on.

To get around the deaths of characters they needed to return in sequels, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely had the gift of time travel to work with. Which meant that a version of Loki from the past (the first Avengers film, specifically) was able to escape and live on. And a past version of Gamora was able to end up in the present, setting things up so that her character can appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

"All I know is when we kill somebody, except with a Snap, they're dead," Christopher Markus told Fandango in a new interview, adding:

"We only brought back the people who were effectively disintegrated by the Snap at the end of Infinity War. Anybody who died over the course of the movie through neck-snapping or stabbing or being thrown off a cliff or having a Mind Stone torn out of their head stayed dead."

Which means that the folks who die in Endgame – Black Widow and Iron Man, specifically – really are dead. Of course, there's a Black Widow movie in the works right now – which we can safely assume is some sort of prequel. And then there's WandaVision, a Disney+ show that is going to bring back Vision, somehow. So maybe everything that dies in the MCU some day comes back after all...even if the writers have to cheat a little.