‘Avengers: Endgame’ Directors the Russo Brothers Defend Killing Tony Stark: ‘He Deserved to Die’ (Video)

One of the most heartbreaking deaths of the MCU came in “Avengers: Endgame” when Tony Stark sacrificed himself to destroy Thanos and his followers. And three years later, directors the Russo Brothers stand by their decision to kill off the beloved hero — in fact, they’d say he deserved it.

Now, the “Endgame” directors don’t necessarily say that with malice. But they also aren’t offering up any deeper explanation of why they decided to kill off the man who really started it all for the mega-franchise. The duo recently completed WIRED’s “Autocomplete Interview,” wherein the subjects answer the most searched questions on Google, as dictated by the autofill bar.

When it came time for the “Why the Russo Brothers” question prompt, they got hit with three Marvel questions in a row. Among them was “Why did the Russo Brothers kill Iron Man?” And to that, Joe Russo had a very simple answer: “He deserved to die.”

For what it’s worth, he had the same answer for the question just before that, which asked why the directing duo killed Loki in “Infinity War.” The brothers refused to offer any other explanation on either character, standing firm on their choices.

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Of course, then came the question of “Why do the Russo Brothers hate the Hulk?” And at that, the brothers got a good laugh, and poked fun at some fan criticisms.

“Oh, we nerfed the Hulk!” Joe Russo joked. “We nerfed him! We just didn’t know what to do with him. We were like ‘What? This big powerful character? What do we do with this big, powerful character?'”

Elsewhere in the conversation, the brothers once again side-stepped giving an answer on their future with Marvel. When asked directly if they’re done making movies for the studio, they called it a “sh–ty question” and moved on.

You can watch the full interview in the video above.