The Marvel Cinematic Universe has reached a new stage with the incorporation of television into its stories. Stories like Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier have pulled viewers in by showing the next step in what happens to these characters, but the animated series “What If?” takes it to another level.
Now fans can see what happens to some of their favorite characters if things went in a different direction from what everyone expected. Because these are alternate universe stories, Marvel is free to kill off some of their major characters, even ones as big as Iron Man, who helped start their MCU. Of course, fans might be curious as to exactly how Tony Stark died each time.
5 In "What If...The World Lost It's Mightiest Heroes?" Hank Pym Sabotaged The Palladium Cure
In the episode “What If...the World Lost It’s Mightiest Heroes?”, the story is set right around the time period of Iron Man 2. Tony Stark is struggling with palladium poisoning from having the arc reactor inside of him. In the film, Director Fury gives Tony Stark a cure to palladium poisoning which allows him to keep operating as Iron Man.
But in this timeline, Stark injects himself with the cure and it kills him instead. They look into what caused it, with Betty Ross explaining that there was a microscopic projectile that actually killed Tony. They deduce that the person responsible is actually Hank Pym, who’s angry at Nick Fury because his daughter Hope went on missions for Shield and lost her life. In the end, Hank manages to take down not just Tony Stark, but the entire Avengers as well minus Steve Rogers. He’s eventually defeated by Loki, who winds up conquering the planet with the Avengers no longer there to stop him.
4 In "What If...Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead Of His Hands" Strange Supreme Blew Up The Universe
Tony Stark wasn’t exactly shown to be killed in the episode "What If...Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” but it’s implied with how the universe worked out. This version of Stephen Strange sees him lose his girlfriend Christine Palmer. With that loss, Strange decides to go looking for a way to bring her back to life.
Dr. Strange eventually becomes master of the mystic arts, studying the Eye of Agamotto with the goal of rewinding time to save his girlfriend. The main problem with his desire to rewind time however is that the act of doing so would destroy the universe because it would create a massive paradox. But in this timeline, Strange ignores everyone telling him to stop what he’s doing, and he goes out of his way to gain the power necessary to rewind time. In doing so, he meets Christine again but she wants nothing to do with him. Worse, the time paradox he created destroys all but a tiny part of his universe, which cost everyone on his planet their lives.
3 In "What If...Zombies?", Iron Man Was Turned Into A Zombie
In “What If...Zombies”, Earth is overrun by zombies thanks to Hank Pym traveling into the Quantum Realm to try and get his wife Janet back. Unfortunately for him, Janet has already become a zombie and infects Hank as well. When both of them make their return to the normal universe, they’ve both been changed.
The Avengers attempt to deal with this, but are immediately turned into zombies as well, rendering them all useless. In this instance, Tony Stark is one of the first to fall, as he’s later shown as a zombie and is responsible for attacking two members of Thanos’ Black Order. In the end, Hope and a handful of survivors decide to take out the remainder of the zombies with the power of the Mind Stone, but unfortunately have to deal with a Thanos who’s been infected and has the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. Though the Mind Stone is supposedly able to reverse the effects of the zombification, that would only be if they were able to somehow get past Thanos.
2 In "What If...Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?", Killmonger Killed Tony By Shoving A Spear Through Him
“What If...Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?” is the primary What If that centers around Tony Stark himself. In the original timeline, Tony Stark getting attacked by the Ten Rings is the reason he creates the Iron Man armor and makes a major change to his life, vowing to no longer make weapons for the government, knowing they can be abused by other people.
In this What If…? Timeline, Tony Stark is instead saved by Killmonger, who helps Tony make his way back to America and Stark Industries. There, Killmonger works alongside Tony as he continues to build greater and more dangerous weapons, including drones made out of vibranium. Eventually, though, Killmonger attacks and kills both Black Panther and James Rhodes for the sake of continuing to gain control, which Stark learns about. With no Iron Man armor, he instead has a drone built that he wants to use to attack Killmonger. Though the drone is programmed to fight like Killmonger, it can’t keep up with Killmonger changing his attack style, and he easily defeats it. Afterward, he attacks and kills Tony Stark and pretends it was actually Wakanda responsible, taking advantage of the chaos to try and take over as Black Panther.
1 In "What If...Ultron Won?", Ultron Wiped Out All Of Humanity
In the original Avengers 2, the goal was to prevent Ultron from getting the Vision’s body and access to the Mind Stone, which would allow him to have access to unlimited power. But in “What If...Ultron Won?” the team fails at this goal. Rather than finding Ultron’s perfect body and using it to create the Vision, Ultron gets to and inhabits the body first.
This massive increase in power makes him incredibly dangerous, and the Avengers are forced to stand against him at full power. In the end, Tony Stark tries to convince Ultron to stop what he’s doing, only for Ultron to ignore him and fry his armor before destroying the entire city around them. This leads to Ultron winning in his own universe, and becoming powerful enough to easily defeat Thanos and take the Infinity Gauntlet for himself.
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