10 MCU Characters We Want Removed From The Movies For Good
One of the best aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way anyone can reappear at any time. Even when you think they've forgotten a character like Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) from "The Incredible Hulk," he'll come back as the Leader in "Captain America: New World Order." Did anyone expect Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to show up in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?" And who knew Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) and Darcy (Kat Dennings) would make a great team to investigate the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)? Putting familiar characters in new combinations is part of the fun of comics, after all.
Sometimes, though, enough is enough. Whether it's dead characters who won't stay dead or bad characters who keep ruining our enjoyment with their presence, some just don't need to come back. Whether a return would cheapen a fantastic exit, belabor a joke, or simply annoy us even more than they already did, many significant and minor characters in the MCU are fine the way they are — and should go no further.
Here are the top 10 candidates for permanent closure.
10. Pizza Poppa
Oh no! Slander against the great Bruce Campbell! Well, no, not exactly. Nobody's saying Bruce Campbell shouldn't come back ... and if they are, they're wrong. He just shouldn't come back as his "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" character, Pizza Poppa.
Look, it's only natural that Campbell's (first) big moment in the MCU inspired an instant cult following, to the point that fans at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con rigged up a fake action figure, hoping Hasbro might follow suit. The beauty of Pizza Poppa, though, is that he's a one-joke character; a street vendor from another reality who sells spherical pizzas, as is the norm there. That, and he causes a bit of minor annoyance to Doctor Strange and America Chavez.
Here's the thing: via "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Campbell's position in the MCU's multiverse is retroactively established. His is the face of multiple characters who annoy Spider-Man in Tobey Maguire's timeline. "Multiverse of Madness" suggests his face is associated with similar behavior toward heroes throughout many realities. The actor should come back — again and again and again. But as a different minor character every time.
9. Danny Rand
It's not entirely clear that Danny Rand is completely in the MCU, since the status of the Netflix shows is hazy. But since Charlie Cox's Daredevil is definitely back, let's take the time to make clear that Finn Jones' Danny Rand can stay where he is, thanks. True, Jones wasn't as bad as some would have us believe, and the fact that he was a mediocre white savior was sort of the point — thanks to his incompetence in the role, and taking it from a more deserving competitor, the mysterious city of K'un-Lun was left foolishly unguarded. Honestly, though, his story was told. We don't need a rehash of any of this, and Rand as a live-action character is kind of like when you order Bruce Wayne from Wish. Plus, whether it was Jones' fault or the choreographers', he didn't come off as especially convincing as the world's greatest martial artist.
If the MCU needs Iron Fist, it should take a page from the comics and use the newest inheritor of that heroic mantle, Lin Lie. The hero formerly known as Sword Master already has a past with Namor, and could cause trouble for Shang-Chi. Danny can come back long enough to pass the torch, but after that, he needs to be outta here.
8. Gamora
No disrespect is hereby intended to either the character of Gamora or the amazing Zoe Saldana, who plays her. It's just that storylines need to have consequences.
Consider: at the end of "Avengers Endgame," the conversation between Hawkeye and Wanda makes clear that there are no take-backsies with regard to the death of Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a Black Widow. To claim the Soul Stone, she had to die, and die in an irrevocable way, even considering all we know about Marvel cosmology.
So how come Gamora got to live? She died for the Soul Stone first.
Technicalities, technicalities. Sure, it's not the same Gamora, but rather a variant from a different timeline. Still, her arrival has essentially brought the character back. Hawkeye would probably be satisfied with a Natasha from a slightly different timeline that still had most of the same memories, just as Peter Quill expects he can rekindle his love in Gamora-from-the-past. Without creating major plotholes, though, she has to go. "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" taught us that incursions of variants into other universes can have grave consequences — though "Loki" suggests that a mere TVA badge can avoid that problem. For the Gamora variant plotline to work, she has to be a significant hazard to our reality, and leave it.
Hey, we don't make the rules. We just nitpick like crazy when they appear broken.
7. Eros and Pip the Troll
"Eternals" remains a sadly underrated Marvel movie, truly breaking from any cookie-cutter mold with a definitive directorial voice in Chloe Zhao. It's shot primarily on location, it suggests that religion is a lie and propaganda must be rejected, and it digs deep into the secret history of the superheroic universe. When they learn the truth, some heroes become villains — but even that depends upon one's point of view.
Unfortunately, it ends with a dreadful mid-credits scene that introduces Harry Styles as Eros, brother of Thanos, and Patton Oswalt as the voice of some horrifically rushed CG for Pip the Troll. These are characters you can't just spring on people. In comics, anything goes, but in the movies, we need a bit more context to understand how an Eternal who looks like a human pop singer can be sibling to a big purple monster. If the universe is also going to spring a character on us called a troll, there also needs to be some kind of preparation for the fact that this troll isn't like most of the giant movie monsters we associate with the concept.
Marvel's Nate Moore confirmed recently that we haven't seen the last of Styles and Eros, also known as Starfox, which is too bad. He and Pip made a brutally annoying, shoehorned-in intro, and we'd just as soon send them right back out like a revolving door.
Prove us wrong, Marvel.
6. Heimdall
Anyone who's read this far on the list has sussed that an appearance here is (mostly) not an insult to the actor. Idris Elba is acting royalty, and his stoic, alien presence as Heimdall has really helped put across the notion of Asgard as a space civilization. Like many a Viking, space or Earthbound, he died in battle and got to enter Valhalla. It was a noble and fitting end for the taciturn warrior.
Then "Moon Knight" established that characters can come back from the afterlife. And "Thor: Love and Thunder" showed us Heimdall and Jane Foster kicking it in the afterlife. This will most likely set up Jane's Mighty Thor for a return from the dead, which is fine — she's the second best thing about "Love and Thunder" (after Christian Bale's Gorr) and we didn't get enough of her. Heimdall, though, not so much. His death needs to matter. It's part of what gave Thanos real villain cred, aside from everything else.
5. Ralph Bohner
How exciting was it that first time Evan Peters appeared on "WandaVision"? It seemed as though the Disney-Fox merger was starting to bear fruit for Marvel, with the "X-Men" movies' Quicksilver showing up as a substitute for the MCU version, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Had Wanda Maximoff somehow pulled an alternate version of her dead brother through the multiverse to console her in her time of need? Excited fans needed to know ...
... Until they actually did, and it resulted in a cheap dick joke. It turned out Peters was actually playing an actor named Ralph Bohner, possessed by Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) to pretend to be Wanda's brother Pietro and keep her in the delusion longer. However, if no Quicksilver that looks like this exists in the MCU, why would anyone think such a ruse would work? Peters in that get-up doesn't look anything like Taylor-Johnson ever did. But the cheap charade it turned out to be does recall his most famous line: "What? You didn't see that coming?"
If Peters returns, it needs to be as Pietro. Because when it comes to Bohner, fan interest has decidedly gone soft.
4. Trevor Slattery, the fake Mandarin
When "Iron Man 3" revealed that the man who appeared to be a global terrorist mastermind known as the Mandarin was, in fact, a clueless English actor named Trevor Slattery, it was a brilliant twist. Ben Kingsley is precisely the type of actor to be cast as a super-villain, and LEGO sets released before the movie came out depicted the character fighting Iron Man directly. As the longtime comics archenemy of Tony Stark, he felt long overdue onscreen. When he appeared in trailers for the first time, he looked intimidating enough, even if his American accent sounded a bit off.
That turned out to be a perfect twist, because he was, in fact, a British actor doing a bad accent. It also nicely dodged accusations of the Mandarin character being a racist caricature, since the "Mandarin" was revealed as a caricatured compilation of Western terrorist fears. But once Slattery was revealed as a hapless actor, that should have been the end of him.
Instead, he turned up in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," which makes some degree of sense, because the original 'Mandarin," better known as Wenwu (Tony Leung) was just a bit upset with him. So far, so good. Then the movie made him an actual hero, fighting alongside the good guys against dragons. Given everything known about the character thus far, it strained credulity (even more than the existence of dragons). Keep him a coward, or not at all.
3. Korg
Enough already with this guy.
When Taika Waititi took over the "Thor" series with "Ragnarok," it was a welcome change of pace. Adding his trademark whimsy to a script he did not originally write, the director struck the right balance of action, humor, and social commentary. He also grounded some of the movie's events with the character of Korg, whom he played, a gladiator who just wants to go along to get along, and who was based on some soft-spoken-yet-large security guards Waititi had known.
As a brief funny cameo in "Avengers Endgame," Korg was also welcome. The weirdness of the rock guy and his little alien buddy just hanging out playing video games once again brought a welcome casualness to a crazy situation. Enough was enough, though. By the time Korg became full-on narrator and co-lead of "Thor: Love and Thunder," Waititi overplayed his hand. As he often does in scripts he writes, he failed to hold back or counter much of the silliness, and by the end, the rock-man has a husband named Dwayne. Get it? Because of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Most Marvel jokes work because they refer to things in-universe; that kind of metatextual humor belongs more to a "Shrek" sequel than "Thor."
On the plus side, Korg and Dwayne are a positively portrayed gay couple with a child, Dwayne's goofy and unlikely mustache aside. On the other side, two Korgs in a future movie could be insufferable. Take the happy ending, and stay there.
2. Tony Stark
Without Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), there would be no MCU. Had "Iron Man" flopped, Marvel might not have tried again for quite a while. Downey, a popular fan choice for the role due to his acting chops and Stark-like struggles with addiction, helped forged a new direction for comic-book movies, which mostly tended towards the dark and semi-gritty since Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman." With a wry sense of self-aware humor, he allowed audiences to laugh with the storylines rather than at them. When stakes got higher in subsequent team films, his sarcastic rejoinders felt distinctly human.
So when he died in "Avengers Endgame," it meant something. He couldn't be defensive with a quick quip, nor could he snark his way out. He was faced with an honorable death and made the noble sacrifice sincerely. He was Iron Man. It was glorious.
Undoing that for a star power boost would be a terrible idea. Not just because a death like that needs to stick, but because with a pivot toward younger, female heroes, his macho ironic detachment doesn't seem right. Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, Riri Williams, et al, are sincere and excited to be heroes, having grown up in a world where super-powered beings exist. Genuine wonder is easier to mock than sardonic wit, so it's rarer, but Marvel Studios needs to go there. And it's no country for Iron Men.
1. Everett Ross
Presumably, most people reading this have seen the meme describing Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis as the "Tolkien white guys" in "Black Panther." It's funny because it's true, not just because Freeman played Bilbo Baggins, but because he takes on a role typically played by black costars in action-hero movies, of the outmatched sidekick who still manages to do just enough heroic stuff at the end. He's Wakanda's melanin-challenged Kevin Hart.
There's a problem with that, though, and it's pointed out every time a "Black Panther" movie comes out. Everett Ross is presented as CIA. Not part of some in-universe substitute like SHIELD, but the real CIA. Whatever side you take on that particular agency, comic relief ain't it. The actual Central Intelligence Agency destabilizes governments, operating above the laws of the countries they're in. They don't just send fun guys to hang with the king and team up to fight supervillains.
He has also kind of outlived his purpose. In "Wakanda Forever," he mainly exists to give unnecessary exposition and set up future movies. He also makes multiple rookie mistakes, and even becomes a sort of damsel in distress by the finale. The real CIA would have kicked him to the curb or disappeared him long ago.