Why No Heroes Died in Civil War
One of the things that made Civil War so memorable in the comics was that death was evident throughout the story. It was the death of civilians (caused unintentionally by heroes) that started the Superhero Registration Act. Then, it was the death of the hero Goliath (by a clone of Thor) that proved that one side had gone too far. Finally, Captain America himself was assassinated in the story, Fallen Son, which followed the end of Civil War and after he turned himself in to face justice.
In the movie Captain America: Civil War, that didn’t happen. In fact, the only key death was the death of King T’Chaka, which obviously pushed T’Challa into being Black Panther and going after Bucky/Winter Soldier. So why didn’t they kill any Avengers? Well, Marvel Studios Boss Kevin Feige and director Anthony Russo did a Q&A (via IGN) for the movie, as it just came out on Blu-ray and DVD, and noted their thought process:
“We actually talked about lots of potential characters dying, but that it would undercut what was really the rich tension of the movie, which was that it’s Kramer vs. Kramer. It’s about a divorce. And if somebody dies, it would create empathy [from the other characters], which would change [things], and allow potential repair. We didn’t want to do that.”
Feige added, “In the comic, in the amazing comic book story, which certainly, the conceit of this movie is based on, some of the specifics, during their big battle, which has a hundred times as many characters, a character died. And we talked about that for a while, and ultimately, what happened to Rhodey (Don Cheadle) in the movie we thought—it would be enough of a downer for the tone of the movie.”
Anthony continued, “The tragedy is that the family falls apart. Not that the family falls apart and then somebody dies.”
Ironically, the lack of a key death made some fans feel that the Civil War movie didn’t mean as much as it could, and the storyline lacked stakes. We’ll have to see how the new situation evolves as the road to Avengers: Infinity War begins. That film hits theaters on May 4, 2018.