Warning: This article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.
Summary
- There have been many very sad moments throughout the 16-year history of the MCU.
- Most of the MCU’s sad moments have marked the tragic deaths of several notable characters.
- Memorable moments such as those in
Deadpool & Wolverine, Avengers: Endgame, Moon Knight
and
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
have contributed to some of the MCU’s most emotional scenes.
There have been many scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that, despite not killing off any beloved characters, were still incredibly emotional. One of the reasons the MCU has been so successful throughout its 16-year history is because its heroes and villains are relatable and believable, and express human emotions. This includes sadness, which has infused some of the most touching, moving and tragic scenes in the MCU, even when no notable deaths have been featured.
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Of course, the deaths of the likes of Iron Man, Groot, Spider-Man, Quicksilver and Aunt May have been truly tragic to witness in the MCU, and have contributed to some of the franchise’s saddest moments. However, there have also been many harrowing moments that haven’t featured death at all, and these have been seen throughout the MCU’s entire history, as recently as 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine. These moments are some of the MCU’s most memorable, and their impact on the franchise won’t be forgotten quickly.
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Over the years, there have been many heartbreaking moments in the MCU, but there are some more-hidden realizations that make the MCU even sadder.
10 Wolverine Tears Into Deadpool In The Void
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
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Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool is best known for bringing his unique brand of comedy into his violent antihero adventures. His witty sarcasm and fourth wall breaks have made him one of the most beloved heroes of the modern era, and this was continued in Deadpool & Wolverine, his first official MCU movie. However, during one scene shared between Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, there is no comedy to be seen, as Logan expresses his disgust and annoyance towards Deadpool while belittling the Merc with a Mouth.
Deadpool has always found the perfect balance between comedy and seriousness, and this moment underlined just how powerful this can be. Hugh Jackman’s acting at this moment is unbelievably poignant, as he enunciates every single word to fully get his point across, firing bullets at Deadpool in the form of words, as opposed to actual bullets. This leads to an intense and entertaining fight between the pair, with Deadpool, Wolverine and the audience watching all at their emotional heights.
9 Peter Quill Finds Out The Truth About His Mother’s Death
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
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After Guardians of the Galaxy saw human abductee Peter Quill acquire his found family, 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 marked a reunion with his biological family, namely his father, Ego. While Ego explained his plans for the universal expansion to Quill, he also let slip that he had been the one to place a cancerous tumor inside Quill’s mother, which ultimately led to her demise. Quill had struggled to come to terms with his mother’s death since being abducted by Yondu and the Ravagers on the night of, so this was a game-changing revelation.
Peter Quill used his anger towards Ego for killing his mother and destroying his Walkman to eventually defeat the Celestial villain. However, for a few brief moments, Quill stood in shock at the news, especially since he had been becoming closer to his father, who had also been teaching him how to harness his Celestial abilities. This was a highly emotional moment, but made Ego’s death at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 all the more satisfying.
8 Scott Lang Finds His Daughter Five Years Older
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
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2019’s Avengers: Endgame was perhaps the MCU’s most emotional movie from beginning to end, but this scene shared between Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and Emma Fuhrmann’s Cassie Lang was truly heartbreaking. Five years after Thanos’ snap killed Hope van Dyne and her parents, trapping Scott Lang in the Quantum Realm, Ant-Man returned to find the world completely changed. On top of it all, he learned that he had been presumed dead in the chaos, and his surviving daughter had aged five years and was no longer a child.
Emma Fuhrmann only appeared as Cassie Lang in
Avengers: Endgame
, and was recast with Kathryn Newton in
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
.
Scott and Cassie Lang’s bond was one of the most touching aspects of Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp. This only made the gut-punch of Cassie suddenly becoming five years older even more powerful. Scott realized he had missed so much time with his daughter, which contributed to theories that he would enter a deal with Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though this ultimately didn’t happen. This pain did fuel Scott Lang’s Time Heist idea, however, allowing the Avengers to reverse Thanos’ devastation.
7 Marc Spector’s Backstory Reveals His Tragic Losses
Moon Knight (2022)
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Oscar Isaac did a brilliant job at portraying Marc Spector and his alters in Moon Knight, especially during highly emotional moments such as this sequence of events in episode 5, “Asylum.” During this episode, Spector’s childhood is explored, giving Steven Grant the opportunity to witness the death of his brother, Randall, and his mother blaming Marc for this tragic accident. This leads to presumed abuse by his mother, which culminates in the emergence of Marc’s alters as a defense mechanism.
Dissociative identity disorder often stems from childhood trauma, so it makes sense that this was also the case for Marc in Moon Knight. Even so, it was truly heartbreaking to watch these events play out, especially when taking into account Oscar Isaac’s differing reactions as both Marc Spector and Steven Grant. The latter learning of these events for the first time certainly created some of the MCU’s most tragic and sad scenes, and this eventually made Marc vulnerable enough to fall under Khonshu’s manipulations.
6 Loki Rewatches His Life
Loki Season 1 (2021)
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Phase 4’s Loki season 1 caught up with the variant of Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief who escaped from the Avengers during Endgame’s Time Heist. This version was removed from the timeline shortly after The Avengers, so he had no memory of much of the original Loki’s life. However, some of these most pivotal moments were shown to him in the Time Variance Authority, including the death of his mother in Thor: The Dark World, the death of his father in Thor: Ragnarok, and his own demise at the hands of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
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Loki’s reaction to watching these tragic moments of what his life should have been was a masterclass in acting by Tom Hiddleston. This was a huge amount of information to take in all at once, but this helped to kick-start this variant’s redemption arc, as he soon set to work tracking down his more murderous variant, Sylvie. Loki has avoided all of these tragic fates now, having become a bona fide hero in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga, sacrificing his own life to protect the lives of everyone he loves.
5 Iron Man & Captain America Battle In Siberia
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
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Prior to Captain America: Civil War’s release in 2016, it was heavily theorized that either Steve Rogers’ Captain America or Tony Stark’s Iron Man would meet their end in the crossover movie. However, it was perhaps more emotionally impactful that both survived their battle, as they both had to live with their actions, particularly their intense and destructive fight in HYDRA’s abandoned Siberia facility. This came about after Stark learned that Bucky Barnes had killed his parents as the Winter Soldier, and Rogers knew.
It’s clear that this act of betrayal was the final straw for Iron Man, who had come to blows with Captain America throughout Civil War over what to do about Bucky. Stark learning the truth about his parents’ demise was an incredibly sad moment that showcased the sheer talent of Robert Downey Jr. and divided the Avengers just in time for Thanos to attack in Avengers: Infinity War. This was a poignant storyline that ended with no winners.
4 Peter Parker Doesn’t Remind MJ & Ned
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
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Spider-Man: No Way Home brought Peter Parker’s MCU origin story to a close in 2021, and marked a horrible ending for this first chapter in the story of Tom Holland’s wall-crawler. Doctor Strange’s memory wipe spell erased Peter Parker from the worldwide consciousness, which means his friends, family and everyone who knew him no longer remember his existence. If this wasn’t sad enough for the audience, Parker neglected to remind his friends, MJ and Ned Leeds, of his existence, despite promising that he would.
Peter Parker realized that, if his friends knew him, they could be in danger of harm due to his escapades as Spider-Man. At the cost of his own happiness, he opted to keep them safe in their obliviousness, but this contributed to one of the MCU’s most heartbreaking exchanges between Peter Parker and Zendaya’s MJ. The pair had only just begun their romantic relationship, and it’s now unclear what the future holds for this budding romance or the wall-crawler himself.
3 Shuri Burns Her Funeral Garments
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
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Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away in 2020, which ensured that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was going to be an emotional ride. The Phase 4 sequel explored themes of loss and grief, as Boseman’s MCU hero, T’Challa’s Black Panther, also lost his life in the movie’s opening moments. Wakanda Forever was a beautiful and tender tribute to the fallen legend, both on and off screen, so the entire movie could be seen as one of the MCU’s most emotional moments, but its final scene is one that sticks in the mind.
Shuri became the new Black Panther in 2022’s
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
, taking over from her brother and her cousin, Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger.
After struggling to come to terms with T’Challa’s death throughout the movie, Letitia Wright’s Shuri finally lets go of her grief in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s final moments. She travels to Haiti to burn the garments she wore to T’Challa’s funeral, a ceremony first spoken about by Angela Bassett’s ill-fated Ramonda earlier on. This quiet moment, combined with visions of Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa and the introduction of his secret son created a highly emotional and remarkably poignant scene at the end of the memorial movie.
2 Wanda Maximoff & Vision Say Goodbye Again
WandaVision (2021)
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Since her debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron, Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff has had one of the most harrowing and tragic journeys through the MCU. A lot of this has been focused on her love for Paul Bettany’s synthezoid, Vision, whom she was forced to kill in Avengers: Infinity War. 2021’s WandaVision series revealed that Wanda had inadvertently created a new version of Vision during her building of the Westview Hex, but she eventually realized that she would need to lose her love again.
WandaVision’s finale featured Wanda Maximoff and Vision saying goodbye to their children before saying their final goodbyes to each other. This was an incredibly sad moment, which saw the pair theorize that, since they’ve said goodbye before, they may say hello again. White Vision is out there somewhere, set to return in 2026’s as-yet-untitled Vision series, so it’s very possible that Vision and the Scarlet Witch could reunite, but that won’t detract from the sheer emotion of WandaVision’s ending.
1 Flashbacks Detail Rocket’s Abuse At The Hands Of The High Evolutionary
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
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All of these emotional moments are incredibly hard to forget, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 might have included the longest-running sequence of events, which was also the most haunting. Vol. 3 explored Rocket Raccoon’s backstory more than any previous MCU movie, confirming that he had been cybernetically enhanced by Chiwetel Ejiofor’s High Evolutionary during his attempts to create a “perfect society.” These flashback moments were truly heartbreaking, and led to a highly impactful moment that changed Rocket’s life forever.
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 saw the High Evolutionary pluck Rocket from his cage and give him a voice through incredibly painful means. The future Guardian’s first word, “hurts,” highlights this, and the Guardians of the Galaxy team’s reaction to watching this experimentation back was intense. Rocket’s happiness with his similarly-enhanced friends was laced with fear and anxiety about living under the High Evolutionary’s thumb, contributing to some of the saddest moments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – but this made the villain’s eventual defeat very cathartic.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
Created by Kevin Feige Upcoming Films Deadpool & Wolverine , Captain America: Brave New World , Thunderbolts (2025) , Blade (2025) , The Fantastic Four (2025) , Avengers 5 , Avengers: Secret Wars Upcoming TV Shows Agatha: Coven of Chaos , Ironheart , Daredevil: Born Again , Wakanda , Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man , Marvel Zombies , Wonder Man , Vision Quest
|
Upcoming MCU Movies |
Release Date |
|---|---|
|
Captain America: Brave New World |
February 14, 2025 |
|
Thunderbolts* |
May 2, 2025 |
|
The Fantastic Four |
July 25, 2025 |
|
Blade |
November 7, 2025 |
|
Avengers: Doomsday |
May 1, 2026 |
|
Avengers: Secret Wars |
May 7, 2027 |
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Category: Entertainment