We all know that the common narrative is that superheroes never kill. It’s practically in the rule book, right next to the part about wearing your underwear on the outside. But, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, violence and death have been a little bit harder to portray in such black and white terms. For The Avengers, a lot of death has been… well, inevitable.
When you have characters that have been parts of literal war zones, with some fighting battles in which the fate of a whole city, country, or even the entire world may hang in the balance, collateral damage is fairly inevitable. We all know that villains have no compunctions when it comes to using deadly force (Thanos casually took out half the universe!) but when it comes to casualties, which member of the MCU’s main supergroup, The Avengers, holds the highest kill count? We’ll take a look at the classic line up of the team and let you know who made it to the top (or the bottom, if you prefer) of the biggest kill count list.
The Super Soldier
While Captain America certainly has greater respect for life than just about any other hero in the MCU, even he’s willing to take up arms and use deadly force when it comes to Nazis and fascists. Although we never really see Cap cap anyone on-screen, he definitely used firearms in WWII during the storyline of Captain America: The First Avenger, and we assume those weren’t just for show.
The Agents
Nick Fury may not be an official Avenger, but he is the main architect of the Avengers Initiative which brought about the group’s formation, not to mention their primary liaison with the government. While Fury has definitely racked up some numbers over the course of the first few phases of the MCU, it’s almost impossible to hang a hard figure on him given his behind-the-scenes secret agent proclivities. We can assume it’s fairly high, as are Black Widow’s and Hawkeye’s, given their own shadowy pasts. All three have no doubt been called upon to terminate others with extreme prejudice in the line of duty. In addition, Hawkeye’s activities during the blip, when he took on the identity of Ronin and began killing his criminal adversaries, undoubtedly racked up a considerable kill count as well.
The Witch and The Android
Wanda Maximoff and her android paramour Vision were a relatively benign presence in the MCU when it came to deadly force up until recently. The two never really purposely took life, although Vision did eventually destroy Ultron. Wanda was inadvertently the cause of several Wakandan workers’ deaths in Lagos while attempting to contain an explosion set off by Crossbones. Unfortunately, when Wanda was forced to destroy the Mind Stone and Vision himself at the end of Infinity War, things got a bit dramatic.
The God
Thor is easily one of the most powerful original Avengers, perhaps even the most powerful, period, if you consider that he can outsmart The Hulk — when he’s dumbed down, anyway — and can do all that lightning stuff. Thor also comes from a martial background and is a warrior of the Asgardian tradition, having fought many battles over the long years of his life. Thor states in Avengers: Infinity War, “I’m fifteen hundred years old. I’ve killed twice as many enemies as that.” Which would give him a kill count of at least three thousand, not including any member of Thanos’ forces that he may have taken out during Avengers: Endgame.
The Green Rage Monster
While we never really see Hulk going out of his way to use deadly force, there is simply no way that his actions since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk haven’t resulted in massive fatalities, even if they were Chitauri. One must admit that if those special forces that took him on in his first MCU film aren’t in permanent traction then they are almost certainly not among the living anymore. And we’re also going to go ahead and say that a lot of the aliens the “other guy” fought in the arena of Sakaar didn’t wind up at the old age home for former space gladiators.
The Billionaire Philanthropist
Yes, Tony Stark saved the universe and restored countless billions to life but before that? Let’s just say Old Shellhead was practically such a one-man angel of death it’s amazing that Thanos himself didn’t fall in love with him on the spot. We should remember that Stark, before he saw the light, was one of the world’s single largest arms manufacturers. And once he did see the light, he wasn’t shy about using deadly force against anyone he considered a bad guy. Tony decimates the forces of the Ten Rings in escaping his captivity in Iron Man and then returns to deal even more damage to the extremist group. At the end of The Avengers, Stark uses a nuclear device to destroy a city-sized ship of Chitauri — an act that pretty much takes out their remaining forces on Earth as well. Even Stark’s attempt at making a safer world, Ultron, resulted in epic amounts of collateral damage for the people of Sokovia (that had already been battered by the explosive ordnance he developed). Considering he pretty much overshot Thor’s kill count in just a few decades, maybe it’s lucky he got to redeem himself by making that snap?