The Marvel Cinematic Universe is always expanding, thanks to new projects arriving in theaters and streaming with a Disney+ subscription. Fans who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order have a ton of love for its characters, especially longtime ones that originated back in Phase One. That includes Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes, who has gone from her to villain and back again. Although his recent comments about the MCU have some fans worried he might be killed off soon.
What we know about Avengers: Doomsday is limited, but Stan is one of many actors who are confirmed to appear. The Russo Brothers are back in the director's chair, and fans are wondering what characters might be killed after how many fatalities were in Infinity War and Endgame. While appearing on the Stronger podcast, Stan spoke about this time in the MCU, sharing:
The Marvel stuff, I’ll always, till the end of time, [feel it] really helped me grow as a person and helped me grow as an actor, and it taught me relationships and [I worked with] Robert Downey [Jr.] and Scarlett [Johansson] and all these people I looked up to. It was a business. It was a family, and it gave me a sense of belonging, and it’s always there for that, but it was only the step one for me.
While Stan gushed about his years in the MCU, a few aspects of these comments gave fans reason to pause. To start, the fact that he's saying playing Bucky was only "step one" has some fan worried he's already looking forward to what's next, outside of upcoming Marvel movies.
Another reason why the above comments have some fans wondering about Sebastian Stan is because of how he's referring to the his MCU career in the past tense. He talks about what it "was" rather than what it "is". Is he subtly signaling the end of his time playing Bucky?
All of this is just a theory at this point, but there's been precedent for lots of MCU deaths in the Avengers movies. In the Russo Brothers' last two titles, they put the kibosh on a ton of characters including Heimdall, Loki, Gamora, Black Widow, and Iron Man. Plus they (temporarily) killed half of all living things. So it would be shocking if no big deaths happened in Doomsday and/or Secret Wars.
On the other hand, Bucky did recently get involved in a new superhero tame. Namely The New Avengers. The ending of Thunderbolts* saw the motley crew announced as the New Avengers, and the full team was confirmed in the Doomsday cast announcement. So it's also possible that Stan isn't going anywhere, and will remain as one of the leaders of that group. We'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
Sebastian Stan's tenure in the MCU is streaming now on Disney+ and he'll appear in Avengers: Doomsday when it hits theaters next December 18th as part of the 2026 movie release list. Hopefully they don't kill off Bucky!
