Whedon: "I'd have to have a really good reason, a really great sequence for [Marvel executives] to go, 'We'll cut off a potential franchise, that's fine!' They know as any good studio does, that without some stakes, some real danger, how involved can we get?" We don't just rule it out across the board, but neither is the mission statement 'Who can we kill?' We try to build the story organically and go, 'How hard can we make it on these people?' You go to the movies to see people you love suffer-that's why you go to the movies."
Unless they're Uncle Ben or Bruce Wayne's parents, nobody really stays dead in comics anyway. So I'd love it if Whedon would "kill off" a few heroes, only to bring them back later. And they should make it a character fans really love, too, like Iron Fist. Have him pop up in the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron and get vaporized in the span of seconds. That would be awesome.
Anyway, storyboard artist Federico D'Alessandro, who has been working with Marvel ever since Thor, has released a number of the unused animatics for Iron Man 3 and The Avengers. The Iron Man 3 ones show an alternate version of the final battle, concluding with a more complete "ending" for Ben Kingsley's Mandarin. Whedon has spoken frequently about his early plans to include Janet Van Dyne aka Wasp as part of the Avengers roster, before settling on Black Widow, and a close look at one of these animatics show Wasp in the frame. Keep an eye out for her around the 17 second mark.
