The heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have a lot of cool weapons and fancy powers, but they aren’t without their flaws. Captain America throws cool arrows, Thor blasts things with his hammer, and the Hulk just punches people really hard. It’s easy to forget that even though they are super-powered, they are still human, and their abilities are limited by the laws of physics.
This is especially true for superheroes who have very fast speeds, such as Quicksilver. As he moves, it becomes very difficult to hit him. This is why he’s able to run into an Ultron drone and destroy it with ease, and why he can hurl Mjolnir at a speed that would kill anyone else.
Even so, there are times when his powers fail him, and that’s what happens in Avengers: Age of Ultron. While fighting off Ultron’s drones in Sokovia, he tries to save a kid that’s getting shot by the robot and runs off the helicarrier late. He’s in a hurry to get to the boy, but on his way he runs right into the line of fire from an Ultron sentry that’s shooting at everyone else. The bullet grazes him, but it’s enough to show that he is not immune to the kinds of harm normal humans are subject to in battle.
While that scene is one of the movie’s most dramatic, it also serves as a metaphor for Quicksilver’s struggle with his powers. He wants to be a hero, but he doesn’t want to have to use his speed to do it. He’s proud of his skills and confident in them, but he isn’t foolish enough to think that they make him impervious to all the unavoidable risks and fortunes that all fighters are subject to.
Ultimately, this is what eventually dooms him. Unlike X-Men’s Quicksilver, who has been using his speed skillfully for years, this MCU version is just beginning to figure out how to control his powers. As a result, he has some rocky moments in the beginning of his MCU tenure.
In the end, however, Hawkeye shows a lot of respect for his teammate. He carries Pietro away to the SHIELD shuttle and even gives him his own last name, Nathaniel Barton. It’s a very moving moment and it’s a shame that Joss Whedon decided to kill off such an appealing character at the end of the film.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with heroes being pushed to darker extremes by their powers. But the majority of the MCU movies affirm the norms of heroes who are reluctant to treat civilians as cannon fodder and who value the lives of those that they are bound to protect. Those kinds of heroes are what makes the MCU work, so we hope that Avengers: Endgame finds a way to bring back Quicksilver’s humanity. In the meantime, we’ll be rooting for him in his quest to reclaim his place among the Avengers.