Guardians Vol. 3: The High Evolutionary’s Fate Opens New Doors for the MCU

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3!

One of the most surprising things about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is how few of the main characters die during the course of the film. Yes, the entire population of Counter-Earth is obliterated by the High Evolutionary, but when it comes to the Guardians themselves, everyone makes it to the finish line intact. And now James Gunn has confirmed that even the High Evolutionary himself survived the final battle. It’s not every day that the MCU spares the life of a major villain rather than killing them off.

Not only is this a refreshing change of pace for this long-running cinematic universe, it’s a sign that the High Evolutionary may still have an important part to play in the MCU’s future. Let’s take a closer look at why this villain needed to survive and what it all means for the rise of mutants in the MCU.

Why the High Evolutionary Survived

You can be forgiven for watching Guardians Vol. 3 and coming away with the impression that the High Evolutionary does die in the climax. When last we see Chukwudi Iwuji’s character, he’s just been resoundingly defeated by the Guardians and left to wallow in misery with his false face ripped off. Because he doesn’t reappear after that point, the logical assumption is that the High Evolutionary dies when his ship explodes. It’s not the most conclusive death scene, but it’s no more vague than Hela’s death in Thor: Ragnarok.

But thanks to Gunn, we know there’s a reason we don’t actually see the High Evolutionary die. It turns out he was carried off the ship by Drax. You can just barely see Drax holding an unconscious body over his shoulder when the Guardians are shown leading the survivors onto Knowhere. According to Gunn, the High Evolutionary’s survival is made more explicit in a deleted scene that will likely surface when the film arrives on home video and streaming.

This is definitely good news for MCU fans, and a reveal that helps make a good sequel that much better. Even ignoring the untapped potential left with the High Evolutionary as a character, his survival is key in capping off Rocket Raccoon’s arc in the film. Rocket could have taken the Batman Begins approach to dealing with his creator – “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you.” But leaving a villain to their fate isn’t the same as actively saving them from death. Rocket can’t truly claim the moral high ground unless he ensures that the High Evolutionary lives to answer for his crimes. 

Rocket can’t truly claim the moral high ground unless he ensures that the High Evolutionary lives to answer for his crimes.

Gunn said as much on Twitter, writing: “It’s the whole culmination of Rocket’s journey. His shift comes in that he doesn’t kill him – he goes from being the least empathetic to the most empathetic Guardian. It seems silly & hollow that he’d refuse to kill him & then leave him on an exploding ship.”

As Gunn notes, killing off the High Evolutionary would have done a disservice to Rocket. He may be one of the more detestable villains in the MCU, but Rocket needed a chance to show he had risen above his twisted origins and could honor the memory of his slain friends. Cruelty had to be countered with compassion. And now the High Evolutionary is set up for Act 2 of his MCU journey.

The High Evolutionary’s and Mutants in the MCU

Even ignoring the needs of Rocket Raccoon’s story in Guardians Vol. 3, it would have been a shame to write the High Evolutionary out of the picture so soon. This is a villain with close ties to a number of Marvel heroes. Introducing and killing him in a Guardians movie would have prevented the MCU from ever taking advantage of those relationships.

If nothing else, it would be a shame to kill off the High Evolutionary without delving into his connections to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. In the comics, he’s fundamentally tied to the origins of these twin Avengers. He even built his base of operations on Mount Wundagore, the cursed mountain previously seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The currently accepted origin story for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch holds that the twins aren’t mutants or the children of Magneto, but were instead experimented upon by the High Evolutionary as infants. 

Even after WandaVision, we still don’t have a full picture of Wanda and Pietro’s MCU origin story or how they acquired their powers. We know Wanda had magical abilities prior to being subjected to Hydra’s experiments. The High Evolutionary even makes a passing mention of having visited Earth in Guardians Vol. 3. Will we learn that he’s the one responsible for creating Scarlet Witch in the first place? There definitely seems to be a story worth telling there, even with Wanda’s apparent death in Multiverse of Madness.

It’s also worth remembering that the High Evolutionary debuted just as the MCU is taking its first steps toward introducing mutants. There are currently a handful of confirmed and potential mutant characters in the MCU, and several fan-favorite characters from the Deadpool movies are joining the MCU in Deadpool 3. The X-Men themselves probably won’t become a major focus until after Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars wrap up the Multiverse Saga, but mutants are clearly on Marvel’s long-term agenda.

It’s enough to wonder how the High Evolutionary might fit into that agenda. As we said, he’s clearly shown an interest in Earth before. What happens when the mutant gene suddenly begins manifesting itself across the world? How would the High Evolutionary react to seeing humanity make a great evolutionary leap forward? That seems like exactly the sort of phenomenon that would draw his attention.

That’s assuming the High Evolutionary won’t turn out to be responsible for the mutant phenomenon in the first place. We may be seeing a handful of mutant characters appear, but there are a lot of unanswered questions about mutants in the MCU. Have they only recently started to appear, or have mutants been hiding in plain sight for decades or even centuries? Was Thanos’ Snap a catalyst which caused more humans to develop the mutant gene?

There are many ways the High Evolutionary could tie into the rise of mutants in the MCU. Perhaps his experiments are responsible for a new generation of mutants. Maybe he created the mutant gene in the first place. Or maybe the High Evolutionary is the reason we haven’t seen more mutants before now. What if he sees mutants as a threat to his own genetic experiments? There are any number of ways this villain could fit into the new X-Men franchise, so it’s a good thing Gunn opted to keep him in play.

The MCU’s Many Dead Villains

The High Evolutionary’s survival is a refreshing change of pace for a cinematic universe that’s normally very cavalier about killing off major villains. The practice dates back to the original Iron Man and the death of Jeff Bridges’ Obadiah Stane, and that’s pretty much stayed the template for the MCU ever since. For every villain like Loki or Thanos that sticks around for multiple movies, there are plenty more like Ultron, Malekith, Ronan, Ego and Hela that debuted and died in the same movie.  

This trend hasn’t exactly slowed in Phases 4 and 5, either. Black Widow may have spared Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster, but Ray Winstone’s Dreykov wasn’t so lucky. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings killed off Tony Leung’s Wenwu. Gorr the God Butcher died in the climax of Thor: Love and Thunder. Even MODOK was written out of the picture in his debut appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

It’s hard not to get the impression that the MCU is robbing itself of a lot of storytelling potential by being so quick to kill off these villains. In the comics, the Mandarin is regarded as one of the greatest Iron Man villains. He’s faced off with Tony Stark countless times over the years, continuing that perpetual conflict between science and mysticism. But despite all the buildup to Wenwu’s MCU debut, he only stuck around for one movie. The same goes for Ultron, a character who certainly belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of Avengers villains. He’s a constant threat to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the comics, yet he was taken out of commission after just one battle in the MCU.

What happens when the MCU continues to eliminate A-List Marvel villains faster than it can replace them? Is there a point where the MCU simply runs out of recognizable antagonists? The Thor franchise, in particular, has quickly burned through a major chunk of the Asgardian rogues gallery, with the sequels killing off Malekith, Kurse, Hela, Surtur (presumably), Skurge and Gorr. How much longer until all the good Thor villains are simply gone?

Worse is the idea that many of these villains never really got their due the first time around. Surtur is a major force to be reckoned with in the Thor comics, a powerful being whose coming generally signifies the end of days for Asgard. Yet Thor: Ragnarok treats Surtur as an afterthought – a silly side character who only appears in a handful of scenes. Or what about MODOK, a major Avengers villain reduced to being Kang’s personal hitman in Quantumania? The problem isn’t that Quantumania treats MODOK like a joke (he is inherently ridiculous, after all), but that MODOK is killed off before being allowed to grow into a more formidable threat. We’re not likely to see him take command of the super-science terrorists at AIM now. 

What happens when the MCU continues to eliminate A-List Marvel villains faster than it can replace them?

As much as Kevin Feige and the minds at Marvel Studios are known for executing far-reaching plans over the course of many years, the MCU’s approach to villains specifically often seems surprisingly short-sighted. Too many great characters are killed off before they ever have a chance to realize their full potential. Too few villains are given the chance to grow and evolve on the level of Loki or Thanos. Frankly, there’s cause for concern as we get closer to the debut of major X-Men and Fantastic Four villains like Doctor Doom, Magneto and Apocalypse. How many of those characters can realistically hope for the Loki treatment?

Still, the High Evolutionary’s survival is an encouraging sign. It would have been easy to kill off this villain like so many before him, yet instead he’s being given the opportunity to play a further role in the MCU. Tenoch Huerta’s Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is another strong example. Namor isn’t a one-and-done villain, but rather a character being set up for even bigger and better things going forward. The MCU rarely devotes the same long-term care and attention to its villains that it does its heroes, but the hope is that this is finally changing in the Multiverse Saga.

For more on the finale of the Guardians trilogy, check out our ending and post-credits scene explained for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Then check out other Guardians Vol. 3 secrets revealed by Gunn, including plans for another villain and the MCU’s first F-bomb.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.