Agent Coulson to die in Iron Man 3?

With Joss Whedon in charge of The Avengers , there's always the worry a fairly major character won't make it to the end. And in the Marvel universe that person would seem to be Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson.

“I’ve read this! I’m flattered that people care, but I wish they would stop saying this because they’re going to put it in somebody’s mind!” Coulson told Crave Online when asked if he was worried Whedon might kill him off.

“I’m talking to them about doing Iron Man 3 right now, and somebody’s going 'Maybe Agent Coulson should die,' and I’m like, 'Hey, hey, hey! This is the best job I’ve ever had! Stop talking about killing Agent Coulson off.'”

So is he at least safe in The Avengers ?

“I talked to Joss Whedon early on. I said 'Hey, why is everyone saying this?' And he said, 'Yeah, I’ve done that before. Don’t worry. You’re safe.'”

In fact it was Whedon who gave SHIELD's Agent Coulson such a big role in The Avengers .

“When we were doing the panel for Thor at Comic Con, right before we went on stage Joss Whedon comes over and introduces himself and says, 'I wrote you a really big part in The Avengers , um... Can I introduce you as part of the cast of The Avengers , with Robert Downey, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo? Everyone’s here.' And I was like, 'Yeah, I think that would be okay!'” Gregg said.