Dave Bautista has proven to be a hugely valuable member of both the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, but arguably the worst mistake he made was displaying expert comic timing as Drax the Destroyer.
Given the character’s name and the sheer size of the ex-professional wrestler, it would have been easy to position him as the enforcer of the group, getting his hands dirty while Star-Lord and Rocket traded barbs and quips. Instead, Drax has ended up with some of the best lines throughout his MCU appearances, including his ad-libbed “Why is Gamora?” in Avengers: Infinity War.
It was established right out of the gate that Thanos’ plan to gather the Infinity Stones had seen him wipe out Drax’s home planet, killing his wife and child in the process. In the comic books, he gets his revenge by killing the Mad Titan, but any chance of that subplot unfolding in the MCU was quickly squashed. Taking to social media, Bautista revealed his frustrations at the potential storyline being dropped entirely, as you can see below.
While Iron Man getting the final say was about as fitting as you could get in terms of capping off the Infinity Saga by bringing things full circle, Drax’s tragic backstory and motivations for wanting to kill Thanos himself were almost completely ignored in both Infinity War and Endgame. Bautista has hardly been shy in voicing his feelings on the number of times Marvel Studios dropped the ball with Drax, so the chances of him reneging on his planned retirement from the role after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 are surely slim to none.
