It’s meant to be a cop out! It’s meant to cheapen the story. That’s the point! If he died it would have been a story that was powerful and evoked all of this feeling, but she couldn’t do it to him so she sacrificed the quality of the story to give him a happy ending. It’s supposed to make the audience feel kinda cheated.
Man, Secret War with Nick Fury sending heroes (or in this case maybe skrulls) to infiltrate Latveria against diplomatic policy (maybe as a home on earth instead of suspicion of doom), and it being revealed that Nick had done this AND mind wiped his insurgents. All as a means to introduce DOOM. That would have been an INFINITELY better Bendis script to adapt to this show... Now I'm sad that I've had this thought.
That's kinda the point. Rather than go with the ending that was right for the story she sacrificed the right ending for happiness. It's fucking beautiful. I love it so much.
That one's a fantasy, a fiction created by our writers. It never happened.