Ridiculous. I Don't Paint

 

The original movie that started the whole MCU thing. Not one of Marvel’s more popular characters, but they took a chance anyway. The X-Men and Spider-man movies said that Tony Stark created Magneto’s plastic prison and invented Otto Octavius’ metal arms – both of these theories bit the dust by the way. Anyhoo, Robert Downey Jr crushed this role. His charisma and pure acting prowess gave Tony Stark everything he needed to own the MCU for over 10 years. I’ve seen this movie so many times but was still amazed on my rewatch. This movie paved the way for everything that came afterwards. Everything Doomsday may be came from this movie. Iron Man 2 may have been fixated on legacy, but this movie started it (in retrospect, of course).

 

• I’m not a big streaming fan for my favorite movies, so the DVD is my choice, The previews on the DVD included the original JJ Abrams Star Trek and the Crystal Skull
  
  
• As I said, RDJ is perfect for this role. The drink, the dialogue. Plus AC/DC really fits his character
  
  
• Early 2000’s artifacts: Maxim, MySpace and a digital camera
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Tony literally has a missile land next to him with his name on it. There are parallels to Wanda and Pietro’s origin story: they similarly had a missile crash into their apartment but it didn’t blow up
  
  
• THE 10 RINGS. We learn more about them in Iron Man 3 and Shang Chi. 
  
  
• Howard Stark and his wife died December 16, 1991. The beginning of that chestnut
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Oh, it’s Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, a Colonel in the Air Force. Prior to this movie, it was Howard who was more well known and had a larger salary than Downey. Going a bit weird and complaining about said salary got him replaced with Don Cheadle. I do think it would be great if we saw a Rhodey variant in Secret Wars played by Terrence Howard, though
  
  
• Also, Obidiah Stane. His father’s business partner who had to give a billion-dollar company over to some 21-year-old kid genius. Played by Jeff “The Dude” Bridges
  
  
• We see through the gambling, etc, that Tony Stark is instantly irresponsible and selfish. We also know through the old footage that he’s a genius and that he’s built AI robots (DUM-E and U) that Happy now owns and will play a key role in VisionQuest
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We meet JARVIS (another AI creation that runs Stark Industries). We later find out he was based on a flesh-and-blood human who was the Stark butler and raised Tony with his wife. He also did spy stuff on Agent Carter. We also meet Pepper Potts, played by future GOOP millionaire, occasional airhead and skier Gwyneth Paltrow. And of course, the director, a very young John Favreau as his driver and future forehead of security, Happy Hogan. Looking more like Foggy than Happy at this point (Favreau originally played lawyer Foggy Nelson in Ben Affleck’s Daredevil)
  
  
• First off, Tony has a stripper pole on his jet
  
  
• Tony’s presentation to the military is pure Robert Downey Jr flash and charisma. Also, the Jericho missile is very cool, it’s too bad we don’t see it in any future properties – I guess once Tony shut down his weapons, they never were made again
  
  
• Tony Stark is captured by the 10 Rings and makes an ARC reactor in a cave with a box of scraps. He’s helped by Yinsen, a multi-lingual doctor who helps Stark become a better man. We also meet the main bad guy leader Raza. He’s very ambitious and makes a mysterious appearance in VisionQuest, although I can’t imagine how or why
  
  
• One image that really gets me now that Doomsday is coming out: the mask (very Doom-like in appearance) is steaming hot. In the comics, Victor Von Doom is so impatient he puts a still-steaming mask on his face and burns himself in the process. Could something similar happen in Doomsday, with kidnapping traumas happening to Victor?
  
  
  
  
  
• In his escape from the cave, Tony kills Tom Morello from Rage against the Machine
  
  
  
  
  
• Stark openly displays the peace sign, something he would never do 3 months earlier, as peace would put him out of business
  
  
• We meet for the first time Phil Coulson of SHIELD. They’re some banter about the acronym, despite it being around since 1995 with the events of Captain Marvel
  
  
• Tony shuts down his weapon division during a crazy press conference (with several all-American cheeseburgers), and Obidiah Stane starts to move chess pieces against him in the boardroom (and battlefield)
  
  
• Tony starts working on the Iron Man suit we know and love with lots of holograms and hilarious bits. We see his HUD for the first time, something that will be an ongoing occurrence with a lot of characters
  
  
• “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.” Something we look back on in Endgame
  
  
  
  
  
• Also, something I noticed for the first time here: Tony is drinking green stuff. Did he know already the palladium was affecting him, that drinking it would temporarily counteract the poisoning?
  
  
• We see our first Stan Lee cameo as a Hugh Hefner like character with a pipe, smoking jacket and babes. Also, why is Agent Phil Coulson at a firefighter’s benefit for the super rich?
  
  
• Things are developing between Pepper and Tony but Tony is not only told about the attack on Golmira (Yinsen’s village) but that it’s Obadiah trying to shut Tony out of his own company while selling weapons to terrorists
  
  
• Speaking of selling weapons, Stane sold Jericho missiles to the 10 Rings!
  
  
• Tony destroys his weapons and the terrorists in Golmira. He runs into US aircraft who try to shoot him down
  
  
• We find out that Obadiah contracted the 10 Rings to kill Tony in Afghanistan. Did he sic HYDRA on Howard Stark years before in order to get the company?
  
  
• “TONY STARK BUILT THIS! IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!” We see William Ginter-Rivas getting yelled at, something he flashbacks upon in Spider-man Far From Home
  
  
  
  
  
• We see cool SHIELD toys as Coulson infiltrates Sector 16 at Stark Industries
  
  
• “Next time, baby.” Or not, Terrence Howard
  
  
• Stane and Stark fight on the highway. We see a Roxxon building. We also show Tony catching a car while it’s driving, something that he brings up when Peter Parker does the same thing years later
  
  
• The fight is very Robocop II
  
  
• Obidiah is killed by the giant ARC Reactor (something Howard built after dealing with Zero Matter in Agent Carter)
  
  
• Right before the press conference, Coulson said that it’s not his “first rodeo” when it came to covering things up. The official story is that Stane was killed on vacation due to a plane crash. We find out in Ironheart that not even his son accepts the official story. Also, there’s a Stane building at the college Kate Bishop goes to in Hawkeye, so his legacy lives on without the world knowing all the awful stuff he did. This is deep level shit, stuff that won’t pay off for years in a successful MCU
  
  
• Finally, with no Burger King, the ultimate ad-libbed line: “I am Iron Man."
  
  
• Post-credit scene: Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson, just like in the original Ultimate comics) tells Tony Stark (after he broke into his Malibu mansion and disabled JARVIS) that he's part of a bigger world. The deleted scene of this also mentioned mutants and radioactive spiders