
Iron Man aka Tony Stark is the main protagonist of the Iron Man films (Including The Avengers movie) from Paramount. He is a comic book character. In 2008, Paramount Pictures helped start the MCU with his first film appearance and production. The distribution rights of these films now belong to Disney after they took over distribution rights and purchased pre-2008 rights for distribution with the exception of a Hulk film.
Role in the films (Main series)[]
Iron Man[]
- Main article: Iron Man (film)
In 2010, Stark travels to war-torn Afghanistan with his friend and military liaison Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to demonstrate Stark's new "Jericho" missile. After the demonstration, the convoy is ambushed and Stark is critically wounded and imprisoned by a terrorist group, the Ten Rings. Fellow captive Ho Yinsen, a doctor, implants an electromagnet into Stark's chest to keep shrapnel shards from reaching his heart and killing him.
Stark and Yinsen secretly build a small, powerful electric generator called an arc reactor to power Stark's electromagnet and a suit of powered armor. When the Ten Rings attack the workshop, Yinsen sacrifices himself to divert them while the suit is completed. The armored Stark battles his way out of the cave to find the dying Yinsen, then burns the Ten Rings' weapons in anger and flies away, crashing in the desert. Rescued by Rhodes, Stark returns home to announce that his company will no longer manufacture weapons. In his home workshop, Stark builds a sleeker, more powerful version of his improvised armor suit as well as a more powerful arc reactor.
Stark learns that Obadiah Stane has been engaged in arms trafficking to criminals worldwide, and is staging a coup to replace him as Stark Industries' CEO. Stark, in his new armor, flies to Afghanistan and saves the villagers. Stane ambushes Stark at his home and takes the arc reactor from his chest, revealing that Stane was responsible for Stark's captivity. Stark manages to get to his original reactor to replace it and defeats Stane. The next day, at a press conference, Stark publicly admits to being "Iron Man."
Iron Man 2[]
- Main article: Iron Man 2
Six months later in 2011, Stark's fame has grown and he uses his Iron Man suit for peaceful means, resisting government pressure to sell his designs. He reinstitutes the Stark Expo to continue his father's legacy, but discovers that the palladium core in the arc reactor that keeps Stark alive and powers the armor is slowly poisoning him. Growing increasingly reckless and despondent about his impending death, he appoints Pepper Potts CEO of Stark Industries.
Stark competes in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix and is attacked mid-race by Ivan Vanko, who wields electrified whips powered by a miniature arc reactor. Stark dons his Mark V armor and defeats Vanko, but the suit is severely damaged. At his birthday party, Stark gets drunk while wearing the Mark IV suit. Rhodes dons Stark's Mark II prototype armor and tries to restrain him. The fight ends in a stalemate, so Rhodes confiscates the Mark II for the U.S. Air Force.
Stark discovers a hidden message from his father, a diagram of the structure of a new element, which Stark synthesizes. At the Expo, Stark's rival Justin Hammer unveils Vanko's armored drones, led by Rhodes in a heavily weaponized version of the Mark II armor. Stark arrives in the Mark VI armor to warn Rhodes, but Vanko remotely takes control of both the drones and Rhodes' armor and attacks Iron Man. Stark and Rhodes together defeat Vanko and his drones. After narrowly saving Pepper Potts from a self-destructing drone, they start a relationship.
Iron Man 3[]
- Main article: Iron Man 3
Stark develops PTSD from his experiences during the alien invasion, resulting in panic attacks. Restless, he builds several dozen Iron Man suits, creating friction with girlfriend Pepper Potts. Seven months after the invasion, Happy Hogan is badly injured in one of a string of bombings by a terrorist known only as the Mandarin, Stark issues a televised threat to him, who destroys Stark's Malibu home with helicopter gunships. Stark escapes in an Iron Man suit and crashes in rural Tennessee. His experimental armor lacks sufficient power to return to California, and the world believes him dead.
Stark traces the Mandarin to Miami and infiltrates his headquarters, where he discovers the Mandarin was just an actor named Trevor Slattery. Aldrich Killian reveals himself to be the real Mandarin and captures Stark. He escapes and reunites with Rhodes, discovering that Killian intends to attack U.S. President Ellis aboard Air Force One. Stark saves the surviving passengers and crew but cannot stop Killian from abducting Ellis and destroying Air Force One. Killian intends to kill Ellis on an oil platform on live television. On the platform, Stark goes to save Potts – who had been kidnapped and subjected to Extremis — as Rhodes saves the president. Stark summons his Iron Man suits, controlled remotely by J.A.R.V.I.S., to provide air support. Potts, having survived the Extremis procedure, kills Killian. Stark orders J.A.R.V.I.S. to remotely destroy all of the Iron Man suits as a sign of his devotion to Potts, and undergoes surgery to remove the shrapnel embedded near his heart. He pitches his obsolete chest arc reactor into the sea, musing that he will always be Iron Man.
Role in the film (Crossover)[]
The Avenger[]
- Main article: The Avengers
In 2012, when the Asgardian Loki arrives and begins menacing Earth, seizing the Tesseract from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, Fury activates the Avengers Initiative and Agent Phil Coulson visits Stark to have him review the research of Erik Selvig on the Tesseract. In Stuttgart, Steve Rogers and Loki fight briefly until Tony Stark appears in his Iron Man armor, resulting in Loki's surrender. While Loki is being escorted to S.H.I.E.L.D., Thor arrives and frees him, hoping to convince him to abandon his plan and return to Asgard. After a confrontation with Stark and Rogers, Thor agrees to take Loki to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying aircraft carrier, the Helicarrier.
The Avengers become divided, both over how to approach Loki and the revelation that S.H.I.E.L.D. plans to harness the Tesseract to develop weapons. Agents possessed by Loki attack the Helicarrier, disabling one of its engines in flight, which Stark and Rogers must work to restart. Loki escapes, and Stark and Rogers realize that for Loki, simply defeating them will not be enough; he needs to overpower them publicly to validate himself as ruler of Earth. Loki uses the Tesseract to open a wormhole in New York City above the Avengers Tower to allow the Chitauri fleet in space to invade. Fury's superiors from the World Security Council attempt to end the invasion by launching a nuclear missile at Midtown Manhattan. Stark intercepts the missile, and in an apparent sacrifice of his own life, takes it through the wormhole toward the Chitauri fleet. The missile detonates, destroying the Chitauri mothership and disabling their forces on Earth. Stark's suit runs out of power, and he falls back through the wormhole but the Hulk saves him from crashing into the ground. Stark and the other Avengers capture Loki and Thor takes custody of him.