10 Years Later, Iron Man 3 Is Still the Best Tony Stark Movie

The MCU may currently be on to newer (and more multiversal) pastures, but for the first decade of its existence, Iron Man was the lynchpin of the whole enterprise. Not only did the Armored Avenger kickstart the entire franchise with his first solo film in 2008, but he remained one of its key characters all the way from his origin story to his final sacrifice at the end of Avengers: Endgame. In a way, the first three Phases of the MCU essentially was the story of Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark.

However, while Stark was pivotal to his own solo trilogy, the four Avengers films, and his crossover appearances in Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming, the movie that has stood the test of time as the one most pivotal to him is writer-director Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, which turns 10 this week. The 2013 trilogy closer was divisive with fans for reasons ranging from tone to comic accuracy, but with the benefit of hindsight, it’s also arguably the best MCU entry in terms of how it used Stark as a character. Why is that? Let’s take a look.

Whose Sequel Is It, Anyway?

Nowadays, MCU movies and TV shows paying off storylines and character beats from multiple franchises simultaneously is common, but back in 2013, Iron Man 3 was one of the first ever examples of a movie having to act as a sequel to two films simultaneously. Sure, it’s the third Iron Man movie, so it’s literally a sequel to Iron Man 2. But more substantively, it’s a sequel to The Avengers, which takes precedence both in terms of cultural footprint and this movie’s character journey for Tony, which is a direct response to what he experienced in the 2012 ensemble film. In many respects, Iron Man, The Avengers, and Iron Man 3 make a more coherent trilogy for Stark than Iron Man 1, 2 and 3.

Part of the reason for this is Iron Man 2 is a very scattered film. It is nominally about Tony confronting his toxicity, both literal (his blood is being poisoned by the palladium arc reactor) and metaphorical (his cavalier behavior is making all of his problems worse), but this doesn’t really pay off in any meaningful way through his own actions. His father apparently mapped out a new element that is exactly what Tony needs to fix his heart decades before he’d need it (?), and the villain of the piece, Ivan Vanko aka Whiplash, doesn’t really challenge Tony to change anything about himself, instead posing purely a physical threat to be overcome. In both threads, Iron Man 2 gives Tony an easy way out, which makes the final film largely immaterial to his character development.

In many respects, Iron Man, The Avengers, and Iron Man 3 make a more coherent trilogy for Stark than Iron Man 1, 2 and 3.

Meatier character work about Tony becoming less of an egotist and more of a team player, to the point of being willing to make a genuine sacrificial play, takes place in The Avengers, and that’s the film that Iron Man 3 finds itself paying off more so than its numbered predecessor. Tony’s PTSD and anxiety attacks are a direct consequence of confronting an alien menace in The Avengers, and his ultimate self-actualization as “the mechanic” being more important than the armor he creates is a way to distinguish what type of hero he is in contrast to his fellow Avengers like Captain America or Thor. It also creates an opportunity for Iron Man 3 to perform something of a do-over on Iron Man 2’s flubbed critique of Tony’s character, and being willing to be so tough on its protagonist winds up being one of Iron Man 3’s best attributes.

Armored Aftershocks

“We create our own demons” are the arc words for Iron Man 3, and the movie fully commits to this idea. Aldrich Killian, the Extremis soldiers, and the looming specter of “the Mandarin” all exist as threats to Tony’s life and loved ones because of his ego, specifically because of a single moment of callous dismissiveness toward Killian, one so utterly inconsequential to Tony’s life that he doesn’t even remember it. But it wasn’t inconsequential to Killian; it set him on the path to creating the figurehead of the Mandarin as part of a campaign to seize control of the United States. Even Extremis is partially Tony’s fault, because of a nearly finished equation to stabilize it that he wrote out for Maya Hansen while he was drunk.

This is a stark (hah) contrast to the villains of the first two Iron Man films. In the first film, Obadiah Stane hired the Ten Rings to eliminate Tony purely out of his own greed and belief that he was entitled to control Stark Industries, not because Tony did anything to earn his ire. Ivan Vanko’s hatred for Tony is predicated on an old feud between his father and Howard Stark, so their battle is really more of a legacy conflict than something Tony was responsible for. Even Loki and the invasion of New York factors in here, since Loki is Thor’s enemy, and the larger machinations in The Avengers of how the Chitauri and the Tesseract connect to Thanos have nothing to do with Tony’s actions. In all of his previous MCU appearances, the threats that Tony faces are things that happen to him, not because of him.

Iron Man 3 is where this equation changes. Tony acts like a jerk to Killian? He creates a new supervillain. Tony is obsessed with constantly tinkering in the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion? He fractures his relationship with Pepper. Tony impulsively gives out his home address to the public? The Mandarin’s forces blow it to smithereens. Time and again, Iron Man 3 forces Tony to confront immediate and devastating consequences to his choices, making it a far more effective story about grappling with his toxic persona than the movie that’s ostensibly supposed to be about that. But if Iron Man 3 spends a significant portion of its runtime taking Tony to task, it also provides him the opportunity to grow, and it does so by putting him in his most vulnerable spot yet.

The Man in the (Iron) Suit

One of Iron Man 3’s most interesting creative choices is making Tony Stark, the man without the armor, more of the hero of the film than Iron Man. Compared to the first two films, which go out of their way to depict Iron Man mostly as “cool” and dynamic in the big ticket setpieces, Iron Man 3 runs in the opposite direction. Indeed, many of the film’s action beats highlight the armor’s failures, barely functioning as intended and sometimes being more of a hindrance to Tony than a help. The final battle takes this a step further by treating the various armors like a large collection of ultimately disposable tools compared to the importance of the wearer. While this makes for some of the film’s most visually interesting (and often hilarious) moments, its dramatic function is to highlight Tony’s vulnerability by no longer allowing him to use the armor like a crutch as he has in the past.

In the same way that David Michelinie and Bob Layton’s run on Iron Man’s comic in the early 1980s finally put the focus on Tony Stark as a human being instead of Iron Man as an infallible hero, Shane Black uses the action-comedy template he perfected in films like Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to strip Tony of all of his lifelines. The decision to hone in genre-wise on a (relatively) realistic techno-thriller means that the obvious choices for backup wouldn’t make sense to include. Tony’s not getting a bailout from his new friends in the Avengers or at SHIELD. He can’t even rely on his armor given how often it conks out on him. He does get some help from Rhodey in the finale and Harley Keener in the mid-section, but all of the challenges he faces in Iron Man 3 are ultimately on his shoulders.

His response to that challenge? To double down on being a crafty engineer who can build and repair his way out of any situation. From assaulting the Mandarin’s compound with a bunch of weapons assembled from store-bought items, to recharging the Mark 42 with a car battery (a great nod to what first powered the electromagnet in his heart), to remote-piloting the armor to save the crew of Air Force One, Tony Stark is once again in a cave with a box of scraps, making the most of a bad situation. Tony repeatedly swapping from suit to suit in the finale makes for a refreshing way to approach Iron Man action on screen, but it also visually reinforces that they are extensions of the man underneath, one who is ready to accept that the suits need him, not the other way around. If Iron Man 1 was about Tony choosing to be a force for good instead of destruction, and his role in The Avengers was about him learning how to set aside his ego to work as part of a team, then Iron Man 3 brings everything full circle by having him realize that his individual ingenuity, even if he once used it for personal gain at the expense of others, was always his real superpower. It’s a personal victory more so than a world-saving one, but sometimes those are the most important victories of all.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.