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. In both threads, Iron Man 2 gives Tony an easy way out, which makes the final film largely immaterial to his character development. 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. 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. Part of the reason for this is Iron Man 2 is a very scattered 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. 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. Sure, it’s the third Iron Man movie, so it’s literally a sequel to Iron Man 2. 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.
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