Issue #3: Sandy's Reflections on Iron Man 2 (2010)

I grumbled a bit about watching this movie, for although I love Pepper, Happy, Natasha, and of course, Tony, I don’t watch this film often—probably because the party scene makes me uncomfortable, fighting with Rhodey is just sad, and Tony makes an ass out of himself (even more than usual). Of course, he’s having a bit of a mental breakdown as he contemplates his life…or should I say his impending death? This seems understandable for a man who doesn’t emote well, often using snark and wit as shields to avoid sharing real emotion. He tries several times to tell the person most important to him that he is dying (Pepper, naturally), first by talking about legacy and bequeathing his company to her, making her CEO, and second, by making her an omelette and trying to get her to not fly home and instead “recharge” somewhere with him on an impromptu vacation. However, the words don’t come out, and he is left to keep wallowing in his despair before a video of his dead father nudges him to figure out how to make a substitute for the palladium that powers his arc reactor.

My first talking point, then, was going to be that I don’t like this film. However, I think that watching it from a critical perspective really helped me “see” Tony better. I think he is often knocked for not having emotion or layers. He’s the king of one-liners, and while Ant-Man or Spider-Man are more of the comic relief, I don’t think that Tony gets enough credit for just how much he’s grown since the first film. And I found much more in this story this time around to enjoy (though the party scene still makes me cringe). 

However, that’s not what I want to really write about. It’s interesting that in a film that hinges on this emotional rollercoaster of Tony’s life (or death), I want to talk about the two women in the film: Pepper and Natasha. They are set up interestingly, and watching IM and then IM2 back-to-back really allowed me to compare how Pepper was drawn in this film, especially with the addition of a new female character. Would they be competing for Tony’s affection? Perhaps one of my favorite scenes includes the Desk Set-like banter between Pepper and Tony when he first sees Natasha: 

Tony: [Sitting down next to Pepper] Who is she?

Pepper: She is from legal. And she is potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that.

Tony: I need a new assistant, boss.

Pepper: Yes, and I’ve got three excellent potential candidates. They’re lined up and ready to meet you.

Tony: I don’t have time to meet. I need someone now. I feel like it’s her.

Pepper: No it’s not.

Happy: You ever boxed before?

Natalie: I have, yes.

Happy: What, like, the Tae Bo? Booty Boot Camp? Crunch? Something like that? [Natalie’s face shows brief annoyance at his statement before Tony distracts her]

Tony: How do I spell your name, Natalie?

Natalie: R-U-S-H-M-A-N.

Pepper: What, are you going to Google her now?

Tony: I thought I was ogling her. [Brings up Natalie’s file on table which doubles up as a computer. He has computers on everything.] Wow. Very, very impressive individual.

Pepper: You’re so predictable, you know that?

Tony: She’s fluent in French, Italian, Russian, Latin. Who speaks Latin?

Pepper: No one speaks Latin.

Tony: No one speaks Latin.

Pepper: It’s a dead language. You can read Latin or you can write Latin, but you can’t speak Latin.

Tony: Did you model in Tokyo? ‘Cause she modelled in Tokyo.

Pepper: Well…

Tony: I need her. She’s got everything that I need. [Camera is now on Natalie and Happy, Natalie looking over, hearing what Tony is saying]

Happy: Rule number one, never take your eyes off your opponent. [He goes to take a swing, she grabs his hand and flips him over, legs over his head.]

Pepper: Oh, my God! Happy!

Tony: That’s what I’m talking about.

Happy: I just slipped.

Tony: You did?

Happy: [Who looks a little like he’s in pain] Yeah.

Tony: Looks like a TKO to me. [Rings bell; Natalie leaves ring]

Natalie: Just… I need your impression.

Tony: You have a quiet reserve. I don’t know, you have an old soul.

Natalie: I meant your fingerprint.

Tony: Right.

Pepper: So, how are we doing?

Tony: Great. Just wrapping up here. Hey--you’re the boss.

Natalie: Will that be all, Mr Stark?

Tony: No.

Pepper: Yes, that will be all, Ms Rushman. Thank you very much. [She leaves. Tony turns to Pepper]

Tony: I want one.

Pepper: No.

What is fascinating about deconstructing this scene is that it sets up many different facets to Nat: She can multi-task, she has an impressive resume of skills, and she is skilled as a boxer—hinting at her super-spy status that we viewers were in-the-know about before the characters in the film. In addition, adding another strong female character helps shade in the portrait of Pepper as well. She could have easily become shrewish or jealous; or she could have launched herself at Tony to try to divert his attention from Natalie. However, her character is drawn differently. While she originally says no to his desire to “have” Natalie, she acquiesces, and we see in the next scene that Natalie has been hired as his assistant. (We aren’t privy to whether or not the other candidates Pepper refers to get interviews or not.) Instead, Pepper becomes a completely different version now: A powerful CEO in charge of Stark Industries. 

So, where the does that leave Natalie aka Natasha aka Black Widow? What’s interesting is that Natalie has many scenes in this film, ripe to set up a storyline of her own, giving just enough backstory in the scene I describe above to show that she has many skills. In the Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide, the comic version of her character “was code-named the Black Widow and sent to the USA to spy on Tony’s Stark’s (Iron Man’s) company, but met Hawkeye, who convinced her to leave her Soviet masters.” In addition to all her spy skills, she has powers: “a version of the Super Soldier Serum keeps the Black Widow in peak condition” (22). While this is never addressed in the MCU, it adds even more layers that they could have explored in the nine years between IM2 and Avengers: Endgame.

But back to my question: where does this film leave Natalie? While she and Pepper actually get along and discuss work, passing the Bechdel Test, we just don’t get enough of her after this film. She continues as the third wheel, a back-up player in Avengers and in Age of Ultron a misguided love interest for Bruce Banner. Almost every interview I could find from 2010’s PR mentioned her skin-tight catsuit, such as Matt Price’s expose in The Oklahoman (https://oklahoman.com/article/3457457/scarlett-johansson-is-the-black-widow-in-iron-man-2). There’s so much more to her than just how great she looks in her iconic outfit.

In Vanity Fair’s “How Avengers: Endgame Failed Black Widow,” Bradley argues that (spoiler alert!) while her sacrifice could be seen as noble, “it was a hasty exit for a long-sidelined heroine who has for years deserved better” (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/04/avengers-endgame-black-widow-death-scarlett-johansson).We will finally get her backstory—but it feels a bit hollow considering that her character has no future story, unless there’s still another surprise up the execs’ sleeves at Marvel. Viewing Iron Man 2 now, I got to really enjoy seeing all these crumbs that Marvel enticingly laid out…only to, at the end, feel a bit of disappointment that we didn’t get to see those stories or feel like her character development got more consideration than her outfits or hairstyles.

Issue #3: Alex's Reflections on Iron Man 2 (2010)

The Unisphere in Flushing, New York is destroyed during this film’s climactic fight scene where Iron Man (Robert Downy Jr.) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) fight Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) at the Stark Expo, a blatant homage to the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In fact, nearly all of the Stark Expo is wrecked as civilians flee in terror from Iron Man-esque drones programmed to kill Tony Stark. It is a fitting end to a story that questioned the place of Iron Man in the modern world and how Tony Stark’s technology could be perverted if it fell into the wrong hands. However, the destruction of the Unisphere stuck with me.

 

At Disney World, there is a ride in Tomorrow Land called The Carousel of Progress. Patrons simply sit in a curved theater that turns every few minutes with depictions of everyday life being presented for each decade. The point of the show is to present how life changes from decade to decade and how technology has helped enhance life. Additionally, each portion of the show ends with the same song: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day.” This entire exhibit was taken from the 1964 New York World’s Fair and placed in Disney World for posterity. It is a simple experience that stands no chance against any of the other rides at Disney World, but its importance and message cannot be dismissed. Everyone needs to be constantly reminded that tomorrow is beautiful and waiting for us. If the fictional and non-fictional worlds can be cross-referenced for a moment, then that very same Carousel of Progress may have been a part of Tony Stark’s childhood as well. 

 

Being the son of a highly successful tech tycoon in the 1960s, Tony Stark would have, undoubtedly, been to the New York World’s Fair in 1964. World Fairs used to house the newest and most innovative technologies for the world to experience before they became commonplace. And again, to satiate my passion for baseball (and specifically the New York Mets), the 1964 World’s Fair also celebrated the opening of Shea Stadium, one of the early dual-purpose stadiums in American sports. Regardless, the World’s Fair would have stood as one of Tony Stark’s defining moments as a young man.

 

Even the depiction of Howard Stark, Tony’s father, is ripped right out of ABC’s The Wonderful World of Disney with Howard Stark being filmed exactly as Walt Disney was filmed throughout the 1950s and 1960s television show. In the middle of the film, Nick Fury provides Tony Stark with old footage and blueprints from his father in order to help him synthesize a new element. In old 8mm footage of his father, Howard Stark touts the creation of the Stark Expo saying, “Everything is achievable through technology: better living, robust health, and for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace.” The parallels between Howard Stark and Walt Disney are profound from the design of their offices to the models of cities they reference. But again, the themes of “tomorrow” and “progress” are present.

 

This leads back to the end of the film where the Stark Expo, the same that Walt Dis…I mean Howard Stark had declared would be the foundation for progress and peace, is completely destroyed. All of the work and all of the progress that had been celebrated over decades had been wiped out by Iron Man fighting killer drones. Those drones needed to be stopped, of course, but the destruction of that expo gave Tony a chance to reinvent himself. It served as the end of Howard Stark’s legacy and the beginning of Tony Stark’s. The destruction of The Stark Expo, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s World’s Fair, is Tony Stark’s “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”

Issue #3: Gian's Reflections on Iron Man 2 (2010)

There’s this awful scene in Iron Man 2 (2010). Tony Stark gets drunk at his birthday party while wearing the armor. He falls over with a bottle in his hand. Then he tells everyone he is peeing in his suit. Pepper Potts tries to get him to end the party, but instead he tells her to leave and, as he waves his hand toward the door, he accidentally blasts a glass wall panel with his repulsor ray. When the crowd cheers, he responds by having women throw champagne bottles into the air so he can blast them.

I have to say I really hate this scene. My fellow MCU blogger Sandy hates it too. The scene is stupid, disgusting, childish. How could anyone wearing the most advanced weapons system in the world, act so stupidly? I originally thought that director Jon Favreau had totally screwed up when he shot this. I felt he was making fun of Stark, going for cheap laughs.

But, watching the film again, I was reminded by MCU blogger Alex of this:

Iron Man #128 published in 1979. The issue was written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton and illustrated by John Romita, Jr., Bob Layton, and Carmine Infantino. In 1979, I was 12 years old. I collected Iron Man comics because I liked his suit, so I bought issue 128 off a rack at Dick’s Grocery Store.

And I hated that issue. Superheroes did not get drunk. They were not alcoholics. They were good and they saved people. I knew Spider-Man had girlfriend problems, but who didn’t? I couldn’t even get a girlfriend. But alcoholism? That just wasn’t right. Tony’s drinking problem eventually leads to him losing control of Stark Industries and later his armor. In the condensed storytelling of the time, Stark becomes an alcoholic, quits drinking, relapses, and then kicks the habit for good, all in one issue. “Thank goodness!” is what my 12-year-old self thought. “Let’s get back to some real superhero stories.” But that iconic cover has stayed with me all these years and, of course, I still own the issue!

Ironically, although Iron Man 2 raises the specter of Stark’s drinking habits, the writers don’t make him an alcoholic. Could the comics writers of the 1970s actually be more daring that today’s superhero film writers? Instead of alcoholism, the screenplay writer of Iron Man 2, Justin Theroux, has Stark dying of blood poisoning caused by the palladium he is using to power the arc reactor that runs his armor.

Knowing he is dying, Stark gives his art collection to the Boy Scouts, his business to Pepper, and one of his suits of armor to Roddy Piper and the U.S. Military. He’s giving things away and giving up until Nick Fury fortunately arrives and sets him on the path to finding a solution to the blood poisoning problem.

As Stark searches for the cure, he finds an old promotional film his father, Howard Stark, had recorded. Stark is startled to find on the reel a recording he has never seen before. Howard actually speaks to Tony who is only a child at the time of the filming. He says the following:

Tony, you are too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I built this [model of a futuristic city] for you, and some day you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is, and always will be, my greatest creation...is you.

At the time, Stark uses his father’s words as inspiration to discover a new element, vibranium (which was retconned in Captain America: The First Avenger). This element helps him power his armor without getting sick. What is more important, though, is that Howard gives Tony the job of saving the world.

As much as I don’t like a superhero being a bumbling drunk, Tony has to hit the bottom of the glass in order to get back up and be the hero his father wanted him to be. As we know, the stakes go far beyond beating Whiplash (played so well by Mickey Rourke) and weaselly arms deal Justin Hammer. Tony’s greatest tasks lie ahead of him. And conquering his despair and self-loathing is the only way for him to reach the level of heroism the world will need from him.