With Avengers: Infinity War set to bring together story arcs from almost 20 Marvel movies over
the past decade, there's no denying the sheer force and influence of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe.
But it wasn't always smooth sailing.
Marvel's first misstep was Iron Man 2, which lacked the finesse fans would eventually come
to expect.
Here's how one of the franchise's least-liked movies almost derailed the Marvel Cinematic
Universe.
Weak and clunky
One of the most scattered and unfocused films in the MCU, Iron Man 2 is essentially two
movies crammed into one.
We begin with Tony Stark coming to grips with not just his newfound superhero status, but
the fact that the arc reactor in his chest is slowly poisoning him.
But wait!
There's an old diorama made by Tony's father Howard that holds the key to a new element
that just so happens to be the exact material Tony needs to save his life—and it just
gets sillier from there.
"It tastes like coconut… and metal."
Between scattered action set pieces and bizarre side stories, there are also the easter eggs.
The early days of the MCU saw the studio dropping in nods and references that didn't feel completely
organic to the stories the films were telling.
One of the biggest rotten eggs is the prototype Captain America shield that's laying around
in Stark's workspace, which just feels like an unnecessary Marvel geekout.
Too much, too fast
Tasked with following up the surprising success of Iron Man, the deck was arguably stacked
against Iron Man 2.
This sequel was also the last chance of the MCU to lay some groundwork for The Avengers.
Black Widow, Nick Fury and Agent Coulson were written into supporting roles to establish
the parts they'd eventually play in The Avengers.
"I've got my eye on you."
With Iron Man dealing with a personal crisis and a bad guy, it felt forced to see Nick
Fury waving from the sidelines, trying to shoehorn in the fact that there's a bigger
world out there when we hadn't even met half of the Avengers yet.
It was a classic example of show, don't tell—and Iron Man 2 did a lot of telling.
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to exit the donut."
Plans changed
Though he's since been replaced by Taika Waititi, Joss Whedon, and Shane Black, director Jon
Favreau helped lay the groundwork for the MCU fans know and love today.
As the director of Iron Man, he used his passion and talent to establish a tone that would
carry on through more than a dozen subsequent movies.
Favreau also had his own ideas mapped out for an Iron Man trilogy, planning to explore
the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline from the comics, which focused on Stark's alcoholism.
However, Marvel wanted a more "family-friendly" approach.
"There's the door!"
It seems Favreau may have had more storytelling freedom in the early days—back before Marvel
realized Iron Man was their golden goose.
Marvel's villain problem
Almost every Marvel movie has a problem when it comes to their bad guys.
Marvel puts great thought into its heroes, but their evil foils often leave much to be
desired.
Looking back, we can trace the origin of the MCU's villain problems to Iron Man 2.
Mickey Rourke is one heck of a talented actor, a fact that made his one-note performance
as Ivan Vanko, a gruff Russian thug, all the more frustrating.
"I don't know if you know this, but I don't speak Russian!"
Rourke says he wanted to add
"...other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging
bad guy."
According to him, though, a good chunk of his performance wound up on the cutting room
floor.
Considering how much Marvel was trying to cram into this movie, it's not a surprise
that Vanko's story was cut short.
But it still makes you wonder what could've been.
There was also Vanko's partner, Justin Hammer.
In the comics, Hammer was a legitimate corporate rival to Tony Stark.
In Iron Man 2, he's little more than a punchline, leading to an awkward pairing of slapstick
and menace that was one of the weakest aspects of an already weak film.
Instead of one quality villain, Iron Man 2 gave us two subpar ones.
"They're $125.7M a pop, so…
OH GOSH!"
The sequel trap
When it comes to making a sequel, most studios try to go bigger and badder, and Iron Man
2 fell into that same formula.
It had more characters, more team-ups, bigger set pieces, and wackier villains.
Put simply: Iron Man 2 tried to go too big too fast.
Following the film's release, Robert Downey, Jr. admitted they may have tried too hard
to make the film bigger rather than making it good.
There's little doubt that this problem was exacerbated by all the heavy lifting to lay
the groundwork for The Avengers.
Iron Man 2 had the deck stacked against it from the start.
Is it good?
Marvel Studios is at the top of Hollywood these days, but back when Iron Man 2 arrived,
it was still figuring out how to make all these big movies while keeping the quality
level high.
Iron Man 2 hasn't aged well, either.
As Collider notes:
"The film feels rushed, bloated, unsteady, and unfocused."
"It's a perfect example of everything NOT to do."
It still made a ton of money at the box office, but there's no doubt some fans were turned
off by its convoluted plot, zany bad guys, and excessive foundation-laying.
Marvel learned a lot from this movie, and these lessons likely helped Marvel make The
Avengers such a crowd-pleaser, but we all had to watch this dud to get there.
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