We're bringing up the holographic schematics and outlining how Tony Stark goes from a genius
weapons designer with no heart to Iron Man, a self-sacrificing superhero with a heart
of gold.
This is the entire Iron Man MCU timeline, finally explained.
Consider it all the proof you need that Tony Stark has a heart.
So let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?
Tony Stark basically comes out of the womb a genius.
At age 4, he builds a circuit board.
At age 6, he builds a V8 engine.
By 17 years old, he graduates summa cum laude at MIT, and seems poised to take over Stark
Industries whenever his genius father Howard feels ready to pass the buck.
Unfortunately, after Howard's assassination in 1991 by a brainwashed Bucky Barnes who
was working as the Winter Soldier his partner Obadiah Stane takes over Stark Industries
until Tony turns 21 and takes back his company.
From there, it's a wild ride of building new technology and weapons for the American military
for the next decade, while ticking off just about everyone in the scientific community.
When viewers officially meet Tony Stark in 2008's Iron Man, he's at a weapons exhibition
in Afghanistan to showcase "The Jericho," a missile system that uses repulsor technology
to increase effectiveness.
"For your consideration… the Jericho."
On the way back from a successful presentation, Tony is kidnapped by a terrorist organization
known as the Ten Rings that want him to build them their own Jericho missile.
The explosive kidnapping leaves Tony with some shrapnel buried near his heart, kept
temporarily at bay with the use of an electromagnet powered by a car battery.
With his fellow captive Ho Yinsen, Tony upgrades the electromagnet in his chest into an arc
reactor to keep his heart safe.
Then he builds his first suit of armor: the Mark I a clunky mobile suit packed full of
weaponry which he dons to escape the Ten Rings.
Sadly, Ho Yinsen doesn't survive the escape.
With his dying breath, he begs Tony to do something important with his life.
"Thank you for saving me."
"Don't waste it — don't waste your life."
Nothing like a near-death experience and the tragic passing of the dude who saved your
life to really shake up your core principles, huh?
"Effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark
International."
. Obadiah's against the decision and so is Tony's best friend Colonel James "Rhodey"
Rhodes.
Unfortunately, Tony's new conscience comes with a cost; the board of Stark Industries
basically ousts Tony and it turns out that Obadiah's been playing both sides, both in
terms of the Stark Industries board and the global weapons market.
He actually led the board's betrayal, and he's been selling Stark Industries tech to
terrorist groups the whole time.
Without actual control over Stark Industries and knowing that plenty of his tech is already
out in the world, Tony upgrades his Iron Man suit to be sleeker and more colorful, and
embarks on a quest to take down any terrorist groups using his weapons.
After a successful mission, Tony makes a plan with his secretary, Pepper Potts, to hack
into Stark Industries and find out where the rest of his weapons have gone.
However, Obadiah incapacitates Tony, steals the arc reactor in his chest, and places it
in a suit of his own design that's inspired by Tony's first one.
Only… his is bigger.
A lot bigger.
"I love this suit!"
Tony replaces his missing arc reactor with the prototype that he'd saved from the desert
and suits up to battle against Obadiah's "Iron Monger."
He defeats Obadiah with some help from Pepper of course saves the day, and then announces
to the world that there's no secret identity needed:
"I am Iron Man."
While Tony's onstage admitting that he really is Iron Man, half a world away, Anton Vanko
passes away after telling his son Ivan that Tony's life should have been his.
Ivan uses an old blueprint of the arc reactor designed by his father and Howard Stark in
order to build a replica of the super-battery.
Six months later, Tony's turned his newfound superhero celebrity into an excuse to bring
back the Stark Expo, as well as take credit for basically every good thing that's happened
in America since Iron Man appeared.
Predictably, Tony's subpoenaed to appear in front of Congress to defend his right to bear
the world's biggest armory.
"... if your priority was actually the well-being of the American citizens — "
"No, my priority is to get the Iron Man weapon turned over to the people of the United States
of America."
"Well… you can forget it."
Tony talks his way out, but he learns that Justin Hammer and Hammer Industries are trying
to fill the void left by Stark Industries after they left the weapons game… which
includes trying to copy the Iron Man suit and failing pretty spectacularly.
Meanwhile, Tony's got problems of his own: he's suffering from palladium poisoning from
the continued use of his arc reactor.
Tony names Pepper the new CEO of Stark Industries, while Ivan finishes his arc reactor-powered
Whiplash outfit.
Ivan attacks Tony during a race in Monaco, but Tony's able to suit up and defeat him.
Justin Hammer gets Ivan out of jail, and the two agree to team up to take down Tony Stark
and Stark Industries.
"You need my resources someone behind you.
A benefactor.
I'd like to be that guy."
Suffering from palladium poisoning and flush from his victory over Whiplash, Tony goes
off the deep end during his birthday party.
He puts on the Iron Man suit as a party trick and starts blasting away, only for Rhodey
who's looking a teensy bit different, this time around to show up in another one of Tony's
suits to try and stop him.
"Get out."
Tony and Rhodey battle it out to a draw, and Rhodey flies off to give the "War Machine"
suit to the U.S. military.
Hammer gets the job of outfitting it with new weapons, while Nick Fury, the head of
S.H.I.E.L.D., gives Tony a firm talking to about how he needs to grow up and figure out
how to fix his palladium poisoning.
After viewing a heartfelt recording from his father, Tony figures out that Howard had designed
a replacement for palladium in the '70s, but lacking the technology to build the new element,
he buried the design in the schematics for the Stark Expo.
"What is and always will be my greatest creation… is you."
Tony discovers it, builds the new element, and upgrades his suit just in time to interrupt
Ivan's master plan: he's built a fleet of Iron Man-esque drones for Hammer Industries
that only he controls, as well as remote control over Rhodey's War Machine armor.
With the help of Happy Hogan and Natasha Romanoff, who had been working undercover at Stark Industries
under the name Natasha Rushman, Tony frees Rhodey from Ivan's control, and the two of
them defeat Whiplash together.
With the day saved, Rhodey keeps the War Machine armor, while Tony accepts a role as a consultant
for the Avengers Initiative from Nick Fury.
Tony next appears in the post-credits scene for 2008's The Incredible Hulk which takes
place around the same time as the events of Iron Man 2 telling General Thaddeus Ross that
a "team" is being put together.
That "team" is the Avengers, which Tony officially joins in 2012's The Avengers, after Loki steals
the Tesseract from Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.
Tony teams up with Captain America and Black Widow to capture Loki in Germany.
After the team nabs Loki, Thor shows up to scuffle with Cap and Iron Man before agreeing
to team up against whatever Loki's plotting.
The team heads to the S.H.I.E.L.D.
helicarrier, where Tony and Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk, get to work analyzing Loki's
mind-controlling scepter.
Loki's henchmen including a hypnotized Hawkeye ambush the Helicarrier, freeing the trickster
god and sending the Avengers team into disarray.
The team comes back together just in time for a massive battle in New York, centered
around Stark Tower where Loki's attempting to open a rift to bring in an invading force
of alien Chitauri warriors.
The Avengers stem the tide, the World Security Council launches a nuclear missile, and Iron
Man drags the missile through the wormhole into the Chitauri fleet, seemingly sacrificing
his life to destroy the invaders.
Luckily, he's totally fine.
Kinda.
"Alright.
Hey!
Alright.
Good job, guys.
Let's just… not come in tomorrow.
Let's just take a day."
In Iron Man 3, which takes place six months after The Avengers, it's revealed that Tony
Stark is definitely not fine.
He's nearly crippled with anxiety following his excursion through the wormhole and the
Battle of New York.
In the meantime, he's dealt with his manic energy by investing in Damage Control, an
organization originally created by S.H.I.E.L.D. to store dangerous artifacts, and spending
his free time building dozens of Iron Man suits in case he ever needs more firepower
for a future earth-shattering crisis.
One obvious crisis that doesn't take long to pop up is the Mandarin, a mysterious terrorist
leader who's been supposedly instigating bombings throughout the world.
"You know who I am.
You don't know where I am.
And you'll never see me coming."
After Happy Hogan is injured in one of the Mandarin's bombings, Tony calls the Mandarin
out which leads to Tony's house getting blown up.
Tony flees to Tennessee, where he meets Harley Keener, a young boy with a gift for engineering.
Together with Harley, Tony fixes up his suit and learns where the Mandarin is hiding.
Unfortunately, there's a bigger game at work: The Mandarin is just an actor playing a part
designed by Aldrich Killian and Maya Hansen to give a narrative for their failed Extremis
tests.
After unraveling a conspiracy involving the vice president and Killian's plot to kill
the president, Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper are able to defeat Killian and save the day.
Tony undergoes heart surgery so he no longer needs the arc reactor in order to live, and
seemingly retires from the hero business.
Haha yeah right!
Tony Stark doesn't actually end up retiring, since he's right back in the Avengers lineup
in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron on the hunt for HYDRA leader Baron Strucker.
Iron Man flies into the castle where he's hiding and gets mind-zapped by Wanda Maximoff,
one of two super-powered siblings groomed by Strucker for his evil plans.
While under Wanda's spell, Tony sees a vision of his fellow Avengers dead and a Chitauri
army headed for Earth.
Once he wakes up, Tony does what he always does when confronted with a possibly terrible
future: he builds a suit of armor.
This time, however, it's not a literal suit; instead, Tony wants to build, quote, "a suit
of armor around the world," which is basically an artificial intelligence that can protect
Earth from anything.
Tony and Bruce crack the code on making it, and together, they create the AI dubbed Ultron
with the help of the Mind Stone in Loki's scepter.
Yeah… that's when everything pretty much falls apart…
"Who sent you?"
"I see a suit of armor around the world."
"Ultron."
"In the flesh."
Determining that human beings are the problem with the Earth, Ultron tries to destroy the
world with the help of the Strucker children, Wanda and Pietro.
The Avengers show up to stop him, of course, but Wanda unleashes another one of her telepathic
attacks against nearly the entire team, which leads to the Hulk going on a rampage that
only Tony and his Hulkbuster armor can stop.
After that, it all comes to a head in the fictional country of Sokovia, as Tony builds
Vision, yet another artificial intelligence, using the Mind Stone and his J.A.R.V.I.S.
program as a personality matrix.
Together, the Avengers and Vision save the day, Ultron is blown up, and Tony quits the
team at the end of the film.
"I will miss you, Tony."
"Yeah?
Well, it's time for me to tap out."
While the Avengers are doing their business, Tony's trying to cultivate a new breed of
entrepreneurs by paying off the tuition fees of every single MIT student in 2016's Captain
America: Civil War.
His generosity comes under a dark cloud, though, when he runs into Miriam, the mother of a
young man who died in Sokovia during the Ultron event.
"His name was Charlie Spencer.
You murdered him.
In Sokovia."
She reads Tony the riot act about his lack of responsibility, and when General Ross later
shows up to suggest that the Avengers come under the official purview of the United Nations,
Tony supports it.
Steve Rogers, however, is very much against the Sokovia Accords, and the two men struggle
to reconcile their differences.
Bucky, the Winter Soldier, is freed from custody by Helmut Zemo as part of an extremely complicated
plan to avenge the death of Zemo's own family in Sokovia.
Steve gathers a team to help Bucky evade capture, while Tony gets his own team together, consisting
of Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Black Panther, and Spider-Man.
A scuffle with Steve's team at the airport turns serious when War Machine is crippled
by an errant blast from Vision, which sends Tony into serious mode.
He arrests Steve's team minus Bucky and Cap, who've escaped sends his own team home, and
pursues Cap and Bucky to Siberia alone.
Zemo's plan comes to a head when Tony discovers that his parents actually died at Bucky's
hand rather than in a car accident.
After a brutal battle, Cap and Bucky escape, minus Cap's shield, but Cap gives Tony a cell
phone with his number on it if a time comes that they ever need to reunite against a greater
threat.
Spoiler alert: They will.
Two months after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Tony's biggest headache is fending
off Peter Parker's desire for his mentorship.
Peter's increasingly desperate to get Tony's attention once the younger hero discovers
that the Vulture, a weapons-dealing supervillain, has been selling high-tech weaponry he scavenged
from the wreckage of the Chitauri invasion.
Iron Man bails Spider-Man out twice, first with the help of a remote-controlled drone,
and the second time in person, trying to convince Peter to slow down and be a local hero before
looking to join the Avengers.
After the second time, when Iron Man's intervention is the only thing that keeps the Staten Island
ferry from sinking, Tony confiscates the high-tech suit he'd given Peter.
"I just — I just wanted to be like you!"
"And I wanted you to be better.
OK, it's not working out — I'm gonna need the suit back."
Even without the suit, Peter can't help but be a hero, and he ultimately stops the Vulture
from stealing a shipment of Stark tech.
As a reward, Tony gives Peter the offer he's been begging for: a chance to join the Avengers
and get a brand new Iron suit.
"When you're ready, why don't you try that on, and I'll introduce the world to the newest
official member of the Avengers: Spider-man."
Peter surprisingly turns him down, and Tony, looking for a way to distract the reporters
from an announcement that's suddenly no longer happening, proposes to Pepper Potts.
When Avengers: Infinity War begins, Tony is happily married to Pepper and having dreams
about their child.
Their touchy-feely small-talk is interrupted when Doctor Strange arrives to request Tony's
help in repelling the invasion of Thanos' Black Order, who have come to Earth in search
of the Infinity Stones that Thanos needs to wipe out half of the universe.
"Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."
Strange and his Time Stone are kidnapped by Thanos' henchman Ebony Maw; Tony Stark and
Spider-Man, newly decked out in his Iron Spider outfit, hitch a ride on Maw's spaceship.
After freeing Strange and blasting Maw into space, Tony, Peter, and Doctor Strange head
to the planet Titan to prep for Thanos' pursuit.
There, they run into Guardians of the Galaxy members Peter Quill, Drax, Mantis, and Nebula.
A plan is hatched… and then Thanos arrives to turn that careful plan into ashes.
With the rest of his allies down, Tony uses the full force of his nano-technology-powered
suit to draw a single drop of blood from Thanos before the Mad Titan stabs him through the
abdomen with Tony's own sword.
Doctor Strange gives up the Time Stone to save Tony's life, leaving Thanos to quickly
complete his Infinity Gauntlet and snap half the universe into non-existence.
Tony survives, but Peter Parker turns to dust in his arms, and only he and Nebula are left
alive on Titan, seemingly with no way home.
After Thanos' devastating victory, Nebula and Tony leave Titan in Quill's ship, but
they don't have the supplies or the fuel to actually make it all the way back to Earth.
Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, intercepts their ship and gives them a lift home.
Once he arrives, Tony realizes that his 50/50 odds of everyone in his life surviving came
out pretty well: Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey all survived the Snap.
For the next five years, the only thing on Tony's mind is building a life for himself,
Pepper, and their young daughter Morgan, as Tony finally manages to retire the way he
kept promising he would.
Or at least he retires until Scott Lang reappears from the Quantum Realm with a theory that
they could go back in time and save everyone who died because of Thanos.
"What if there was a way that we could enter the quantum realm at a certain point in time,
but then exit the quantum realm at another point in time and exit in a certain point
in time?
like… like before Thanos."
After some hemming and hawing, Tony builds a working time machine model, rejoins the
Avengers, returns Cap's shield, and organizes a strike team of the surviving Avengers to
go back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones and build a new gauntlet before Thanos destroys
them in the present.
The mission goes smoothly, and Tony even gets a chance to have a heart-to-heart with his
dad in the past.
"Howard… everything's gonna be alright.
Thank you… for everything."
From there, all it takes is one snap of Hulk's mighty fingers to bring everyone back.
However, a past version of Thanos battles his way to the future, and only Tony Stark,
by sacrificing his life to use a new Infinity Gauntlet, can finally get rid of him.
Tony Stark gives his life to erase Thanos and his world-conquering army from the past,
finally making good on Ho Yinsen's plea that he not waste his own life.
He dies, and most of the MCU lives on.
But just because Tony Stark dies doesn't mean that his story dies with him; Tony leaves
three extremely qualified members of the next generation to succeed him.
His daughter, Morgan Stark, takes after him in a number of ways, and a genius-level intellect
seems to run in the family.
His young mentee, Peter Parker, grew up with a hero worship of Tony Stark and spends most
of Spider-Man: Far from Home trying to live up to the legend of Iron Man.
Finally, Harley Keener, the young boy that Tony related to in Iron Man 3, appears at
Tony's funeral, signifying that the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't forgotten Tony's
first young protégé.
Even before the next generation is able to take on the weight of the legacy he leaves
them, Rhodey and Pepper both have high-tech battle suits and a knack for doing the right
thing.
Just because Tony Stark has passed into the great beyond doesn't mean that the legacy
of Iron Man won't continue to reverberate throughout the MCU going forward.
And remember: There's no need to cry for Tony.
He knew the hero gig:
"Part of the journey is the end."
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