how at the end of Iron Man 3, we were reassured that Tony Stark would be back.
while for the other MCU heroes, we got this…
… not “Steve Rogers will return” or “Scott Lang will return” or “Peter Parker will return”
and at the end of BP, we see “Black Panther will return in Avengers: Infinty War”
We get their masked identities. Their superhero aliases. Their alter egos.
When we think of Captain America, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Black Panther, etc., we think of them as the heroes who we could rely on to help us, kick ass, and save the day, right?
And what do we think of when we hear the name Tony Stark?
Here, Tony’s actual name, not his alias, is in the same position as the others, reminding us that Iron Man may be powerful, but the true person we can trust to come and save us is Tony Stark. Iron Man has firepower, but Tony has more to offer the world than just his armor. If he ever finds himself in a situation where he doesn’t have a suit, you bet he’ll find another way to save the day.
That’s what he does. He’s a mechanic. He sees a problem and he fixes it. Yeah, he has an awesome suit of armor that helps him kick ass, but that’s just a high tech prosthesis, an extension of himself, an amplification of his true superpower — his brain and his heart.
I feel that we as a fandom are not being sufficiently appreciative of Tony’s explanation of the fight with Ebony Maw being “He’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.”
What I love about that moment is that it shows just how good a communicator Tony is in a combat situation and how accustomed he is, by now, to command. He knew Peter wouldn’t blow him off if he said something ludicrous, so he gave him exactly what he would need to understand the situation in two bare bones sentences.
He said less than a haiku.
He didn’t even have to say which side he and Peter were on, because “from space” and “came to steal” implied that information.
And then when they actually got hold of Strange, all he had to say was “That’s the wizard” and Peter knew a) exactly what was going on and b) exactly what to do.
