You already know who he is. Genius. Billionaire. Philanthropist. Playboy. The forefather of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios would have gone bankrupt had it not been for the success of Iron Man. The one who made the ultimate sacrifice so save the entire universe from an unstoppable cosmic being. But, before he took on the mantle of Iron Man and a major Avenger, Tony Stark was a witty billionaire MIT graduate who took the helm of his father’s weapons manufacturing business, Stark Industries. After a trip to the Middle East forced Tony to fight for survival against the terrorist organization of The Ten Rings, Iron Man became a reality. The real questions about Iron Man aren’t about whether or not he was a hero or a leader, but instead should be focused on what made Tony the legend that he will be immortalized for being. Iron Man’s influence in certain films built up his mantle as a hero, whilst also growing with his family and teammates.

It started in that cave in Iron Man. Tony had just been bombarded by the Ten Rings, a terrorist organization hired by Obadiah Stane (Tony’s partner at Stark Industries who acted as CEO before Tony was old enough to claim his entitlement) to kill Tony. Instead, the Ten Rings imprisoned Stark, forcing him to recreate one of his most destructive weapons, the Jericho missile. Tony had nearly died, though, with shrapnel nearing his heart about to kill him at any moment, and an electromagnet connected to a battery was keeping the metal just far away enough from Stark’s heart. The cave is where Tony met Yinsen, a scientist whose family was murdered by the Ten Rings, and forced to help Tony. Instead, they built a miniature arc reactor to power the magnet indefinitely, keeping Tony Stark alive and without worry. This arc reactor would also serve as a power source for the Mark 1, the makeshift suit built by Yinsen and Tony so that Tony could fight out of the cave, whilst Yinsen could die and finally reunite with his family. They did just that, and Yinsen’s death was the first factor for Tony, as he saw the destruction caused by his weapons. Tony halted weapons production at Stark Industries and began to build the next suit to establish world peace. Tony’s mission as Iron Man was successful until Obadiah built a massive suit based on the design of the Mark 1 remnants, and caused Tony and Obadiah to fight it out over the massive arc reactor at Stark Industries. Stane in the Iron Monger suit falls through the roof and is shocked to death by the arc reactor, and talks of Iron Man spread throughout the news. S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division) gave Tony a fake alibi and tell the news he knew nothing of who Iron Man truly was. Tony said four words that completely changed the world, and started the cinematic universe: “I am Iron Man”.

Iron Man 2 is a much shorter tale to tell for Tony’s character arc. Importantly, Tony is dying due to palladium (the substance used to power/build the arc reactor in his chest) poisoning. He again sees the effects of his weaponry in bad hands, this time in Anton Vanko, a scientist who worked alongside Howard Stark with the arc reactor, and his son Ivan Vanko who built an electric whip suit, and called himself Whiplash. Whiplash almost kills Tony and destroys a drag race in South America, before Tony wears the Mark V suit, which acted as a suitcase for easy transport. We also saw the debut of Black Widow, who posed as secretary to spy on Tony for S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony faces Congress who tries to apprehend the Iron Man suit whilst Tony’s rival Justin Hammer is introduced, and would later format the stoled Mark 2 suit into War Machine. War Machine is apprehended by Colonel Jame Rhodes while Tony is in the middle of multiple drunken misdemeanors inside the Iron Man suit. Rhodes takes the suit back to the Air Force base, and we meet two new people. Director Nick Fury and Agent Phil Coulson, both of S.H.I.E.L.D. They put Tony on house arrest and some videos of Howard Stark’s failed takes for the Stark Expo. Tony in turn uses this motivation to create a new element, which was suitable to power and sustain the arc reactor. Pepper Potts,  Tony’s former assistant and now new CEO of Stark Industries, and Happy Hogan are at the Stark Expo, where Justin Hammer introduces a fleet of military robots to replace the lives in the armed forces. They go rogue, due to Whiplash hacking them, and Iron Man and War Machine team up to take them down. They then defeat Whiplash who is in a large metal suit, and one with a martyrdom bomb inside of it. Rhodey and Tony evacuate the expo, and Tony snatches up Pepper, brings her to a roof, and confesses his love to her. Tony learns who his friends are, who his allies are, and learns that he is stronger then he thinks.

The Avengers is next, leading to Tony’s trust issues, friendships, and important arcs throughout the movie. Tony and his new team, the Avengers are sent to apprehend Loki, the Nordic god of mischief and brother of Thor. After Loki is caught, his brother Thor tries to capture him to try him is Asgard for his crimes. Instead, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America clash in their first meeting. These two individuals will become Tony’s brothers, standing by him until his untimely death. Tony and the rest of the Avengers clash at the helm of the Helicarrier, Nick Fury’s flying headquarters, while Loki’s minions break him out. Loki then opens a portal for the Chitauri, an alien race with an otherworldly overlord, over Stark Tower. The Avengers valiantly battle them off, with Captain America and Iron Man calling the shots. Iron Man then finds Loki in his upper-level 0f the tower, and they exchange words while Tony tries to get Loki to stand down. The Chitauri are broken down, but a nuke from the world council is flown in to destroy New York and the invaders along with it. Tony picks up the nuke mid-flight and flies it into the portal, redirecting it towards the Chitauri mothership, destroying it and disabling all the aliens left on Earth. Tony barely falls through the portal as it closes, and freefalls towards New York. Tony refuses to wake up until Hulk roars, restarting Tony’s body and taking in a gasp of air. Tony suggests the team tries shawarma after all deals are dealt with, and Loki is arrested and transported to Asgard, while the Avengers immediately gain fame and recognition for their acts of heroism

Heroism and more fame aside, PTSD and anxiety get the better of Tony in Iron Man 3, the wrap-up of the Iron Man stand-alone movies. Iron Man stands up against the leader of the Ten Rings, the Mandarin. In turn, Iron Man’s home in Malibu is bombed, and while Pepper is able to make it out alive, Tony falls through the base, barely being able to equip his suit, and emergency transported to Tennessee. He finds a barn to stock up in and recuperates, happening to be the home of Harley. Harley teams up with Iron Man to discover the weird remnants of Extremis, a regenerative drug that Tony discovered was causing internal combustion. Harley in turn reminds Tony that he is Iron Man, not the suit and that Tony could tinker with some items and in turn bring down the Mandarin. Iron Man breaks into the Mandarin’s complex to discover Trevor, an actor hired to portray the Mandarin. Tony’s past comes to haunt him as Aldrich Killian, a prospector to Tony at a young age who was ignored and bullied while Tony partied, turned out to be the true Mandarin.  Killian had used the Extremis serum to become stronger and tried to kill the president to make a statement of power. Tony remotely activates all of his suits to fight the Extremis soldiers, and an Extremis-injected Pepper Potts helps Tony destroy Killian, while Rhodey saves the president from the Iron Patriot (repainted War Machine) suit. Tony realizes he built over fifty suits out of pure anxiety of what is unprepared. He chooses to love Pepper, not to stress over the unexplainable. He destroys all of his suits, gets surgery to remove the arc reactor and the shrapnel, and moves on to his life with Pepper, quoting once again that he could lose all of his suits, but Tony Stark is still Iron Man.

Tony Stark starts his reign of wanting to extinguish the Avengers by ensuring the protection of the world, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Tony’s Iron Legion robots would be controlled by a supreme artificial intelligence known as Ultron. The Avengers party following the defeat of a Hydra base, after Dr. Bruce Banner and Tony successfully build Ultron. Ultron assumes the bodies of the Iron Legion and attacks the Avengers. Tony’s shield of armor around the world is now trying to kill him. Ultron escapes through the internet to find a factory in Sokovia to manufacture and build bodies to be in. Ultron tries to build a living body for himself, using Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, two twins infused with powers due to the mind stone inside of Loki’s staff. Ultron uses the mind stone and vibranium to build the body he plans to live eternally in. Wanda Maximoff, known as Scarlet Witch, uses her powers to bring out everyone’s greatest fears. Tony sees the Avengers dead, everything destroyed with only him alive. Captain America comes alive for a second to blame Tony for their destruction. The Avengers later track down Ultron to Sokovia, after the AI had lost his alliance with the Maximoff twins. Ultron uses rockets to propel Sokovia into the air, planning to drop it and make Earth extinct. The Avengers are able to create a lifeform, stealing the body and the stone from Ultron, known as Vision due to Thor’s vision of this hero. Iron Man’s artificial intelligence JARVIS is infused into the body, to give it a personality and an artificial soul. Vision and the Avengers hunt down every robot linked to Ultron and prevent an extinction-level event, but still, tens of thousands of lives are lost. The Avengers, and specifically  Tony Stark, are deemed dangerous and unregulated, thus leading directly into Captain America: Civil War.

Captain America: Civil War shows the fracture of the Avengers. After the proposed Sokovia Accords is given to the Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man quickly disagree about the legality and efficiency of it. The others quickly formulate into their groups about their opinions of the Accords. The United Nations is bombed by a man named Zemo, posing as Captain America’s best friend, the Winter Soldier. Iron Man confronts Team Captain America, and War Machine apprehends Cap, The Winter Soldier, and the Black Panther who is revealed to be King T’Challa of Wakanda. The Winter Soldier is mind-controlled by Zemo to break out and attack the Avengers. Tony plans to talk with Cap at an airport in Germany, but first, he enlists Spider-Man. In Spiderman’s stand-alone movie Spider-Man: Homecoming, Iron Man serves as a mentor to the young superhero and shows him the ropes (along with a brand new suit) of the lifestyle Peter Parker is now in. It is in this film that Tony also proposes to Pepper Potts, instead of revealing Spider-Man as an Avenger. Anyways, back to Civil War, the Avengers battle in Germany where Cap’s team is arrested except for himself, falcon, the winter soldier, and Tony’s turncoat, Black Widow, who the prior all escaped via quinjet. War Machine is paralyzed due to a mishit by Vision, and Tony becomes infuriated. Tony tracks down Cap, and they team up after agreeing that Bucky Barnes, or the Winter Soldier, had been framed. It is here that Tony learns that whilst being brainwashed, Bucky killed Tony’s parents, who were founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Iron Man continues to battle the two of them as Black Panther apprehends Zemo. The Winter Soldier’s prosthetic arm is blown off and Cap destroys Tony’s arc reactor leaving him immobile and leaving the shield that Tony’s father made for him. Cap leaves Tony a message, stating that he will always be there when Tony needs him, despite everything. This loyalty is tested as the Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to its close.

Avengers: Infinity War is the turning point of Tony Stark’s character arc. Iron Man finally thought life was getting easier when the Black Order arrived on earth, and Doctor Stephen Strange warned that he needed help from Tony Stark to prevent Thanos from retrieving the infinity stones. These stones could manipulate the entire universe, and Thanos planned to wipe out half the universe to prevent total extinction. Tony, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange travel through space, killing Ebony Maw, and meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy. This group meets on Titan, Thano’s home planet, where they try to defeat Thanos by using their combined powers to restrain him, put him to sleep, and steal the infinity gauntlet. After issues from Star-Lord, Thanos frees himself, defeating the Avengers and Guardians, stabbing Iron Man through the stomach, leaving him there to die. Tony heals himself with nanites as Thanos uses the gauntlet to teleport to Earth. Stranded alone on Titan, Tony has to think about Thanos telling him that he will die and that he hopes the rest of humanity remembers him for who he is. On Earth, Thanos snaps and wipes out half the universe. Everyone on Titan dies except for Tony and Nebula who now have to find their way home. Iron Man realizes he is not invincible. Tony realizes that he lost.

In Tony’s final appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe chronologically (he is expected to appear in the prequel Black Widow coming later this year), Avengers: Endgame shows Tony show the character he has become. Tony accepts death after his loss, as he and Nebula enter the spaceship left on Titan, and try tio ake it home. Thankfully to Captain Marvel, they make it home but with some negative effects. Tony is not healthy and he lashes out at Captain America for not being there when Tony needed him. Tony exclaims that they lost, and there is nothing left to do. Tony abandons his heroism, and he shows his growth as a person. Tony is no playboy trying to make money and have fun anymore, he has a daughter, Morgan and his wife Pepper. Tony refuses to help the Avengers in their endeavor to reverse the snap. Ant-Man comes into play and introduces the idea of time travel, and the genius to crack it? You guessed it. Tony Stark played with the idea of time travel after the Avengers again asked for his help, and figured out how to accomplish such a feature. Tony travels into his past literally and metaphorically to retrieve the stones and reverse Thano’s snap. Tony goes back to the Battle of New York to retrieve the tesseract, which contained the space stone. After his original plan fails, him and Cap go back to Fort Meade to retrieve more Pym particles to time travel, as well as the tesseract kept inside S.H.I.E.L.D. storage. Tony faced in New York, the source of his greatest anxiety, and at Fort Meade he encountered his disapproving father, Howard, who reveaed to him that Tony’s mother was pregnant, and that even though the kid is yet t be born, there is nothing he would not do for him. Tony overcomes these two triumphs, one due to swllpower and the other due to true happiness and realizing he was loved by his father. Tony takes the stone back to modern times where his own gauntlet accepts the stones, and Hulk reverses the snap. Thanos back from 2011 (take into account modern times for this film is set in 2023) follows the trail of the Avengers and invades the Avengers campus in upstate New York, bombarding the facility. The Avengers band together trying to find the stones while a much different Thor and Captain America join Iron Man in his final suit, the fully nanite accessible Mark 81, battle Thanos. Many callbacks are introduced, as Thor powers Iron Man’s suit with lightning, Cap weilds mjolnir and his shield breaks too. The gauntlet is thrown around the battlefield until Captain Marvel gets her hands on it, and she struggles with Thanos, who in turn rips out the power stone to punch her away. In a last effort chance, Iron Man grapples onto Thanos to steal the gauntlet but is thrown away into a stone. Thanos boasts stating that he is inevitable, only to snap and figure out the stones are missing. The nanites on Iron Man’s suit absorbed the stones from the gauntlet, and into his backhand of the Mark 81. This is Iron Man’s last moment, Tony’s swan song. After building the Avengers and proving himself to not be this filthy rich dirtbag, and instead a true hero. Iron Man looks at his greatest enemy, and instead of fear or anxiety in his veins, he feels victory (as well as the power of the strongest cosmic forces the universe has ever seen). “I am… Iron Man”. He snaps and Thanos and his forces are disintegrated. The Avengers win but Tony’s mortal body could not withstand the cosmic power. His mind collapses, and Tony passes away. In the uncut version of the film, every single hero on the battlefield (which was a lot) knelt for the mortal that saved the universe. Tony said his final goodbyes in a hologram presentation he recorded the day before the time heist, knowing he was not going to survive. He said goodbye to his daughter Morgan and stated how he loved her 3000. His funeral had appearances of some of the most prevalent Marvel heroes, even Harley from iron Man 3 all grown up. We say goodbye to a hero and an influence for the past decade or so. Tony’s character arc is one of the most beautiful and prevalent throughout all of movie history, and he will always be remembered as one of the greatest.

Tony Stark leaves a legacy throughout Marvel, even being a protagonist in Spider-Man: Far From Home in which he is already deceased before the movie begins. Tony Stark had audiences clinging on to their seats, laughing so hard that shawarma came out their nose, and in thevery end had entire tissue boxes empty. It feels weird how Tony Stark was able to show audiences a character that many already knew and still intrigue them enough to feel as though we knew him in real life. We all learn lessons, just as Tony did that made him the perfect example of a hero. Tony was a man of many words but he will always be remembered by his wit, his genius, and his simple statement that still makes sense even after his passing. I am Iron Man.