Marvel Phase 3: The Fall of Iron Man?

The rise of Marvel movies has arguably been huge.  Using major Hollywood actors and some of the best story lines for the characters they have full rights to they have built up a film universe that the fans love and most importantly make lots of money which can then be pushed back into the production of even more of their films.  Looking at Phase Three of Marvel’s plans though, have characters like Iron Man become less popular?

I like Iron Man, it is arguably one of the movies that catapulted Marvel into the insane popularity it has with movies now.  Robert Downey Jr. is the perfect actor to play the enigmatic and narcissistic Tony Stark, and he seems to love the role.  The problem with the character though is that while he has had success in Marvel’s the Avengers and other movies, the sequels have been some of the weaker of the Marvel outputs.  This can be argued to be more about story line choices rather than the character though.

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There could be reasons that Iron Man is becoming less important as a character, and to be fair this may not even be the case but looking at Phase 3 it is interesting that he hasn’t really got his own movie.  What we do know though is that he will be part of Captain America: Civil War, and before that The Avengers: Age of Ultron.  After that it may then become questionable as to which movies he will appear as a major character, though you would assume that he would be part of Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 & 2 unless something was to drastically change between now and then.  This may be down to losing Robert Downey Jr. but I doubt (as a fan) that we would see that happening.  The fact is though while Captain America and Thor have their own movies coming up, Iron Man seems to be left out in the cold.

Looking at other reasons why Iron Man may take a lesser role in the future, this could be down to the stories themselves.  If you’ve read Marvel’s Civil War story arc you will know how huge a part Iron Man plays in this, and not in a good way.  It’s too soon to know exactly what this version of Civil War will give us, and where it will go, especially with a finale that will be already in many Marvel fans minds.  I can’t really say much as it is a major spoiler, but when the comic finale was released it was such huge news that many will already know as it was a major news event.  Of course this was leading up to Secret Invasion and as we see in the list of movies still to come no mention of that is made, unless it is part of the Infinity War.  At this point anything is possible, but the inclusion of the Secret Invasion would be very interesting.

The fact is though Iron Man is still a very popular character and a lot of this is down to Robert Downey Jr. and the charisma he shares with the character.  The image of Iron Man is iconic in pop culture and has even touched on gaming, though it is probably better to remember Iron Man in tablet form and slot machine games than the game that was released in Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.  If we ever lost Iron Man as a character in the Marvel movies, and it is arguably possible he would be a great loss for the fans.

At this time it is too soon to read too much into Iron Man not having his own movie in Phase 3, but it is fair to say that some characters do have to take a step back.  What about Black Widow though, we know Scarlett Johansson has what it takes to be the main star in an action movie (think Lucy) and of course there is The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)? Though Marvel’s history of films with the character is not exactly the most successful, we still want to see Ruffalo get his own movie.  The problem is the Marvel universe is huge and the call for characters to be brought into the movies is huge, some characters will have to take a step back, and maybe Iron Man will be an easy target be it for good reasons or bad.

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