History YMMV / IronMan2

** After Natasha injects something into Tony's neck to "take the edge" off his hangover/palladium poisoning, the latter asks Natasha if he's trying to kill him out of shock. [[spoiler:''[[WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021 What If...?]]'' gives us an alternate timeline where Natasha accidentally ''does'' kill him, due to Hank Pym / Yellowjacket poisoning Stark from inside the syringe.]]

** According to WordOfSaintPaul, the Expo kid wearing an Iron Man helmet from the climax, was a young [[Franchise/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] and he was played by director Creator/JonFavreau's son Max Favreau. Two years after this film came out, and the [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan unrelated Spider-Man movie]] has another actor named Max (Max Charles) playing a young Peter Parker, before he [[TimeShiftedActor grows up]] into Creator/AndrewGarfield. This is later made doubly ironic when Jon's character Happy Hogan was put in charge of looking after Peter for Tony in ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'' and crushes on his [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate mother]] May in ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome''.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Shares a [[BaseBreakingCharacter/MarvelCinematicUniverse page with the rest of the franchise]].

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** The brusque, collected Natasha Romanoff is easily the most understated major character in the film when it comes to personality tics. Some fans liked this, finding her [[FemmeFatale icy and enigmatic]] while others found her [[DullSurprise bland and lacking in personality]]. This is difficult to gauge considering Natasha spends the majority of her time undercover so she doesn't have much time to display her true personality. An interview with [[WordOfGod the director]] revealed that the more flirtatious scenes between Natasha and Tony were cut to preserve the Tony/Pepper relationship. A scene from the first trailer even features Natasha ''smiling''.
** Justin Hammer. It depends on whether you find him hilarious or just annoying.

* MagnificentBastard: [[EvilCounterpart Ivan Vanko]], aka [[LightningLash Whiplash]], is the son of Anton Vanko, a disgraced colleague of Howard Stark. Vowing to destroy Tony Stark's reputation for his father's pitiable fate, Ivan developed his own arc reactor from his father's designs with limited materials and attacked Iron Man at a Grand Prix in Monaco for the sole purpose of disproving Iron Man's invincibility. Despite losing, Ivan observed that Tony was suffering from palladium poisoning and was content with knowing that Tony would be dead soon before being broken out of prison by Tony's rival [[Characters/MCUHammerAdvancedWeaponsSystems Justin Hammer]], making a deal to team up to take Tony down. Taking advantage of Hammer's resources while [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretending to be incompetent]], Ivan created Hammer Drones and his own PoweredArmor for Hammer's presentation before hijacking the drones' programming and setting them loose on the crowd. Joining the fray, Ivan's suit proved a match for Iron Man and his friend [[Characters/MCUWarMachine War Machine]], and despite losing again, Ivan [[TakingYouWithMe used his death to set off explosives in every piece of machinery he made]], nearly killing Iron Man. With his determination and skills, Ivan Vanko proved to be the ultimate match to Iron Man.

* MagnificentBastard: [[EvilCounterpart Ivan Vanko]], aka [[WhipItGood Whiplash]], is the son of Anton Vanko, a disgraced colleague of Howard Stark. Vowing to destroy [[Characters/MCUTonyStark Tony Stark]]'s reputation for his father's pitiable fate, Ivan developed his own arc reactor from his father's designs with limited materials and attacked Iron Man at a Grand Prix in Monaco for the sole purpose of disproving Iron Man's invincibility. Despite losing, Ivan observed that Tony was suffering from palladium poisoning and was content with knowing that Tony would be dead soon before being broken out of prison by Tony's rival [[Characters/MCUCompanies Justin Hammer]], making a deal to team up to take Tony down. Taking advantage of Hammer's resources while [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretending to be incompetent]], Ivan created Hammer Drones and his own PoweredArmor for Hammer's presentation before hijacking the drones' programming and setting them loose on the crowd. Joining the fray, Ivan's suit proved a match for Iron Man and his friend [[Characters/MCUJamesRhodes War Machine]], and despite losing again, Ivan [[TakingYouWithMe used his death to set off explosives in every piece of machinery he made]], nearly killing Iron Man. With his determination and skills, Ivan Vanko proved to be the ultimate match to Iron Man.

* MagnificentBastard: [[EvilCounterpart Ivan Vanko]], aka [[WhipItGood Whiplash]], is the son of Anton Vanko, a disgraced colleague of Howard Stark. Vowing to destroy [[Characters/MCUIronMan Tony Stark]]'s reputation for his father's pitiable fate, Ivan developed his own arc reactor from his father's designs with limited materials and attacked Iron Man at a Grand Prix in Monaco for the sole purpose of disproving Iron Man's invincibility. Despite losing, Ivan observed that Tony was suffering from palladium poisoning and was content with knowing that Tony would be dead soon before being broken out of prison by Tony's rival [[Characters/MCUCompanies Justin Hammer]], making a deal to team up to take Tony down. Taking advantage of Hammer's resources while [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretending to be incompetent]], Ivan created Hammer Drones and his own PoweredArmor for Hammer's presentation before hijacking the drones' programming and setting them loose on the crowd. Joining the fray, Ivan's suit proved a match for Iron Man and his friend [[Characters/MCUWarMachine War Machine]], and despite losing again, Ivan [[TakingYouWithMe used his death to set off explosives in every piece of machinery he made]], nearly killing Iron Man. With his determination and skills, Ivan Vanko proved to be the ultimate match to Iron Man.

** The brusque, collected Natasha Romanoff is easily the most understated major character in the film when it comes to personality tics. Some fans liked this, finding her [[FemmeFatale icy and enigmatic]] while others found her [[DullSurprise bland and lacking in personality]]. This is difficult to gauge considering Natasha spends the majority of her time undercover so she doesn't have much time to display her true personality. An interview with [[WordofGod the director]] revealed that the more flirtatious scenes between Natasha and Tony were cut to preserve the Tony/Pepper relationship. A scene from the first trailer even features Natasha ''smiling''.

** Early in the film, Tony makes a grand showing of his televised court hearing to ensure that under no circumstances would he or his technology fall into the U.S government's hands. [[CaptainAmericaCivilWar Six years later]], and Tony will end up completely reversing this position by willingly signing the Sokovia Accords, ensuring that he and his technology is under the control of the United Nations out of guilt for creating [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron Ultron]]. So much for successfully privatizing world peace, huh?

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/MickeyRourke improvised a lot of Vanko's characteristics, such as [[OralFixation his toothpick habit]], his fondness for cockatoos, and his tattoos. He paid for the cockatoo with his own money, learned to speak Russian, and visited the infamous [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyrka_prison Butyrka prison]] to interview the prisoners there, who he described as very polite.

** After Natasha injects something into Tony's neck to "take the edge" off his hangover/palladium poisoning, the latter asks Natasha if he's trying to kill him out of shock. [[spoiler:[[WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021 What If...?]] gives us an alternate timeline where Natasha accidentally ''does'' kill him, due to Hank Pym / Yellowjacket poisoning Stark from inside the syringe.]]
** Tony Stark's determination to ensure his suits never get in the hands of the U.S government was already important in hindsight after finding out that Senator Samuel Stern was a member of HYDRA who likely wanted to confiscate the suits for their organization's agenda. One of the alternate timelines shown in [[WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021 What If...?]] gives us [[spoiler:a worst-case scenario of Stark's technology being taken over by the government when Thunderbolt Ross takes control of several man-made drones Stark constructed alongside Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, and uses them to launch an assault on Wakanda.]]

** Ivan tells Tony that in order to stop people believing on God, you must make God bleed. Flash-foward to ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', where Tony makes ''ComicBook/{{Thanos}}'' bleed.

** After Natasha injects something into Tony's neck to "take the edge" off his hangover, the latter asks Natasha if he's trying to kill him out of shock. [[spoiler:[[WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021 What If...?]] gives us an alternate timeline where Natasha accidentally ''does'' kill him, due to Hank Pym / Yellowjacket poisoning Stark from inside the syringe.]]

** Phil Coulson with a Captain America shield became a lot funnier after ''The Avengers'' revealed [[TheKnightsWhoSaySquee how much of a Cap fanboy he is]].

* MagnificentBastard: [[EvilCounterpart Ivan Vanko]], aka [[WhipItGood Whiplash]], is the son of Anton Vanko, a disgraced colleague of Howard Stark. Vowing to destroy [[Characters/MCUIronMan Tony Stark]]'s reputation for his father's pitiable fate, Ivan developed his own arc reactor from his father's designs with limited materials and attacked Iron Man at a Grand Prix in Monaco for the sole purpose of disproving Iron Man's invincibility. Despite losing, Ivan observed that Tony was suffering from palladium poisoning and was content with knowing that Tony would be dead soon before being broken out of prison by Tony's rival [[Characters/MCUHammerIndustries Justin Hammer]], making a deal to team up to take Tony down. Taking advantage of Hammer's resources while [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretending to be incompetent]], Ivan created Hammer Drones and his own PoweredArmor for Hammer's presentation before hijacking the drones' programming and setting them loose on the crowd. Joining the fray, Ivan's suit proved a match for Iron Man and his friend [[Characters/MCUWarMachine War Machine]], and despite losing again, Ivan [[TakingYouWithMe used his death to set off explosives in every piece of machinery he made]], nearly killing Iron Man. With his determination and skills, Ivan Vanko proved to be the ultimate match to Iron Man.

** Creator/BillOReilly, who makes a surprising cameo as himself, commenting on his show about [[spoiler:Pepper Potts becoming CEO of Stark Industries]] (which he thinks is just PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad). It's much like the segments on his show in real life, but the fact that he was in ''Iron Man 2'' made it hilarious. Became HarsherInHindsight in later years when sexual harassment claims were filed against him that ended his [[Series/TheOReillyFactor show]] and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor career]] as a result.

* TooDumbToLive: Pepper narrowly avoids this when [[spoiler:upon seeing a seemingly-destroyed droid start beeping and flashing red at an increasing speed, she just stands there staring at it rather than try to get away from it. Sure enough, it explodes, and Tony is ''barely'' able to fly in and scoop her away in time.]]

* CriticProof: A mild case; Website/RottenTomatoes scores designate this as one of the least well-received movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first phase, second only to ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk''. It is also tied with the first ''Film/{{Thor}}'' film for the worst score on Metacritic among the Phase One films. Despite this, it became one of the highest-grossing movies in the phase, trailing only ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''. A lot of this likely has to do with the built-in good will that the first film had, building anticipation for this one.

* PanderingToTheBase: Some people accused the movie of setting up the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe more than its own, due to the greater presence of {{Call Forward}}s like Captain America's shield, a clip from ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'', Tony being evaluated for the Avengers, Black Widow, Nick Fury's return, and [[spoiler:Thor's hammer being found]]. However, Nick Fury doesn't appear until more than an hour in and even then his purpose is more to [[WhatTheHellHero get Tony off of his ass and work]] than to convince him to join the Avengers. He even tells Tony that how annoyed he is Tony has become his problem to deal with when ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} has more on its plate to handle. Pandering also seems to be parodied when Coulson discovers an incomplete ComicBook/CaptainAmerica shield. Tony asks for it excitedly... and uses it to prop up his machine.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Hammer's technology is treated as a joke here. When the company reappears in ''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' as the manufacturer of the Judas bullet, said bullet is strong enough to harm the titular hero, harder to bear.

** Creator/BillOReilly, who makes a surprising cameo as himself, commenting on his show about [[spoiler:Pepper Potts becoming CEO of Stark Industries]] (which he thinks is just PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad). It's much like the segments on his show in real life, but the fact that he was in ''Iron Man 2'' made it hilarious. Became a FunnyAneurysmMoment in later years when sexual harassment claims were filed against him that ended his [[Series/TheOReillyFactor show]] and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor career]] as a result.