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"If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him."
Ivan Vanko/Whiplash

Iron Man 2 is the second movie in the Iron Man Films series, released in 2010 and based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the armored Super Hero and directed by Jon Favreau. It is the third film in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its Phase 1, and notably, the first installment released after Disney bought out Marvel in 2009; however, both this and the next two installments were still distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Several months after the events of Iron Man, the film deals with the consequences of Tony Stark outing himself as Iron Man and becoming the world's newest defender. His first major issue is Congressional hearings about sharing his tech, with rival (and perpetually second-place to Tony) industrialist Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) standing the most to gain. Despite their best efforts, Tony is untouchable: unbeatable in conferences and unstoppable as Iron Man. But his invincibility is tested by Ivan Vanko/Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), a man with a grudge against the Stark empire who is more than capable of challenging Tony's genius, as Tony is also dealing with a slowly fatal medical condition resulting from his arc reactor implant. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) makes her MCU debut in a supporting role and Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (now played by Don Cheadle) suits up as his alter-ego War Machine.

Followed by the 2012 Crossover film The Avengers and the 2013 sequel Iron Man 3.


Iron Man 2 provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes A to E 
  • Absurd Cutting Power: Vanko's electric whips can slice through cars. Tony's do-it-yourself particle accelerator emits a Laser Cutter beam that slices through his lab wall and some shelving and cabinets as he's aligning it.
  • The Ace: Of course Tony's a good enough driver that he can participate in the Grand Prix.
  • Actor Allusion:
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Rhodey can't help but smile when Tony shows actual test footage of attempts to copy his suit.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Justin Hammer is much easier on the eyes in the film than in the comics, where he's a very wrinkled old man. Partly thanks to the merging of Hammer's character with another rival of Tony's who's much younger.
  • Adaptational Badass: Combined with Adaptation Distillation and Composite Character. In the comic, Whiplash was just a guy with a ridiculous costume and two lashes. The movie mixed him with another villain called Crimson Dynamo and revised him as a Genius Bruiser who could hurt Iron Man.
  • Adaptation Origin Connection: Anton Vanko has ties to Tony's father and the past of Stark Enterprises, though this is closer to the inverse, as Stark's family is tied to the birth of Whiplash rather than Vanko being involved in the creation of Iron Man.
  • The Alcoholic:
    • Tony Stark starts drinking more than he can handle, to distract himself from the fact he's dying.
    • Anton Vanko is also implied to have been one, with his "20-year vodka filled rage" destroying himself and his son Ivan.
  • Always Someone Better: Tony for Justin Hammer, who just barely hides his resentment about always being second-best compared to Stark behind his faux grin.
  • American Robot: Justin Hammer tries to pass off his Hammeroid drones as this. They come in Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine models no less. Every model of drone has a specialist weapon or device attached to it - an anti-armor cannon for the Army, missile launchers for the Navy, high-speed flight systems for the Air Force, and close-range machine guns for the Marines. Too bad the Renegade Russian in charge of AI sets them on rampage...
  • AM/FM Characterization: After Tony Stark's birthday party is ruined by an Iron Man suit-wearing James Rhodes, Tony requests for the DJ to play Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as a way to show he doesn't take Rhodes' threat even remotely seriously. The DJ also cycles through "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock and (appropriately) "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk.
    Tony Stark: Gimme a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to.
  • And I Must Scream: Rhodey is trapped inside the War Machine armor with no control over it, no way out and he is forced to try and kill his best friend. The look he gives Tony when Natasha finally reboots the armor remotely says it all.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Tony attempts this several times with Pepper, but only gets as far as making her even more concerned about his mental health.
  • Annoying Background Event: More like Annoying Foreground Event: During the scene where Tony is trying to apologize to Pepper, he's continuously distracted by the motions of a kinetic sculpture on the desk, eventually interrupting himself and moving so he can't see it. At the end of the scene, he tries to stop it from moving... and fails.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Rhodey, when his War Machine armor gets hacked and is used to attack his friends. He can't stop his suit from attacking Tony, but he can call his shots.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: While it may seem like a standard Hollywood mistake when Justin Hammer calls magazines "clips" while showing weapons to Rhodey, he also demonstrates complete ignorance and/or apathy towards every rule of firearms safety, not bothering to clear any of the guns he picks up (all of which have magazines inserted), and lacking any muzzle or trigger discipline whatsoever. His appallingly unsafe handling coupled with the many technical details he gets wrong in the same scene subtly indicates that he really doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, and is trying to dazzle Rhodey with bullshit.
  • Artistic License – Sports:
    • When Ivan attacks Tony at the Historic Monaco Grand Prix, Happy has to dodge race cars still driving at full speed to get to him, despite the fact two cars were cut in half and the track is completely blocked. In real life, race control would have waved the yellow flag the moment Ivan walked onto the track and likely immediately called off the race once he started attacking the drivers.
    • It's also very unlikely Tony would even get to drive his F1 car in the race, as many sanctioned race events require drivers to have competition licenses to prevent inexperienced drivers from causing accidents in very fast, very expensive cars.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Nick Fury, after having a minor appearance in Iron Man, gets more screen time and becomes Tony's mentor as a major character in the film. Played with since Samuel L. Jackson had signed a multi-picture contract with Marvel and was always intended to have a recurring role in the MCU.
    • Happy Hogan, after having a few brief appearances in the first movie, becomes a major character in the movie.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: When Natasha is hacking into Rhodey's suit, the Russian "code" appearing on screen is just a glossary of operators.
  • Attentive Shade Lowering: Tony, pigging out on donuts in full Iron Man armor sans helmet, gives Nick Fury the Flat "What" version of this look when told to get off the store sign he's reclining on.
  • Babysitter from Hell: Coulson says that he will become one should Tony not get to work.
    Coulson: If you attempt to leave or play any games, I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Iron Man and War Machine facing off back to back against about twenty hijacked Hammer drones.
  • Backseat Changing Room: During the climactic battle when Black Widow changes into her standard battle outfit in the back of the Stark Industries limo while "Happy" Hogan is driving. Happy naturally can't stop himself from glancing in the rear view mirror but stops do so when he almost hits another car.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: Hammer tells his mooks to take Ivan's bird. The guy grabs it and stuffs it in a sack.
  • Bad to the Bone: "Another One Bites the Dust" plays during the fight scene between Tony and Rhodey.
  • Badass Boast:
    • One thing you can always count on is you can count on me to pleasure myself!
    • During Hammer's description of the Ex-Wife, which is mostly just him giving it flattering compliments that have little to nothing to do with its capabilities, he only gives one notable piece of technical information about it. He describes the missile as containing a 'cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX burst'. He used two different terms for the same explosive (RDX) back-to-back. When War Machine uses it on Whiplash, it simply bounces off his armor and sputters on the ground.
      Tony: Hammer tech?
      Rhodey: Yeah...
    • Ivan gives one of his own to Tony over the phone:
      Ivan: What your father did to my family over 40 years I'll do to you in 40 minutes!
    • Tony gets one when he appears before the Senate Committee.
      Tony Stark: You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor: I have successfully privatized world peace.
    • And his bombastic speech at the opening of the Stark Expo.
      Tony Stark: I'm not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted peace in years because of me. I'm not saying that from the ASHES! OF CAPTIVITY!... never has a greater Phoenix metaphor been personified in human history. I'm not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sippin' on an iced tea, because I haven't come across anyone who's man enough to go toe-to-toe with me on my best day!
  • Badass Driver: Props to Happy for breaking into the grand Prix and driving the wrong way around the track to get to Tony. Obviously, a lot of this is down to the skill of the F1 drivers, but Happy kept out of their way and got to Tony Just in time.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • The alternate opening begins with the usual Marvel Comics logo and studio credits, albeit overlaid with sounds of Tony gasping and crying out in utter agony. When we finally cut to Tony, he's wasted and face-first in a toilet; in full armor, no less.
    • The main opening makes it look like Tony is inserting into a hostile warzone with him dodging anti-aircraft munitions, only for the explosions to be revealed as fireworks and him landing at his own expo.
  • Barbell Beating: During the fight between Iron Man and War Machine at Tony's mansion, the two end up in the gym. War Machine grabs some weights and throws them at Iron Man, who retaliates by picking up a barbell, pulling one of the weights out, and hitting his friend with enough force to send him flying.
  • Bash Brothers: Iron Man and War Machine work together to beat some baddies. They're also best friends.
  • Batman Gambit: Vanko arranges to get a passport, and cover as a worker at the Monaco Grand Prix, figuring that Stark would have to be there to watch his Stark Industry cars. He also knows that Tony is dying from palladium poisoning (he even mentions it during the prison talk), and Tony's ego would have him right where he wants him, alone on the track for a time.
  • Beam-O-War: The final thing the drunken Stark and Rhodes do in their brawl is point their repulsors at each other and let loose. It knocks Tony on his butt and Rhodes manages to abscond with the Mk.2 armor. Later on they use the effect to defeat Ivan.
  • Begin with a Finisher:
    • Rhodey points out that Tony should have used his deadly laser attack at the beginning of the battle. Tony's response is he was saving them, since they're one-time use only.
    • A moment later, when Vanko arrives, Rhodey decides to use his most powerful weapon immediately: the bunker-buster missile "the Ex-Wife". It completely fails.
  • Big Bad: Ivan Vanko, a vengeance-crazed madman out to destroy Tony Stark.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Hammer is one of the most obvious examples of the trope. He thinks of himself as Tony's rival and plans to ruin his expo and displace him as the world's number one Arms Dealer but he's strung along, outwitted, or ignored by Ivan every step of the way, and gets arrested when his Hammeroids get overridden by Ivan.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • When Tony Stark asks Natasha if she actually speaks Latin, she responds with the phrase "Fallaces sunt rerum species," a quote from Lucio Anneo Seneca meaning "The appearances of things are deceptive."
    • Also when Vanko tells Hammer that the drones at the show won't be fully capable, he adds that they will be able to "make salute." But in Russian, salyut means fireworks. The Stark Expo turns into one hell of a fireworks show.
    • Black Widow is and speaks Russian, so she is able to reprogram Vanko's hack into War Machine's system.
      Black Widow: You got your best friend back.
  • Big Entrance:
    • Tony lands stylishly at the site of his Stark Expo in his Iron Man suit to the cheers of many admirers after skydiving out of his personal carrier. For added effect, he's surrounded by a group of Rockettes-esque women in garb meant to resemble his armor who are performing the Can-Can.
    • Whiplash also has one, during a Formula One race in order to attack Tony, who is driving one of the said cars.
  • BFG: Overtly, War Machine with his shoulder mounted minigun, but as Tony points out:
    Tony: You have a big gun, you're not the big gun.
  • Big "OMG!": Pepper has one when she sees "Natalie Rushman" flip over Happy Hogan and pin him to the boxing-ring floor.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The Russian news announcement Vanko is watching of Tony Stark's hearing headed by Senator Stern reads "Сенаторы вопрос Тони Stark". It's obviously supposed to mean "Senators question Tony Stark". However, "вопрос" only means question as a noun. Additionally, his last but not his first name is strangely not transliterated and left as "Stark" instead of "Старк".
  • Blood-Splattered Warrior: After the fight with the hammer drones, Iron Man and War Machine are covered in oil.
  • Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Black Widow strikes it on the poster.
  • Boogie Knights: Drunk Tony in full armor.
  • Boxing Lessons for Superman: We see that Tony has been teaching himself how to box—and dirty box, with maybe a dash of MMA. It comes in handy later: on one occasion, he's able to outfight Rhodey (who is military-trained but is using a less-advanced suit and a rookie with Powered Armor) with Good Old Fisticuffs and on another, he beats down drones with his bare, er, well iron hands.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Tony says the senator that is hauling him to a subcommittee meeting should be giving him a medal. Guess what he leverages Fury to make the same senator do at the end of the movie.
    • Happy chides Tony for "dirty boxing" during their workout. Later, when fighting a guard at Hammer Industries, Happy gains the upper hand by biting his ear. Doubles as a Shout-Out to Mike Tyson.
    • Nick tells Tony at the end of the movie that they'll be using him as a consultant. Couple of years later, we get the short "The Consultant", where Coulson uses Tony as an annoyance to keep Ross away from the Avengers.
  • Broken Pedestal: In-universe, Whiplash sets out to invoke this trope among the public regarding Iron Man.
  • But Not Too White: If you look closely at Justin Hammer's palms during the "gourmet meal in the hangar" scene, you'll notice that they are bright orange. Apparently Justin was a little overzealous with the fake-n-bake and forgot to wash his hands afterwards.
  • Butt-Monkey: Poor Hogan. If only he was in Die Hard rather than a superhero movie...
  • Call-Back:
    • In the first movie, the financially successful Tony Stark was captured by a terrorist group and forced to build weapons for them. In this film, Ivan Vanko, who is almost bankrupt, is captured by the financially successful Hammer Industries and forced to build weapons for them. Both groups of captors learned their mistake.
    • A very subtle one: Tony tells Vanko his Arc Reactor isn't efficient, and when he scans it at the race track, it only outputs 1.81 GJ/sec. In the first movie, Tony's original Arc Reactor's output was 3 GJ/sec, showing that indeed Vanko's is far less efficient than Tony's original.
    • Rhodey departs in the Mark II the same way Tony started his first flight in that particular suit.
    • Rhodey passes on the Mark III because Tony hasn't repaired it yet.
  • The Cameo
    • Stan Lee gets confused for Larry King.
    • Bill O'Reilly does a segment on his show, The O'Reilly Factor, on Tony's rash decisions.
    • DJ AM spins the beats for Tony's crazy party.
    • Larry Ellison
    • Seth Green also has a blink and you'll miss it cameo.
    • Elon Musk, pitching Tony on an idea for electric jets.note 
      Stark: Elon, how's it going? Those Merlin engines are fantastic.
      Elon: Thank you. I've got an idea for an electric jet.
      Stark: You do?
      Elon: Yeah.
      Stark: Then we'll make it work.
  • Camera Abuse: When Tony shows the Senate Committee other countries' attempts at creating their own Iron Man suits, one camera man is accidentally shot by a malfunctioning suit in North Korea. One in Iran is hit by a crashing suit as it skids along the ground.
  • Canon Character All Along: After the Marvel-Sony deal in 2015, it's been speculated that the kid in the Iron Man mask at the Stark Expo is a young Peter Parker. It has since been confirmed by Word of God that it is him.
  • Canon Discontinuity: The novelization of the movie claims that the new element Tony creates is vibranium. Needless to say, future MCU movies would establish that this is absolutely not the case.
  • Car Fu: Happy Hogan repeatedly rams Ivan Vanko during the villain's attack on Tony at the racetrack. It doesn't do much.
  • Ceiling Smash: Rhodes throws Stark into the ceiling during their fight.
  • Cerebus Retcon: The revelation in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that Senator Stern is an agent of HYDRA puts his designs on Stark's technology in a much more sinister light. Tony's father issues also take a darker subtext with the reveal that the deaths of his parents in a car accident was an assassination engineered by HYDRA.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The model for the original Stark Expo shown in Howard Stark's opening video to the modern-day Stark Expo ends up being the key to Tony finding an alternative to the palladium in his arc reactor.
    • Played for laughs with Hammer's "Ex-Wife" missile. After being hyped up to extreme levels, it ends up being worthless. And makes a farting noise as it does so, too!
  • Chekhov's Skill:
    • The feedback from two repulsor blasts hitting each other packs one hell of a punch.
    • Another, more villainous example is Ivan's computer hacking skills.
    • Natasha Romanoff's martial arts skills also come in handy.
    • More or less done as a joke, but Happy's knowledge of boxing enables him to take down one security guard at Hammer industries... at the same time that Natasha is taking out all the rest.
  • Cherry Tapping: Black Widow pepper sprays the last guard after a rather awesome fight sequence.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: For all his villainous aspirations, Justin Hammer is just plain weird.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Ivan Vanko is never referred to as Whiplash or Crimson Dynamo, but he's referred to in the film's marketing as Whiplash.
  • The Comically Serious: The tough, thuggish Ivan gives the brief and subtle yet highly amusing appearance of a Fish out of Water while joining Justin Hammer for an expensive, five-star meal.
  • Compensating for Something: What Tony thinks about all the guns strapped on the War Machine armor.
  • Composite Character: Ivan Vanko is a fusion of two different Iron Man villains, Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo. It also helps that the current comic Whiplash and the original Crimson Dynamo shared the last name Vanko. note 
  • Compressed Adaptation:
    • Tony's drinking problem harkens back to the "Demon in a Bottle" story in the 70's which highlighted his substance abuse. Unlike the comics, this is only treated as part of an overarching plot thread (Tony's slow death by palladium poisoning), instead of being the plot point itself.
    • The part where Rhodey puts on one of the early Iron Man suits to beat some sense into Tony, though it seems more like an allusion; back in Tony's days as an alcoholic wreck, Rhodey subbed in for him as Iron Man.
  • Compressed Hair: Played straight during the Stark Expo intro. Lampshaded in the novelization.
  • Continuity Nod: During the final conversation between Tony and Nick Fury, a monitor displays a reporter doing live coverage of a "Crisis at Culver University". This is a reference to the Hulk's rampage about midway through The Incredible Hulk. The scene also establishes the relative timeframe of the two movies: it shows Stark accepting a job as a S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant, in which capacity he appears in the post-credits scene of The Incredible Hulk.
  • Contractual Boss Immunity: It would have been anticlimactic if War Machine's "Ex-Wife" missile killed Whiplash in one shot. It works in the novelization.
  • Contrived Coincidence: The Iron Man suits are capable of flight and have extensive ranged weaponry, and so should be able to own Whiplash, who only uses his plasma whips with a range of maybe 3 meters. Naturally, circumstances in the movie force Tony to fight Vanko on the ground in melee range. Twice.
  • Correlation/Causation Gag: As the hacked Hammer drones start attacking the area, one little kid in an Iron Man masknote  stands up to one with his toy repulsor to fire at the drone. As the drone mistakes the kid for Tony and takes aim as well, Tony drops in behind the boy, shoots the Hammer drone, then tells the boy "Nice work, kid" before taking off.
  • Costume Evolution: A subtle example. In the previous film, Tony wears a close-fitting outfit under the Iron Man suit, as it's been tailored precisely to his body, literally built around him. Here he's able to wear the armor over regular clothes, even a really nice suit. Part of what Tony is trying to do is to be able to suit up whenever, wherever, a theme that will continue through End Game.
  • Could Say It, But...: The "I'm not saying..." speech.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Ivan Vanko. Though technically Tony didn't create him, his father did. Still counts.
  • Crossing the Burnt Bridge: A good chunk of the end of the movie is taken up by Tony trying to repent for his assholish behavior from when he was dying.
  • Crowd Panic: The result of the attack at the Expo. Rather well done in the regard that the matter of having to evacuate a huge, displaced crowd is followed up on later.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Natasha's first scene includes a sparring match against Happy. It doesn't last long, as Natasha does a Punch Catch and uses her legs to flip him onto the floor.
    • Those mooks didn't stand a chance against Black Widow.
    • The Hammer drones didn't do so well against Iron Man and War Machine.
    • Averted for the fight between Tony and Rhodey at Tony's birthday party. Rhodey has a heck of a lot more experience as a soldier, but Tony has a lot more experience with the suit.
  • Curse Cut Short: After Stark is attacked by Vanko on the track, Pepper, in a panic, begins to scream at him to "Get in the fucking car!" but the actual swear is inaudible between the commotion and Tony interrupting with "I was attacked!"
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Discussed. Tony asks Ivan why he didn't take his arc reactor, inferior to his but still functional, to an enemy nation or the black market and make a fortune. He also could have lived a comfortable life on Hammer's dollar with the quality of work he was providing. In both cases, he preferred using his talents to get revenge on Tony instead of making money.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: When Tony shows a video of Justin Hammer's disastrous attempts to recreate the Iron Man suit to the Senate committee, the only positive thing Hammer can say about it is that the test pilot survived.
  • Damsel in Distress: Inverted. Happy tries to protect Natalie at the Hammer facility. She takes down nine mooks in the time he takes to knock out the one.
  • Dare to Be Badass: Only Nick Fury is badass enough to tell Tony Stark to step up and be the fucking Tony Stark that Tony Stark needs to be.
  • Dead Man Writing: Howard Stark to Tony on film.
  • Defector from Commie Land: Anton Vanko, who was sent back to the USSR after falling out with Howard Stark. Ironically, despite being an actual rather than Fake Defector, Anton tried to betray Howard and give the USSR the arc reactor technology out of purely capitalist motives: the Soviet government would've paid him more than he was getting from Howard.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: A strange variation where, rather than over the course of the film, on the in-movie film reels Tony is going through, he starts to find more and more evidence that his father was not always the cold fish he remembers from his childhood. This was paid off in the Captain America film.
    Howard Stark: Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to show you... my ass. [turns his back on the camera and thrusts his butt out]
  • Deliberate Injury Gambit: In Vanko's first confrontation with Tony, his electrified whips made him incredibly dangerous from a specific distance. With a prolonged whip snag slowly melting through the armor, Tony starts deliberately tangling himself in the whip so that Vanko doesn't have any leverage, and since Vanko is otherwise unarmored, Tony could get in close and knock him out. The armor was nearly compromised as a result, but if he did nothing it wouldn't have ended well either way.
  • Despair Event Horizon: The film has Tony quietly slipping over this as his arc reactor magnet, the thing keeping him alive, is also killing him, and he can't find a solution.
  • Disastrous Demonstration:
    • Tony hacks the video screens at the Armed Services Committee and displays footage of North Korea, Iran, and Hammer Industries suffering from this trope while attempting to build their own power armor.
    • Vanko waits until Hammer's big product-promotion event to unleash his drones.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Black Widow changing clothes in the back of a car nearly causes a crash. It also happened during the filming: when Scarlett Johansson first appeared in the Black Widow catsuit in the Randy's Donuts scene, Jon Favreau famously tweeted that "he'd never seen such a quiet film crew before".
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Vanko only works for Hammer as far as it helps with his own Evil Plan.
  • Dramatic Gun Cock: When Iron Man charges up his one-use laser weapon, the emitters make a sound reminiscent of a shotgun cocking.
  • Dramatic Spine Injury: Tony Stark shows the Senate Armed Services Committee a video of knock-offs of the Iron Man suit, finishing with a suit created by Hammer Industries. Just after being activated, the suit's pilot is asked to turn to the right, but instead of turning properly, the suit's torso spins 180° at the waist. There's a muffled scream, and then the visible arm sparks and goes limp, although Hammer tries to save face by saying that the test pilot survived.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Tony decides to get plastered at his birthday party as his arc reactor is slowly killing him. He ends up blowing up half his house.
  • Drunk Driver: Drunk Tony in power armor. It can fly.
  • Dull Surprise: The emotionally withdrawn Natalie Rushman is the undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. super-assassin Black Widow.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The kid in the mask that helps Tony take out a Hammer drone? Turns out it was a young Peter Parker.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Pepper Potts tells off Tony for ogling Natasha on their first meeting.
  • Energy Weapon: Tony unveils a high-powered wrist laser that can shear through basically anything, but uses cartridges that burn out after one shot. He pulls a 360-degree spin during the battle with the Hammer drones that turns them all into scrap.
  • Epic Fail: During the Senate hearing early in the film, the senator argues that other countries are trying to make their own battlesuits to replicate Iron Man. Tony promptly uses his own hacking skills to display videos of those attempts, showing just how incapable each of his would-be challengers are:
    • The North Korean project is a chicken-legged battle suit whose legs are too spindly to support its own weight; it takes one step and breaks its leg, toppling over and discharging its gatling gun uncontrollably. For added Black Comedy, the bullets kill the camera-bearer recording this, causing his blood to splatter over the screen.
    • The Iranian suit tries to uses its thrusters and can't control itself, launching itself in an impressive spiral through the air before slamming into a solid object at probably fatal velocity.
    • Justin Hammer's own suit suddenly twists 180 degrees at the waist, audibly snapping the spine of the man inside it at the time. Hammer tries to save face by saying the pilot survived but that just elevates it straight into Squick.
  • "Eureka!" Moment: While trying to perfect the arc reactor, Tony suddenly finds inspiration in his father's miniature model of the first Stark Expo. His dad did that on purpose during the video he left behind for Tony.
    Howard Stark: This is the key to the future, Tony.
    [camera cut to the City of the Future]
    [camera cut to the Unisphere]
    [camera cut to a prototype arc reactor]
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: A gender-flipped version. Ivan Vanko, while bitter towards Tony, is perfectly willing to quietly take care of his invalid father, even though the film implies his father was abusive when he was well. But then his father dies...
  • Exact Words: Hammer tells Vanko that the drones better steal the show. They do just that...right out of Hammer's hands.
    Hammer to Vanko about his bird / Vanko to Hammer about suits: Don't get too attached to things. Learn to let go.
  • Evil Counterpart: Justin Hammer tries oh-so-hard to be this to Tony, only to fail spectacularly. It's really driven home during his display at the expo where he tries dancing his way onto the stage in an utterly feeble impersonation of Tony's showmanship to a very underwhelmed audience. Hilariously, when Tony shows up in the Iron Man armor, doing nothing more than coming in for a landing on the stage, the crowd goes wild.
    • Ivan built a miniature arc reactor out of scraps and used it to power weapons that gave Iron Man a good run for his money. The novelization even has Tony note that if their fathers had been in reversed positions and it was Howard who was deported and left to descend into drunken depression, Tony might have ended up just like Vanko.
  • Evil Plan: Two.

    Tropes F to N 
  • Failure Montage: When brought up in a Senate hearing, Tony shows one of these to defuse fears that his competitors may be close to building a suit similar to his own.
  • Fanservice: Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Lampshaded when she and Happy drive to Hammer's lab and she changes in the back of his car, granting a clear shot of her in her underwear. Happy peeks at her with the rearview mirror and nearly crashes the car.
    Natasha: Watch the road.
  • Fanservice Extra: The Ironette Dancers don't have any lines but help fill in Tony's stage show at his expo.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Two
    • Ivan Vanko. One can't help but chuckle at the casual, almost friendly way he talks as he threatens Tony over the phone.
      Ivan: Hey, Tony! How you doin? Heh heh. I double cycle.
      Tony: What?
      Ivan: You told me 'double cycle, more power'...Good advice.
      Tony: You sound pretty sprightly for a dead guy.
      Ivan: You too... Ha ha!
    • Justin Hammer will act like your best friend when it's clear he can't stand your guts.
  • Finishing Move: Tony uses his suit's lasers to finish clearing the field of the Hammer drones. Its use at the end is justified as it uses too much power to use more than once.
  • Fling a Light into the Future: Limited by the technology of his time, Howard Stark leaves behind a projector reel and a model town that is secretly a blueprint for the new element needed to perfect the arc reactor
  • Follow the Leader: In-universe, what several companies/countries are trying to do in response to the Iron Man suit's existence. With mixed results.
  • Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: Two repulsor blasts crossing each other took a toll on both Tony and Rhodey. Tony later uses the same trick to defeat Whiplash.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Tony asks Pepper to wear a mask until she doesn't have the sniffles. He's dying, he absolutely needs her to stay away until she's healthy.
    • Coulson lets Tony know he's been reassigned, Fury wants him in New Mexico.
    • Before even the Thor stinger, we get a hint about the Tesseract. Note the 4D figures in the various archive notes from Tony's father that he pages through.
    • Before The Reveal about her identity as Natasha Romanoff (not that it was a surprise to comic readers or... well, anyone who just saw the freakin' trailer) "Natalie" is given an early allusion as to her true role. When Tony and Rhodey are fighting in the mansion and burst from the ceiling, Pepper screams and cringes in horror. "Natalie" takes an Ass Kicking Pose. She also very briefly has a Russian accent when Tony goes out to drive a racecar, and tells Pepper "This is the first I am knowing of it."
    • Agent Coulson recognising the Captain America shield in Tony's lab, showing his knowledge of the superhero (and him being a fanboy of Steve Rogers).
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
    • As mentioned in Foreshadowing... During the Iron Man/War Machine fight at the party, watch Pepper and Natalie. When the armored suits crash through the floor, Pepper screams and flinches, Natalie drops into a combat stance.
    • Pay attention to what Rhodey knocks Tony into the fireplace with. He literally hit him with the kitchen sink.
    • Around 1:13:55. Take a look at the image on the right page of the book Tony is thumbing through. A three-dimensional square within a three-dimensional square. Otherwise known as a Tesseract. Seems the Arc Reactor may be based off research on the cube Howard Stark picked up in Captain America: The First Avenger.
    • When Tony builds the homemade cyclotron, he uses equipment from/for Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. (Doubles as a Foreshadowing for Thor and The Avengers.)
  • Gatling Good: War Machine. Gatling fantastic. Sadly, they got the noise wrong yet again. Imagine how much more awesome the fight scenes would have been if War Machine had been making this sound.
  • Genius Bruiser:
    • Ivan Vanko. Plain and simple. Capable of taking a few car hits to a torso without the benefit of power armor, though his Whiplash suit probably did some of thatnote . Neck snaps opponents with practiced ease, and hangs his two guards to retrieve his bird. He survived fifteen years in a Russian prison and is tattooed like an Ultranationalist. He can also build high tech gear with about the same level of stuff Tony had in the cave and can tell a rich CEO to his face that his computer systems are shit...because he hacked himself administrator privileges in about ten seconds.
    • Black Widow, who can not only mow through dozens of Hammer security in a whirlwind of acrobatic martial arts in the time it takes Hogan to finally beat down one guy, but she also speaks several languages and can easily hack through Ivan's re-programming job on the Hammeroids in minutes, shutting them down without breaking a sweat.
  • Genre Blindness: When the Hammer Drones begin flashing and beeping in an increasingly high pitch, Pepper stands there watching one with a confused look.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Ivan has the traditional scar down his eye.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: The shot of the hanging bodies of the two Hammer guards Vanko murdered earlier.
  • Graceful in Their Element: For all his agility while flying, when we see Tony try and run in his armor for more than a few feet (as in the opening shot aboard the airplaine) it's an awkward, hobbling gait.
  • Grand Theft Prototype: Rhodes jacks the Mk. II Armor from Tony's house and takes it to the U.S. military for study. Black Widow points out that the suits can only be activated by an authorized user, meaning Tony must have intentionally given Rhodes access prior to the party. Nick Fury lampshades how improbable this would be otherwise.
    Nick Fury: Woah, woah, he TOOK it? You're IRON MAN, and the brother just walked in there, kicked your ass, and TOOK your suit?
  • Gratuitous Latin: According to Natalia's C.V. she speaks many languages. When Tony asks if she speaks Latin too, she answers... in Latin, and he's impressed. And she's bad-ass in general.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Even though he's wealthy like Tony Stark, Justin Hammer envies Tony's talent and success. His technology throughout the film is described as a joke and a failed knock-off of Stark Industries technology. His jealousy is even shown when he's talking to Tony or mentioning him. Heck most of his motivation in the film is to upstage Tony Stark.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: Tony does this with some Hammer Drones using parts from other Hammer Drones.
  • Groin Attack: This is employed by Black Widow on a Hammer security guard.
  • Hammerspace: We all love the Mark V suitcase suit, but let's face it, this is where it really comes from. There's no way that suit could fold down into a suitcase-sized package that's light enough to carry in one hand.
  • Handcuffed Briefcase: Happy Hogan carries around the Mark V "briefcase armor" locked to his wrist like this.
  • Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: Because Tony's not sharing his Iron Man tech with the military, Senator Stern has a seemingly valid reason (when he's not alluding to American military contractors' profits)—Tony's being an irresponsible jackass.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: A literal case, as Natasha's arrival makes Tony turn his head and be downright hypnotized (Happy reminds him their fight wasn't done, Tony kicks him so he can make his moves on the redhead).
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Inverted. In the final battle, the heroes wear helmets but Vanko takes his off, which leaves him vulnerable to Stark and Rhodes' finishing move.
  • Heroic BSoD: Tony goes into one big time, due to him suffering a slow death due to Palladium contamination. It culminates into him throwing a party, drunk, while in his Iron Man armor.
  • Heroic Bystander: Towards the end of the film, the Hammer-drones are rampaging and the crowd is fleeing in fright... except for one little boy wearing an Iron Man mask, who then holds up a gloved hand at one of the drones. The drone pauses, uncertain whether this boy is the real deal or not, giving the real Iron Man time to land and blast the drone away. He gives the boy a "Nice work, kid!" before flying away again. In doing this, the boy probably saved dozens of lives.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: Iron Man gets approved for the Avengers Initiative. Tony Stark doesn't, even if it's mostly just legal placebo, because his status over the course of the film paints an image of Tony that S.H.I.E.L.D. simply cannot tolerate publicly or officially.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Howard Stark discovered the possibility of a new element capable of working with a miniaturized arc reactor without the flaw of palladium poisoning, then hid it in the layout of the 1974 Stark Expo in such a way that only Tony would be smart enough to discover it.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Ivan Vanko needs about three seconds and twenty keystrokes to hack into Hammer's battlesuit system, the first time he sees it. He even lampshades it: "Software shit." It takes Black Widow only slightly longer to penetrate his security and shut them down. Obviously, Hammer's security systems are the worst.
  • Hollywood Tactics: Played with. Tony and Rhodes discuss tactics in the moments leading up to the Hammer Drone attack in the garden, including taking the high ground, making use of cover, and avoiding the "kill box" in the middle of the garden. Unfortunately, they get distracted arguing over who's the bigger gun...leaving them right in the middle of said kill box when the Hammer Drones finally arrive a few seconds into their argument. They do all right, although it forces Tony to use up his best weapon before fighting Ivan Vanko head-on.
  • Husky Russkie: Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash, a Russian scientist with a grudge against Tony Stark, played by Mickey Rourke.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Happy calls out Tony for "Dirty Boxing" earlier in the movie, but later takes out a Hammer security guard by biting his ear Mike Tyson style.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: Inverted. When Nick Fury is listing all the things in Stark's personality that made him ineligible for the Avengers group, Stark denies or fogs every single one...up to "Textbook Narcissism", to which he simply agrees.
  • Impressed by the Civilian: As Hammer's robots rampage across the expo and people flee, one little boy in an Iron Man costume stands his ground against an approaching robot. Of course, the real Iron Man swoops in at the last second, destroys the bot, and complements the kid before flying off. invokedWord of God later confirms that the kid was a young Peter Parker.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: A kid in a toy Iron Man mask targeted by a Hammeroid gets his bacon saved by Iron Man. Good thing he lived, too, or Tony wouldn't have found him when he needed a recruit.
  • In-Series Nickname:
    • "Hammeroids". Near-ubiquitous among fans, but it was used by Tony first.
    • Hammer claims the 7.62mm 6-barrel minigun that ends up integrated with the War Machine suit is known to the US soldiers who use them as, alternately, Uncle Gazpacho or "Puff the Magic Dragon". (He was half-right here: The AC-47 gunship, a Vietnam-era ground-support aircraft fitted with several such miniguns for More Dakka, was nicknamed "Puff the Magic Dragon" for the hail of tracer rounds it rained down on the enemy.) He also nicknames his not-so-super mini-bunker-buster, supposedly capable of "reducing the population of any standing structure to 0" (although it's actually a laughable dud that needs a little work) the "Ex-Wife".
  • Insistent Terminology: Tony insists during the Senate Subcommitee hearing that the Iron Man armor is not a weapon but is instead a high-tech prosthesis.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun:
    • Rhodey pulls one on Tony and Pepper.
      Rhodey: Get a roof.
      Tony: I thought you said you were out of one liners.
    • Tony gets one in himself, earlier:
      Pepper: Are you Googling her [Natasha]?
      Tony: Googling? I thought I was ogling her.
    • When Tony has to fight the drones.
      Tony: I will formally apologize when I am not fighting off a Hammer-oid attack.
  • Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The Hammer Drones become these complete with blinking lights and sounds when they self-destruct.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Justin Hammer, though more "ineffectual" (and humorous) than "sympathetic"
  • Instant Expert: Rhodey takes far less time learning how to use the suit than Tony did. Fully justified, as he's a lietuenant colonel in the Air Force and has had years of training in flight and combat that Tony never had. Still, this just goes to show how much of an instant Expert Tony is that after just a few months he's able to go toe-to-toe with Rhodey while drunk.
  • Irony:
    • A sub-plot involves the device that Tony Stark built to keep himself alive is actually killing him through the volatile metal that powers it. What a beautifully ironic twist to a story about a man associated with iron.
    • Hammer is jealous of all of the attention Tony's getting. Tony's getting attention because he's imploding. He's imploding because he's dying.
  • It's All About Me: As the NYPD haul him away, Hammer accuses Pepper of trying to "pin [the blame]" for the Hammer Drone attack on him (while simultaneously complimenting her on her ruthlessness). This, despite the fact that the Hammer drones going rogue, resulting in millions of dollars in property damage and dozens of casualties, was basically entirely his fault. While he didn't specifically intend to cause what was going on, he illegally broke Vanko out of prison and gave a known mechanical genius and psycho access to all his technology, all just to further shady-at-best business practices. The most charitable option is that his plans have Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • It Only Works Once: Invoked directly with Iron Man's Death Blossom lasers, which can only be used once per battle.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • While Senator Stern is a jerk about it, it's hard to argue that he's wrong to be worried about leaving technology as sophisticated and dangerous as the Iron Man suits in the hands of a private citizen like Tony Stark. Granted, he probably only wants to hand it over to HYDRA to further their goals, but that doesn't actually disprove his point.
    • Tony, also being a jerk about it, also has a point that, as a private citizen, the technology he invented is his and it is completely up to him who he allows to have it and the government cannot legally compel him to surrender it.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may not openly display it to Tony Stark during childhood (he sent him to a private school to get him out of the house), but Howard Stark does legitimately care for Tony Stark, as evidenced by his blooper tape/hidden message.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Justin Hammer, twice. Once when he tries to pass off some random cockatoo as Vanko's bird, and again when he has his thug stuff it in a sack due to Vanko's apparent lack of progress.
    • Averted by Vanko: He demands to be brought his pet bird, but Hammer brings in a different bird and tells him it's just as good, at which point every experienced movie viewer knows Vanko will throw a fit and kill the replacement bird. Instead he adopts it as his new pet.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Inverted. The Ex-Wife is said by Hammer to be a kinetic-kill weapon, which can be brushed off as it being a buzzword he threw around... but if it really is the case, then it explains its total failure. The theory behind it is that the projectile is inert until it reaches high speed, as in the kinetic force will be what causes the destruction. Rhodey shooting Vanko that close would have only bounced back as it doesn't have enough room to accelerate, let alone arm itself even if it wasn't a dud.
  • Kirk Summation: Tony does this in the novelisation, throwing Ivan's words about being a thief and murderer back at him.
  • Kung-Shui: Tony's drunken brawl with Rhodey winds up destroying much of his house.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Coulson tells Stark he's there to keep the latter within the perimeter and on task. Tony later drives nonchalantly drives to Stark Industries for a failed apology to Pepper. After his return, a discover, and a montage, Coulson walks in...
    Coulson: I heard you broke the perimeter.
    Stark: Yeah, that was, like, three years ago. Where you been?
    Coulson: I was doing some stuff.
  • Last Day to Live: Throughout the first half of the film, it is heavily implied that Tony Stark is dying due to palladium poisoning from his power core. He then (under the advice of Romanoff when he asks how, hypothetically, he should spend what may be his last day to live) ends up holding a party and getting wasted, much to Pepper and Rhodes chagrin. It later turns out there was a new undiscovered element that could save him. Tony Stark (with some help from S.H.I.E.L.D Director Nick Fury) survives, although he also has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "It's me, I'm here, deal with it, let's move on. Drop it." Doubles as a Take That! to all the complaining over The Other Darrin.
  • Leno Device: Bill O'Reilly is not pleased with Tony.
  • Lensman Arms Race: The creation of something as powerful as the Iron Man suit sparks a new arms race with various countries (and Justin Hammer) attempting to develop their own versions. Tony initially doesn't take this seriously until Vanko shows up in Monaco with an suit that's a legitimate threat.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: At long last, we have a live-action comic book movie where two superheroes duke it out. Specifically, Rhodes taking the Mk II and the ensuing fight. They have a rematch later on, although under different circumstances. See "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight.
  • Licensed Pinball Table: Iron Man (Stern), released at around the same time as the movie.
  • Lightning Lash: Whiplash's trademark whips.
  • Made of Explodium: The "Ex-Wife" miniature bunker-buster projectile is supposedly extremely explosive. Emphasis on supposedly, because it doesn't work at all. It almost makes you wonder if one of the scriptwriters recently had a nasty divorce.
    Hammer: These are the Cubans, baby. This is the Cohibas, the Montecristos. This is a kinetic-kill, side-winder vehicle with a secondary cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX burst. It's capable of busting a bunker under the bunker you just busted. If it were any smarter, it'd write a book, a book that would make Ulysses look like it was written in crayon. It would read it to you. This is my Eiffel Tower. This is my Rachmaninoff's Third. My Pieta. It's completely elegant, it's bafflingly beautiful, and it's capable of reducing the population of any standing structure to zero. I call it "The Ex-Wife."
  • Made of Iron: Ivan's harness apparently gives him a good degree of protection. Happy drives a car into him and Vanko is barely stunned, and after being flung through the air onto asphalt he's still conscious enough to taunt Tony, if dazed and bleeding heavily.
  • The Mafiya: Ivan Vanko's tattoos identify him as a member of Russian organized crime.
  • Male Gaze: We get a lovely shot of Natasha's rear when we see her in the catsuit for the first time. We also get another gratuitous shot of it again when she fights the bad guys and pulls out the small mines from her belt.
  • Mecha-Mook: The Hammeroids. Although ordered to build man-wearable suits, Ivan Vanko insists on making the Hammer drones autonomous drones instead. Elegantly lampshaded with the explanation "Human make problem. Drone better.": in an earlier scene a human test pilot attempts to pilot Hammer's suit design and breaks his own spine by turning too quickly but that's not the biggest problem averted by invoking this trope: the audience now has no problem when the Hammer Drones are blown up, dismembered, or sent crashing into buildings. Although he takes over War Machine, Vanko loses his control later. The drones won't have such a problem. Why stuff people into suits and risk having them regain control when you can just build drones?
    • Ivan also demonstrates exactly what he's saying perfectly. He is giving Hammer programmable drones because people "Cause trouble." This can include not doing what they're told, doing what they want or think is better instead. In other words, the exact thing he is doing.
  • Merchandise-Driven: The helmet and repulsor toys worn by the kid who Tony rescues from nearly getting killed are from the toyline. This is possibly the only superhero movie where using the actual toys used to promote the film is appropriate in-story.
  • More Dakka: When Hammer is brought in to weaponize the Mark II armor, he showcases several weapons to Rhodes, starting small and going big.
    Rhodes: I'll take it.
    Hammer: Which one?
    Rhodes: All of it!
  • Most Common Superpower: Averted; you'd think that because this is a superhero movie, Black Widow would have a stuffed bra, but she doesn't and her chest is kept realistically sized, with the cleavage toned down, though Scarlett Johansson isn't flat-chested by any means.
  • Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Ivan Vanko seems to be Made of Iron thanks to surviving adversity in a Siberian prison. Technically, Natasha Romanoff also—she claims in Avengers that she "used to be" Russian.
  • Motor Mouth: Hammer babbles incessantly throughout most of his scenes; moreover, a lot of his impressive-sounding techno-jabber is pure bullshit. It's not entirely clear if it's a case of Obfuscating Stupidity or Hammer just being a schmooze who tries too hard. He's a foil to Tony, who also chatters, but usually has a point to everything he says, or to Vanko, who is highly intelligent but barely says anything. Vanko expressly calls him out on it during one of Hammer's angry rants, where Vanko's only response (in unsubtitled Russian) is "You talk too much."
  • Mr. Alt Disney: Howard Stark's portrayed in a style very similar to Walt Disney's futurist years. They even got one of the Sherman Brothers to write the theme music for the old Stark Expo. It doesn't stop there either; after Walt's death rumors began circulating, and an urban legend says he made a series of films giving instructions on the direction to take the company in the future. Tony's dad gives him the key to saving his life, and the day, in a film made before his death.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Natalie Rushman is really played up as a Head-Turning Beauty — the poster above even gives her, now in Black Widow's Spy Catsuit, a Boobs-and-Butt Pose. By contrast, no other movie sexualized Natasha this much.
  • Musical Nod: The expo theme, "Make Way For Tomorrow Today" later shows up in Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • A very obscure one: the Black Widow's cover identity "Natalie Rushman" refers to "Nancy Rushman," a cover identity the comic-book version of the Widow used in an arc of Marvel Team-Up in the 1970s.
    • Tony's bodyguard, Happy Hogan, is shown training Tony how to box. In the comics, Happy was a boxer before becoming Tony's bodyguard. Given Happy's fight with a security guard (which he wins) later in the film, this origin probably still applies.
    • The broken semi-transparent Captain America shield looks like it comes from the Reb Brown Captain America films. Here's a picture.
    • Tony suggests perhaps he could be Secretary of Defense, a position he held in the comics for a little while in the early 2000s.
    • Happy Hogan rescues Tony from Vanko on a racetrack. In Tales of Suspense #45, Happy rescuing Tony from a crashed race car is how the two characters first met.
    • The map of metahuman activity that Nick Fury shows to Tony has markers in Africa and the middle of the Atlantic ocean. The marker in Africa is in reference to the Black Panther, while fans have speculated that the one in the ocean is meant to hint at Namor.
    • Tony stores his armor in an attache case, which dates back to the very earliest issues of Iron Man. The idea of the suitcase transforming into the armor dates back to the '90s animated series. The armor itself bears great resemblance to the Silver Centurion armor from the comics in its color scheme.
    • The film's villain is named Ivan Vanko; he is more or less an amalgamation of the characters the Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash. His father's name is Anton Vanko, the name of the original CD in the comics.
    • Anton Vanko defected to the West in 1963, the same year both Iron Man and the Crimson Dynamo first appeared.
    • The Stark Expo is held in Flushing, NY, the original location of Stark's factory in the comic books.
    • Olivia Munn's small role is as Chess Roberts, a reporter from the first issue of the third volume of the comics who only appeared once.
    • Stark being forced to attend the Senate Armed Services Committee is lifted straight from the comics; the senator there was named Byrd, not Stern. Likewise, the government trying to get ahold of the Iron Man armor has been a recurring theme in the comics for decades, going away and coming back every so often.
    • Stark's line about the suit being a hi-tech prosthesis was mostly true in the comics originally; in the film though, the arc reactor in his chest is perfectly capable of keeping him alive without any need for the suit at all.
    • Monaco, where the racetrack scene takes place, was the home of Justin Hammer in the comic books.
    • Ivan Vanko's fake ID and name tag at the racetrack is Boris Turgenov, the name of the second Crimson Dynamo.
    • Stark getting drunk in his Iron Man suit and recklessly endangering lives in it is a reference to Demon in a Bottle.
    • Though under different circumstances, Rhodey first donned the Iron Man armor in the comics due to Stark's alcoholism.
    • Howard Stark is said by Nick Fury to have co-founded SHIELD; in the comics, Tony Stark co-founded SHIELD and provided them with all of their tech.
    • In the same scene featuring Bill O'Reilly's cameo, Pepper Potts can be heard talking on the phone to company lawyers, attempting to do something about the acquisition and use of the Mark II armor by the government but ultimately being unable to. This is a reference to Armor Wars. Further, the person she is talking to on the phone is named Bert, who shares his first name with the lawyer Bert Hindel from Armor Wars.
    • Rhodey's armor is called the Variable Threat Response Battlesuit by Justin Hammer in the film; this was the original name for the War Machine armor in the comics as well.
    • Vanko remotely compromising War Machine's armor and taking control of it is similar to when Justin Hammer did this to Iron Man in the Demon in the Bottle story arc.
    • Black Widow's first appearance in the MCU being an Iron Man story in which she's initially spying against Stark is a reference to her comics' origin as a recurring Iron Man villain.
    • Senator Stern is likely named after Marvel Comics writer Roger Stern.
  • Near-Miss Groin Attack: When Whiplash attacks Tony at a race in Monaco, Tony has to dodge several of the villain's whip cracks when he gets knocked to the ground. At one point his legs are spread, the whip hitting mere inches from his groin. Tony's expression indicates that this was too close for comfort.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: As cute/funny as that whole "You Complete Me" scene was in the trailer, it never showed up in the film. Nor does the scene in which Tony lends Natasha one of the Iron Man gauntlets. And several others. Ironically, they did consistently show up in the film's novelization (albeit loosely interpreted, given the improvisational nature of the film).
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Iron Man's previously unmentioned one-use lasers that he used to finish off the Hammer Drones. Justified and generally detailed beforehand as Tony never stops upgrading his suits, and will readily adapt them as the situation demands.
  • N.G.O. Superpower: By now Tony has privatized world peace. No other company or government can even come close to matching his armor technology, until Vanko comes along...
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Justin Hammer's deal with Ivan Vanko turns out to be a mistake from his perspective. Vanko proves impossible to work with, uses Hammer's resources and technology for his own single-minded vendetta, ruins Hammer's Expo showing (while placing thousands of people in immediate danger, we might add) and ultimately leads to Hammer's arrest when it's discovered that he's behind Vanko's escape. The real kick in the pants? It was all totally unnecessary. If Hammer had simply waited, Tony Stark would have self-destructed on his own, been discredited in the eyes of the public, probably died from palladium poisoning, and Hammer would have still gotten his hands on the War Machine armor and been allowed to study/weaponize it as the premier US military contractor.
  • No Endor Holocaust: See Only Evil Can Die below. The Hammer Drones, as well as Rhodes, wreak all kinds of explosive havoc during the expo, but nobody seems to come to any harm. This is averted in the novelization where it is mentioned that several people are killed.
  • "No Peeking!" Request: While Natasha is changing into her Spy Catsuit in the back of the car, she warns the driver Happy Hogan to keep his eyes on the road after he almost crashes while trying to sneak a peek via the rear-view mirror.
  • No-Sell:
    • Having had time to prepare when and where to attack Tony, Vanko's first set of armor is minimal, as he knows he's going up against Tony outside his own armor. Still, it lets him tank being rammed into a wall multiple times by Happy and is also able to deflect Tony's repulsor blasts when the latter gets into his armor.
    • Hammer tries to intimidate and punish Vanko by taking his bird, his pillows, and his shoes. Instead, Vanko is thoroughly unimpressed, having spent years in prison. In Russia.
    • Iron Man's Shoot the Hostage Taker gun system from the first movie makes a re-appearance as he tries to use it against Vanko's armor, targeting both his currently-unarmored head and spots around the shoulders. Being essentially a small-arms system, it's completely ineffective when Vanko's helmet snaps up to block the attack.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Despite Black Widow being born in Russia, the film version speaks without any trace of a Russian accent. Justified due to her being undercover for S.H.I.E.L.D. It was stated in the comics that she speaks fluent English (she's fluent in all the languages she speaks), plus being a spy, she'd need to be. You can hear the traces of a Russian accent near the end when she intimidates Justin Hammer into revealing his part in the Evil Plan. In Agent Carter, it is revealed that learning English in an American accent is par for the course for the Black Widow training facility. The girls in the Red Room speak along with American cartoons as part of their daily routine.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Tony muses in the film's novelisation that if he had been brought up in Siberia by an angry alcoholic for a father, he would have turned out like Ivan too.

    Tropes O to Z 
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Vanko shows he's both fluent and eloquent in his early face-to-face confrontation with Tony Stark, but speaks to Hammer in broken, barely intelligible English just to dick with the guy. Later on he acts only barely competent at engineering and technology, convincing Hammer that the best he can do with the Hammer suits is to make drones and then later on that the best he can make the drones do is "salute." Hammer naturally underestimates him as a result.
  • Offhand Backhand: Black Widow does this with pepper spray.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
    • Tony somehow manages to slip past the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents assigned to keep him inside his house and studying Howard Stark's old notes when he goes to visit Pepper and returns with the Stark Expo model.
      Agent Coulson: How did you break containment?
    • We never see how Vanko escapes (and kills) the Hammer goons sent to watch him, but according to the scene after, it was damn bloody.
  • Oh, Crap!: Pepper and Tony have one when Happy is taken down during the boxing lesson by "Natalie".
  • Only in It for the Money: Nick Fury claims that Vanko's father wanted to get rich off of the arc reactor technology, rather than use it to benefit the world. This is the reason why Howard Stark had him deported back to Russia.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "Tony, what are you not telling me?"
  • Only Evil Can Die:
    • Despite the Hammer Drones going amok amid the crowded Stark Expo and doing untold fortunes in property damage, not a single bystander is ever shown getting so much as a boo-boo. Even the poor mook in the horrific failed test, whose spine audibly snaps, is explicitly mentioned to have survived (though not recovered...).
    • The two goons Hammer instructs to watch Vanko are killed (Vanko is later shown with blood all over him as their bodies hang limp in the background), there appears to be a death or two during Vanko's prison escape, and Vanko himself seems to blow up in an explosion of his own doing. Vanko's rampage during the race appeared to claim the lives of one or two racers since their cars explode and no one is seen leaving them.
  • Oral Fixation: Vanko's toothpick. For only being in one quick scene, Hammer and his lollipop get brought up an awful lot in certain parts of the fandom.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Happy does legitimately win in a lengthy fistfight against a Mook; it just looks pathetic when it's compared to Natalie tearing through an entire hallway full of them without breaking a sweat.
  • Parental Abandonment: Tony complains that his dad was cold, never around for him and he seriously doubted that his father even loved him at all. This is eventually shown not to be the case.
  • Pedestrian Crushes Car: The revenge-seeking Ivan Vanko rips apart Formula One cars with high-tech energy whips during a race, just to reach Tony Stark.
  • People Puppets: Rhodes has his armor remotely hijacked by Vanko.
  • Pet the Dog: In his only displays of kindness, Ivan shows he likes cockatoos, even the one Hammer gets him in place of Vanko's own back in Russia. He apparently had a few other Pet the Dog moments in Russia to help flesh out his character, which were ultimately cut from the film, much to the annoyance of Mickey Rourke.
  • Pocket Rocket Launcher: Rhodie's War Machine suit is created by upgrading Tony's old Mark II suit with extra weapons provided by Justin Hammer's company. These include a shoulder-launched missile about an inch across which Hammer talks up as a bunker-buster he calls "the Ex-Wife". It turns out to be a dud.
  • Power Degeneration: Continuing use of the Iron Man suit accelerates Tony's palladium poisoning.
  • Power High: When Tony Stark inserts the new element into his arc-reactor, he gets a very sudden high.
  • The Power Of Friendship Animosity: Played with. When Rhodes takes the Mk II, his Beam-O-War with Tony produces a powerful blast, which is needed in the climax to defeat Whiplash after Rhodey makes up with Tony.
  • Powered Armor: The movie features three main armor suits: Tony's own suit, Rhodey's heavily-armed War Machine armor, and - during the climactic battle - Vanko's plasma-whip-toting battlesuit. Then there's Hammer's armors, which Vanko turns into attack drones.
  • Precision F-Strike: The senator who initiated the hearing in the second movie, after seeing that he's been royally pwned by Tony Stark during a live broadcast. Hilariously, the F-word is replaced by a BLEEP. In some circumstances, you're allowed to say it on C-SPAN but pettiness is not among them.
  • Product Placement: Oracle, the software company best known for a database everyone hates to work with, shows up sooooooo many times in this film, including a cameo by CEO Larry Ellison. When shown on Disney+, there is a disclaimer at the beginning about the film's product placement.
  • Pun: "Goldstein! Gimme a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to." Tony laughs at his own pun, too. Granted, he was drunk out of his mind at the time.
  • Punchclock Villain: Although not really villans; the guards at the Hammer facility do their best to stop Natasha and Happy when they arrive to take down Vanko. They are just doing their job when two unidentified persons show up, break in and start attacking them. And all without identifying the reason, or that Nat and Happy are the good guys.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Hammer devolves to this when he runs out of patience with Vanko.
    Hammer: I don't know if you're aware of this, but I DON'T! SPEAK! RUSSIAN!
  • The Quiet One: Vanko is very quiet, especially when compared with Tony or Hammer. In several of his most prominent scenes, Vanko says nothing at all; during the climax, his only words are a simple "You lose." at Tony.
  • Rapid-Fire Comedy: Phil shows up to tell Tony he's leaving.
    Tony: I'm busy, what do you want?
    Phil: Nothing. Goodbye. I've been reassigned. Director Fury wants me in New Mexico.
    Tony: Fantastic. Land of Enchantment.
    Phil: So I'm told.
    Tony: Secret stuff.
    Phil: Something like that. Good luck.
    Tony: Bye.
    Phil: Yeah. We need you.
    Tony: More'n you know.
    Phil: Not that much.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: According to the novelisation, Vanko likes cartoons like Nu, Pogodi!.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Mk II eyes light up blue like all Iron Man suits—as War Machine, they are red.
  • Renegade Russian: Averted; Ivan Vanko/Whiplash did not do this because all he wants is revenge. He did not sell arc reactor technology to the Russians.
  • Retcon: In 2017, Kevin Feige and Tom Holland acknowledged a popular fan theory that considered the boy with the Iron Man mask as Peter Parker.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Vanko could have still had his vengeance by showing that someone else could create the Arc Reactor technology. He, as Tony stated, could have sold his knowledge about it to any foreign nation, or even the black market, for amounts of money. Hell, discounting the fact that Tony was able to save himself, he could have just waited until Stark DIED and become the only game in town, instead of going to so much trouble to kill him (he knew about the palladium poisoning). All of these things he could have done, but he was so bent on screwing Tony personally that he either never realized this, or more likely never cared.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Ivan Vanko's reason for being is revenge for his father.
  • Room Full of Crazy / Stalker Shrine: Vanko's basement.
  • Rule #1: "Never take your eye off your opponent." Played for Laughs when Happy thinks he's giving Natalie her first boxing lesson.
  • Sad Clown: Tony's got a lot of issues, so this has always been part of his character, to some degree, but this movie ramps it up, because the materials of his arc reactor are toxic. The thing keeping him from dying is killing him, and he can't think of a way to fix it, and his partying and drinking and self-destructive behavior go through the roof.
  • Screaming Warrior: Tony does a screaming jump punch at Vanko/Whiplash in the climactic fight, getting tossed for his trouble.
  • Secretly Dying: Tony Stark realizes that the Arc Reactor in his chest, which was supposed to keep him alive, is slowly poisoning him. He prepares for his death by handing control of his company to Pepper and undergoes a public, alcohol-fueled breakdown. It even turns out the suit James Rhodes managed to "steal" from him had been pre-programmed by Stark to allow Rhodes to pilot it.
  • Sensual Slavs: Black Widow gets undercover in part through her modeling career and some flirtatious eyes she makes at Tony.
  • Sequel Hook:
    • Nick Fury bringing Tony on as a consultant for the Avengers Initiative in the denouement.
    • In one scene, Director Fury tells Stark that he has "bigger problems in the southwest region" than Tony. A nod to Thor, which is set in New Mexico (a.k.a. the Southwest) and is teased in The Stinger as the next film in the Marvel continuity.
  • She-Fu: Black Widow's fighting style seems to be "punch, kick, stun grenades.... sexy pose! (And casual mace.)" Not to mention her grappling, which is entirely thigh-based.
  • Shoulder Cannon: Rhodey's War Machine upgrades include a shoulder mounted machine gun.
  • Shout-Out: Collected in a subpage for the Iron Man series.
  • Shown Their Work: Vanko's tattoos were modeled after real Russian prison tattoos, which have different designs depending on things such as the length of the prison sentence. Except said tattoos show him to be a con man, who did time for theft, disorderly conduct, and rape of a minor. That was never mentioned on his rap sheet, nor is there a tat for his actual crime, which was plutonium smuggling.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: Tony when he visits Vanko in his holding cell.
    Ivan: The truth: all I have to do is sit here and watch as the world will consume you.
    Tony: Where are you gonna be watching the world consume me from? Oh, right, a prison cell. I'll send you a bar of soap.
  • Signature Style: The final battle against the Hammer drones was storyboarded by Genndy Tartakovsky. It has many similarities to fight scenes from Samurai Jack, such as Mecha Mooks getting cut in half with oil spurting from their wounds.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: One of Ivan's primary motivations for going after Tony Stark is revenge due to the fact that Tony's father, Howard, had Ivan's father, Anton, deported when he accused him of espionage.
  • Skyward Scream: Ivan's reaction to his father's death.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: Element synthesis is so much cooler when you're wearing a tank top.
  • Smart People Know Latin: Natasha speaks multiple languages including Latin, which impresses Tony. Pepper corrects him in saying no one 'speaks' Latin, as it's a dead language.
  • Smug Snake: Justin Hammer is as full of himself as Tony but unlike Tony, he doesn't have the genius to back it up.
  • Smug Super: Tony is more full of himself than usual because his powered armor enables him to 'privatize world peace'.
  • So Last Season: Tony tries to nail Vanko with the "aimbot" he used to clear out the terrorists in Gulmira in the first film. Though Vanko's head is exposed, his helmet instantly reforms to block the shot.
  • So Unfunny, It's Funny: Justin Hammer's declaration that "the papers will face a new problem. They are going to run out of ink!" The only thing missing from the declaration is the Chirping Crickets.
  • Soviet Superscience: Anton Vanko, a Soviet defector, co-developed the arc reactor technology with Tony's father in the 1960s.
  • Spectacular Spinning:
    • Sickeningly averted by the Hammer weapon test video shown at the Senate.
    • Gloriously played straight with the Death Blossom lasers.
    • Black Widow's twirling takedowns on Hammer security, which look more like lucha libre than anything else.
  • The Sponsor: Nick Fury for Tony. Samuel L. Jackson went to AA meetings and talked to various sponsors to make sure his dialogue was right.
  • Spin Attack: Tony uses this to take out the last of the "Hammeroids".
  • Spontaneous Skeet Shooting: A very drunk Tony Stark shows off to party guests by blasting thrown plates, wine bottles, and even a watermelon out of the air using his Iron Man suit.
  • Spy Catsuit: When Scarlett Johansson saw her Black Widow outfit, her first thought was "It's really... tight." Her second was "Great, now I've got to diet."
  • Stealth Pun: If you are acquainted with some of the more advanced notions in physics and have a quick eye, you'll notice that on the last page of Howard Stark's notebook there's a reference to an "Abnormal Zeeman Effect", which any nerd can tell you is a magnetic equivalent of the Stark effect.
  • Stealth Insult:
    • The senator's remark to Tony Stark shortly after giving him the medal and "accidentally" pricking him with the pin.
      Senator: Sorry, it's funny how annoying a little prick can be.
    • Pepper once again proves she is the master of this.
      Hammer: Christine Everhart's actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair. I thought I'd throw her a bone, you know. Right?
      Pepper: Right. Well, she did quite a... spread on Tony last year.
      Tony: And she wrote a story as well.
  • The Stinger: Starting a new tradition of pulling a scene from the next movie instead of Something We Forgot:
    Coulson: Sir... we found it. [camera cuts to the crater and Thor's hammer.]
  • The Stoic: Ivan Vanko is calm and collected even when held in captivity or being scolded by his billionaire employer. When Hammer tells his guards to start taking Ivan's bird and other comforts away, you can see when he stops protesting and when he starts just going with it silently. It's like flicking a switch.
  • Suit Up of Destiny: Done with the suitcase armor at the race track.
  • Tainted Veins: The palladium poisoning, which covers Tony's torso in a web of blue-black veins.
  • Take Up My Sword: In a movie that starts off with a speech about the importance of legacy, this is going to come up a lot.
    • Howard Stark reveals that he discovered a new element that would perfect the arc reactor and revolutionize energy. However, he lacks the technology to create it and leaves it up to Tony to solve the problem.
    • Rhodey is set up by the dying Tony to take over as armored hero. As Fury points out, the only way Rhodey could have activated the Mk. II was if Tony had already given him clearance to do so.
    • Pepper takes over Stark Enterprises.
  • Taking You with Me: Upon his defeat, Whiplash's armor's chestpiece begins blinking red, as do the ones on all the Hammer Drones. Granted, Tony and Rhodey get out in time but the ensuing explosions destroy most of Flushing Meadows.
  • Talented, but Trained: Broken Ace Tony Stark versus veteran pilot Colonel James Rhodes. Because they're friends, it's just a fistfight.
  • Tastes Like Purple: When Tony slams in his new, upgraded arc reactor, he tells J.A.R.V.I.S. it tastes like coconut, and metal.
  • Tattooed Crook: Ivan Vanko. They implied he's part of the Russian mafia.
  • Territorial Smurfette: Tony Stark expects this to happen with Pepper and the new aide Natalie, but the two of them get along fine. Pepper takes it as a sign of Tony's arrogance that he'd assume another Love Triangle would form over him.
  • That Poor Car: During the lead-in to the climactic battle, Iron Man swoops over a carpark and sets off a couple of alarms. Shortly afterwards, War Machine and a bunch of Hammer Drones, chasing him, set off the rest.
  • That Wasn't a Request:
    Rhodes: Listen, my car got taken out in the explosion so I'm going to have to hang on to your suit for a minute. Okay?
    Tony: Not okay. Not okay with that.
    Rhodes: Wasn't a question. [blasts off]
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Rhodey upon Vanko's reappearance in his suit:
    Rhodey: Oh, this ain't gonna be good.
  • Toilet Humour: Tony gives a live demonstration of his waste reclaimer in his suit.
    Tony: The question I get asked the most often is, 'how do you go to the bathroom in this suit?' [Beat] ...that's how.
  • Too Dumb to Live:
    • Yes, Justin. Let the brilliant, vindictive Russian physicist, who you've known only for a few hours, change the design and software of your massive army of Mecha Mooks. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?? Ironically, he's not one of Vanko's targets in the climax, although it would have been simple to kill him if it were.
    • Pepper of all things, despite obviously being a highly capable and intelligent person, veers into this during the finale. So the Big Bad Evil Genius just sicced an army of Mecha Mooks on you and shot everything around you to hell. One of those mechs is lying disabled only a few steps away. That disabled mech's torso suddenly starts flashing a big red light, combined with a very audible accelerating countdown. What do you do? Why yes, of course you stay put and stare at the damn thing instead of hightailing it out of there. It's likely she realized there was little chance of outrunning the explosion on foot (in heels, with no time to ditch them), but it's played for drama so Tony can pull off another awesome rescue stunt.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Happy Hogan, of all people. After Ivan Vanko makes his grand Dynamic Entry during the race that Tony forces himself into, and is about to make his finishing blow on Tony, the bodyguard, in Tony's custom limo, comes out of nowhere, rams into Vanko full force, and keeps him effectively pinned against the chain-link fence for several minutes. He's shown to be decent in a fist fight but not on Black Widow's level.
    • The Mk II goes from a flight test beta to the embodiment of More Dakka. As discussed by Rhodey, this was the point.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Tony Stark allows the fame to get to his head again, and it screws him over worse than his playboy tendencies did in the first film. It's at least justified, in that he's dying, and doesn't know what to do about it.
  • Toxic Phlebotinum: The palladium that runs Tony's pacemaker is now poisoning him.
  • Tragic Villain: All Ivan's disdain for Tony's family is well-founded (save for the fact that his own father was a crook). His father was cut off from the project he helped start, was deported to a winter wasteland to die in a bitter swill of alcoholism and disgrace, and he himself got wrapped up in organized crime to make a living. Beneath his cold exterior is a genius mind that even Tony Stark is impressed by.
    • Mickey Rourke wanted to play up more on this aspect of the villain, but due to Executive Meddling from Marvel, his ideas ended up on the cutting room floor. This caused Rourke to hate his experience at Marvel.
  • Transformation Is a Free Action: Ivan allows Tony to finish putting on his armor, despite having energy whips that could reach and kill him if he so inclined. Justified on two accounts: 1.) Ivan's legs were pinned between a wall and a car 2.) when he saw Tony putting on the suit, he decided he could do even better and show that Iron Man wasn't all that invincible.
  • Transformation Sequence: All of the equipping sequences count, but the standout one has to be the suitcase suit.
  • Transformation Trinket: The aforementioned suitcase folds out into his armor (which is distinctly much thinner and less protective than his standard suit, and can't fly).
  • Trash the Set: In the first movie, Tony's Malibu house suffered some damage from his suit testing. In the second movie, it's destructively remodeled during his fight with Rhodes, and subsequently repurposed into housing a prismatic accelerator. It's really not much of a house any more. Probably why he's living in New York City in The Avengers. Iron Man 3 shows it got fixed up - just in time for Aldrich Killian to have it blown off the side of the cliff and into the sea. Oh, and we see Tony's old suits blowing up one-by-one.
  • Unobtainium:
    • Stark needs a non-toxic replacement for palladium for his reactor. Eventually, he builds a prismatic accelerator to produce a new element previously only discovered by his father. According to his computer screens, it's Ununoctium, which is not a metal though theorized to be part of the island of stability if the configuration of protons and neutrons is correct. In the novelization, it's Vibranium, an element that has appeared in the comics (in two distinct varieties) since the '60s, though it has different properties from those two varieties. Other MCU movies suggest that it's the same material, perhaps Asgardian in origin, that makes up the Tesseract.
    • In the Fury's Big Week tie-in to The Avengers, which strings together these films' continuities with each other and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Fury says that Stark went on to try and patent this new element as "badassium", but bureaucracy was getting in the way.
  • Unperson: Happened to Anton Vanko, which was why Tony didn't know about his involvement in the creation of the Arc Reactor.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Nick Fury feeds Tony a story about Anton Vanko where Howard got Anton deported. Doesn't quite square with Howard naming his son after Anton.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: After the glowing description of the Ex-Wife's effects, did anybody expect it to work? It doesn't work, although it does in the novelization.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Subverted. It looks like Natalie Rushman gave Tony some very bad advice that led directly to the mess his birthday party turned into, because she had no idea he was dying. Turns out she's with S.H.I.E.L.D., though, and presumably knew all along and this was all part of the plan.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Justin Hammer to Vanko. He gave Vanko use of his labs to upstage Tony and Vanko decided to use it for his revenge plot.
  • Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Rhodey puts on the Mark II and faces off against a drunken Tony in his Mark IV, but doesn't do too well initially because it's his first time using it and Tony's more experienced. However, he improves, while Tony is still drunk and they end up battling each other into a stalemate.
  • Urine Trouble: Lampshaded and played straight in the same scene, during Tony's drinking binge:
    Tony: [fully decked in his armor] You know, the question I get asked most often is: "Tony, how do you go to the bathroom in the suit?"
    [beat; Tony closes his eyes and the look in his face grows steadily... relieved]
    Tony: ...Just like that.
  • Useful Book: Tony uses a prototype (?) of Captain America's shield to level part of the prismatic accelerator he's built. He also uses a number of stacked books to hold it up. Judging from the Captain America movie, Howard Stark probably started working on a prototype shield based on how the all vibranium one was being used but had to put it aside.
  • Use Your Head: Used in the climactic battle of the film.
  • U.S. Marshal: Tony and Happy find an attractive woman standing by his new car. When Tony asks who she is, she replies "Marshall". It's only when she informs Tony he's being Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee that we realise it's not her name.
  • [Verb] This!: During Tony's fight against James Rhodes:
    Tony: Sorry, pal, but... Iron Man doesn't have a sidekick.
    Rhodes: Side! Kick! This! [blasts Tony with boxing ring turnbuckle on each word]
  • Victimized Bystander: A test pilot for Hammer has his spine snapped by a test armor.
  • Victory by Endurance: Ivan uses this strategy against Tony and Rhodes. By the time he engages the two in battle, they've already burned a lot of energy and ammunition on the army of drones Vanko sent against them. Furthermore, Tony has used up his One-Hit Kill ace-in-the-hole. Vanko still loses because of a Chekhov's Gun that the heroes can use.
  • Vodka Drunkenski: Ivan Vanko greatly enjoys a famous real-life brand of Russian vodka. As does his "burd".
  • Waif-Fu: Black Widow's is able to take out several larger security guards with an acrobatic fighting style.
  • Watching the Reflection Undress: Natasha/Black Widow changes out of her evening gown into her Spy Catsuit in the back of Happy Hogan's car. Hogan spies on her with the rear view mirror and nearly crashes the car. She catches him and tells him to keep his eyes on the road.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Explored, as Tony has some shades of this. He finally gets his "well done" from Howard in the video he left behind... even as he begins to realize just how brilliant his dad was.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Tony is alone after he disappointed all of his friends. He makes up for it in the end.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Ivan attempts to get his bird from Russia but has to make do with a substitute. We never find out what happens to it until Fury's Big Week.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Rhodey loses all his patience with Tony after Tony parties while wearing his Iron Man armor and using the suit's weaponry to amuse the guests. He decides Tony doesn't deserve the suit and hijacks the Mk.II suit to prove his point. Depending on how you look at it, there's Stern and all the people who aren't happy that Tony isn't sharing the Iron Man tech with the military (or, in Stern's case, with HYDRA).
    • When War Machine was introduced, Pepper was just about to give this trope to Rhodey, but Tony beat her to it in order to warn Rhodey about Hammer and Vanko's collaboration.
  • What You Are in the Dark: When confronted with his poisoning and seemingly imminent death, Tony asks Natasha Romanoff what she would do if she had only a brief time to live. Natasha, evaluating him for S.H.I.E.L.D., told him that she would do whatever she wanted. As a result, he decides to have a wild party at his house in Malibu in full armor, get drunk, and thereby endangering everyone around him. For that reason, Nick Fury allows the Iron Man suit to be a full Avenger, while Tony would be a consultant for failing his test.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Ivan's harness and later his Powered Armor aren't shown to have any on-board weapons like the Iron Man or War Machine armor, except for the whips. He still overpowers both of them because the whips are just that effective. It makes sense. The Iron Man and War Machine armors are filled to the brim with ranged weaponry, most of which is explosive. Up close, they either miss, or hit and damage both Vanko and themselves. The whips bring the attacker in close and immobilize them while delivering an electric discharge to fry and mangle the armor.
  • Worthy Opponent: Ivan believes Tony to be the only one worthy enough to talk straight to. Other times he is either silent or in Hammer's case pretending to be an incompetent, broken English speaking Cloud Cuckoo Lander. With Tony, he makes his intentions clear and even follows Tony's sarcastic advice when upgrading his weaponry.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Natasha's fight style is based around martial arts and lucha libre, with plenty of hurricanranas and headscissors takedowns.
  • Wronski Feint: Tony uses this to dispose of several hacked Hammer droids.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Ivan Vanko's attack in Monaco didn't need to kill Tony: it only needed to reveal to the world that Tony wasn't the only one with the knowledge to create arc reactors and armoured suit technology, and that he could be physically challenged. He even says "You lose" as he's dragged away.
  • You Killed My Father: The main reason Vanko has a beef with Stark Industries - though technically, it's "your father had my father deported and left to rot in Siberia." Being deported is what caused Anton Vanko to develop a destructive drinking habit, which eventually killed him. Unusually for this trope, his Dynamic Entry doesn't include the traditional "My name is Ivan Vanko. You drove my father to alcohol poisoning. Prepare to die," announcement, and he immediately starts using lethal attacks. Had they been successful, Tony would have died without having any idea who his killer was or why he killed him. This rather unconventional approach underlines Vanko's role as The Quiet One.


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Tony Stark's Senate testimony

Tony Stark tells the Senate they can't have his Iron Man "prosthesis" and that he's privatized world peace.

How well does it match the trope?

4.75 (20 votes)

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Main / HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee

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