History YMMV / IronMan2

** The drones? Hammer 'roids.
*** Although not exactly a "fan" nickname: Tony explicitly refers to them that way once, though the dialog is hard to hear.

* GeniusBonus: Howard Stark's notebook [[http://i.imgur.com/t8k0e.jpg shows him discovering]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_effect the Stark effect]].

** 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 [[{{SHIELD}} S.H.I.E.L.D.]] has more on its plate to handle.

** The Internet is riddled with comparisons between Tony's Senate hearing and Hank Rearden's trial in ''AtlasShrugged''. ''Film/{{Iron Man 3}}'' turns Jack Taggert into "J. [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Taggart]]" -- Jim Taggart is the name of an antagonist in ''Atlas Shrugged.''

** Also in the sequel, Tony's birthday party. "Iron Man, how do you go to the bathroom in that suit? ...just like that." Not funny. Giving an actual technobabble answer about filtration and being able to drink that? ''Now'' it's funny.

** Bill O'Reilly, who makes a surprising cameo as himself in the sequel, commenting on his show about [[spoiler:Pepper Potts becoming CEO of Stark Industries]]. It's much like the segments on his show in real life, but the fact that he's in ''Iron Man 2'' makes it hilarious.

* PanderingToTheBase: Some people accused the second 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]].

* AnticlimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Vanko]] at the end. It takes all of two minutes to take him down with a ChekovsGun.

** During Hammer's description of "the Ex-Wife" he mentions it has a "cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX burst". [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment That's the same term being said twice]], one's the chemical name, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX the other's the acronym]]. [[spoiler:Quite a subtle way to foreshadow that the weapon isn't all it's hyped to be.]]

** [[http://blog.cratchit.org/2008/03/larry-ellison-is-iron-man.html This blogger speculated]] in jest that Oracle CEO Larri Ellison is Iron Man in RealLife. This was in March 2008. Two years later, Ellison makes a cameo at Tony Stark's birthday party in ''Iron Man 2''.

** The Internet is riddled with comparisons between Tony's Senate hearing and Hank Rearden's trial in ''AtlasShrugged''. ''[[Film/{{Iron Man 3}}'' turns Jack Taggert into "J. [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Taggart]]" -- Jim Taggart is the name of an antagonist in ''Atlas Shrugged.''

* ANticlimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Vanko]] at the end. It takes all of two minutes to take him down with a ChekovsGun.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Not that SamRockwell is necessarily a looker, but his Justin Hammer is certainly a step up from the comics' much older, wrinkly version of the character.

* BrokenAesop: In his review of the second film, WebVideo/ConfusedMatthew raises a valid point that the reason for his dislike of ''Iron Man 2'' is because the whole message seems to be that ''no-one'' should have ultimate power... unless their name happens to be Tony Stark.
** LostAesop: The film condemns the idea of weapons manufacturing, [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing but then we see War Machine tear it up good]]. Tony insists he's the only one responsible enough to handle the suit, but has a drunk party in the thing. Vanko claims his attack will inspire the rest of the world to lose faith in Tony, [[RevengeBeforeReason but then keeps trying to kill him anyway]]. And that inspiring doesn't happen, Tony gets no real loss in reception, and Rhodey's still going to let the Air Force engineers reverse-engineer his suit. By the end of the film, you're not sure ''what'' the final moral was.

* BrokenAesop: In his review of the second film, WebVideo/ConfusedMatthew raises a valid point that the reason for his dislike of ''Iron Man 2'' is because the whole message seems to be that ''no-one'' should have ultimate power... unless their name happens to be Tony Stark.
** LostAesop: The film condemns the idea of weapons manufacturing, [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing but then we see War Machine tear it up good]]. Tony insists he's the only one responsible enough to handle the suit, but has a drunk party in the thing. Vanko claims his attack will inspire the rest of the world to lose faith in Tony, [[RevengeBeforeReason but then keeps trying to kill him anyway]]. And that inspiring doesn't happen, Tony gets no real loss in reception, and Rhodey's still going to let the Air Force engineers reverse-engineer his suit. By the end of the film, you're not sure ''what'' the final moral was.

** LostAesop: The film condemns the idea of weapons manufacturing, but then we see War Machine tear it up good. Tony insists he's the only one responsible enough to handle the suit, but has a drunk party in the thing. Vanko claims his attack will inspire the rest of the world to lose faith in Tony, but then [[RevengeBeforeReason keeps trying to kill him anyway]]. And that inspiring doesn't happen, Tony gets no real loss in reception, and Rhodey's still going to let Air Force engineers reverse-engineer his suit. By the end of the film, you're not sure ''what'' the final moral was.

** [[spoiler:CaptainAmerica is coming back to Earth.]]

** The Suitcase Armor. It's used for just three minutes and has the living crap beaten out of it, but the activation was so cool that the armor was used on the DVD cover and at the top of [[ThisVeryWiki this very page]]. Elements of it were also adapted into the Mark VII of ''The Avengers''.

* BrokenAesop: In his review of the second film, ''ConfusedMatthew'' raises a valid point that the reason for his dislike of ''Iron Man 2'' is because the whole message seems to be that ''no-one'' should have ultimate power... unless their name happens to be Tony Stark.

* CriticalDissonance: Rotten Tomatoes scores designate this as one of the least well-received movies in the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, second only to ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk''. Despite this, it became the third highest-grossing movie in the phase, trailing its predecessor and ''Film/TheAvengers''.

* HilariousInHindsight: TheStinger where [[spoiler:Thor's hammer is found]]. Viewers may assume that it's government presence that circling the area. [[spoiler:As ''{{Film/Thor}}'' reveals, it's just a bunch macho dudes trying to pull out the hammer]].

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: Disqualify Iron Man from being on the Avengers. Right...
* PanderingToTheBase: Some people accused the second movie of setting up the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe more than its own, despite the fact that Nick Fury doesn't appear until more than an hour in and even then his purpose is more to get Tony off of his ass and create the element that will eventually save his life than to convince him to join The Avengers. Heck, it's even more realistic for a government agency like S.H.I.E.L.D. to have more on its plate to deal with than simply Tony Stark.