Did you see that new Iron Man 3 tv spot that dropped earlier this week? You should. Because this blog post is about it. If you haven’t seen it watch it here.
See that bit at the end? When Pepper has the suit on and saves Tony? That’s crucial. You see, Tony Stark saves people. He’s a hero. That’s his job. But sometimes even the savior needs saving.
Y’know what makes Tony Stark so special as a hero? He’s incredible vulnerable. He doesn’t have super-strength or a healing factor or amazing reflexes. Heck the guy has heart disease! It’s much of the rationale behind the armor (and apparently the plot of the third movie), he needs to protect himself from threats bigger than himself.
He hides this vulnerability, though, wrapping it up with sarcasm and glibness. He doesn’t want others to worry. We see this in Iron Man 2 when Tony’s arc reactor takes a turn for the worst. He draws into himself and lives recklessly until he finally pulls himself together and beats it. Yet through it all he doesn’t tell Pepper, the person closest to him, about it. He doesn’t want anyone else to worry over him or freak out. It’s his mix of pride and stubbornness that makes him want to do it on his own.
It’s a thread that weaves its way through all his movies. One of the most crucial moments in Iron Man comes near the climax, after Obadiah Stane takes Tony’s arc reactor. The man struggles to get to his garage where his other arc reactor is, but falls just short of it. Then Dummy, the robot who Tony’s been ragging on, picking on, and calling useless for entire movie, hands him the old arc reactor. Tony acknowledges it with a simple “good boy”. You have to realize that this is Tony admitting he can’t always do it himself. Later on in the climax he asks Rhodey to keep the skies clear and Pepper to help him finish off Stane. In 2 and The Avengers he does the same thing, trying his best to do it all alone. There’s a moment during the final battle of The Avengers when Tony defers to Captain America for strategy during the climax. This again shows his growth in the team, he knows he can’t do everything by himself. It gets mirrored again when Hulk catches him: he was saved.
All this has to do with that moment in the trailer where a suited up Pepper protects Tony from the falling debris. In that moment he’s being taken care of, he’s being saved by the person he usually saves.
There’s even more to it though. Presumably Tony orders the suit to go after Pepper (I say presumably because in that teaser Tony ordering the armor to fly is from a different scene) as the mansion’s crumbling around them. He does this at his own expense, he has the suit protect her not him. Tony’s no longer the selfish git he used to be. Remember in The Avengers when he’s arguing with Captain America? Steve calls him out on being self-serving, on always trying to find a way out. That moment of him opting to just save Pepper as opposed to suiting up himself and fighting out shows just how far he’s come.
“I got you,” Pepper tells Tony upon saving him. It’s a weird turn for him, but not unwelcome. Tony, who’s usually sticking it out alone, now has someone saving him. He’s not alone anymore. In another trailer we see him and Rhodey getting ready for what I’m going to assume is the final battle. He’s grown out of his prideful independence and learned to rely on others.
But he still protects them. “I got you first,” after all.
By the way, Iron Man 3 comes out in 33 days. This won’t be the last post on Iron Man 3. My apologies. Actually, no, I don’t apologize.
I'm Josh. I watch entirely too many movies, listen to far too much music, watch enough TV, and don't read as much as I should. 