So listen, the revelation I’m about to spoil here probably has some kind of precedent in the comics, and I’m absolutely certain it will appear in future trailers- likely as the trailer’s final “holy shit” moment. That said, if you’d like to experience the concept visually for the first time, or are endeavoring to go into Shane Black’s film as fresh as possible- then fuck on off from this post my friend…
If you do hop on down though, you’ll see how Marvel has apparently planned for increasing the scale and might of the cinematic universe right away post-Avengers. That process seems to start in Iron Man 3 in a big way, with Marvel’s flagship hero presumably being outfitted in such a way that will make him a fit match for more cosmically-powerful threats.
So here we go (I’ve dropped the article way down low)…
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From the sound of things, Shane Black and company have found a way to up the scale of the mayhem in Iron Man 3 pretty spectacularly, perhaps pushing it past anything so far seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That leap up in the action will apparently hinge around Tony’s approach to handling the increasingly overwhelming threat of The Mandarin’s forces in the new film. We’ve known for some time that the franchise’s reliance on the Extremis origin and other plot points would culminate in Shane Black’s outright adaptation of the story, and with the ultra-enhanced baddies of the Extremis story plaguing him, Tony is forced to come up with an out-of-the-box solution.
If you want to read a specific description of the dialogue that surrounds the decision, you can hit Latino Review’s exclusive, but the basic idea is this: Tony Stark builds himself a small Iron Man army. Hopping from the Mark VII suit seen in The Avengers to the red-and-latte-colored suit seen at Comic Con, Stark develops the “Mark XLVII” suit- which happens to come with 39 spares.
Presumably the climax of Iron Man 3 will involve Stark using his new Extremis-enhanced abilities –which grant him a new level of neural interface with his suit(s) and the ability to subconsciously process information with extreme speed– to lead a 40-strong army of suits in concert with each other, all under his mega-brain command.
You’ll recall Captain America’s insult in Whedon’s film, “Big man in a suit. Take that away, what are you?” Well, any Extremis-based story will come as close as anything to granting Tony Stark legitimate superpowers, and setting him up to be the kind of hero that can go toe-to-toe with more cosmic-scaled forces alongside Gods and true supermen.
Sounds huge to me.
If this turns out to be the case, The Avengers 2 is going to have to really step things up to stay on top! While it’s a problem that comics (and D&D games) have been facing for decades, it looks like it won’t be long before power creep becomes something Marvel will have to contend with in their films as well.