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Iron Man 2 is trending as people debate if it's decent and my time has perhaps never come more than just this moment.
I was going to start tagging people who have seen me argue this in person but like. It's honestly a lot.
Thor 1 and Iron Man 2 are the most female-friendly movies from Phase 1 and I will not apologize.
Here is my Iron Man 2 opinion: People talking about IM2 as the worst movie in the MCU usually really mean is "IM2 is one of the least well-organized/polished movies in the MCU" which is an entirely different metric.
IM2 has all the pieces but it's like they forgot to (no pun intended) assemble them. Also Favreau's issues are visible from space, and yes they're irritating, but I'm not sure how or why they're MORE irritating than Joss's or the Russos'?
(Amy are you aware there are Marvel movies not featuring Natasha I WILL SEE YOU IN HELL)
I will also accept the idea that Iron Man 2 is basically what happen when you put a lot of very good ideas in a blender with a complete lack of artistic discipline. I can definitely acknowledge it's a fundamentally undisciplined film.
And arguably what the movie achieves has nothing to do with what it INTENDED to achieve, but it did a lot both for setting up the MCU as a shared universe rather than somewhat interconnected movies- I think it really lays the groundwork for Avengers- and for. Like.
IM2 is obviously primarily Tony's story. But it's very much Pepper, Rhodey, and Nat's story too, giving story space to other characters in ways that IM1 was not able to do. They don't exist entirely in the context of the hero, and it matters.
Obviously as a Nat and Pepper and Rhodey person I'm heavily biased here, but perhaps even more importantly, IM2's failures showed how the MCU could have successes in later movies.
IM2 isn't a team movie yet but it is a movie where Tony is trying to give his powers to other characters. On a literal level Pepper gets the company and Rhodey gets the suit, but on a meta level, it's also establishing that there's more superheroes to rely on.
It also establishes SHIELD as the central hub of MCU films, tying them all together, in ways that they were able to better execute across the next several movies. But they couldn't improve without the baseline.
Wait hold on I just realized i didn't wax poetic about Nick Fury in Iron Man 2 and I CANNOT LET CRITICISM OF IM2 STAND WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT HOW GREAT NICK IS.
PEOPLE TALK ABOUT TONY STARK AS THE HEART OF THE MCU BUT IT IS IN FACT NICHOLAS J FURY, WHO STILL BELIEVES IN HEROES DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY'RE MOSTLY FUCK-UPS WHO NEED HIS HELP AND HE GETS NONE OF THE CREDIT AND ALL OF THE SHIT.
NICK FURY IS HATED BY FANDOM FOR BEING A RESPONSIBLE ADULT WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT THE WORLD WILL NOT BEND UNLESS WE MAKE IT BEND. HE IS WILLING TO BE THE BAD GUY WHILE CLEARLY CARING FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T RETURN THE FAVOR. NICK FURY IS THE BEST OF ALL OF US.
Nick Fury caring about his agents and caring about his superheroes is what makes so much WORK for me and I feel like fandom STILL doesn't get that because they keep acting like Carol is his favorite and he doesn't like any of the rest of them.
I mean obviously the text has most showed Nick as close to Nat (Cap2), and given him moments with Steve (Cap1) and Tony (Ultron), but what we constantly see is that Nick is both an optimist and a very practical person. Without BOTH of those, nothing happens. HE IS THE MCU GLUE.
Wait let me bring this into the main thread because it's important https://twitter.com/aboynamedart/status/1327403915692765184
Civil War is what happens when the three people in the MCU who have shown themselves as competent at bureaucracy and paperwork- Nick, Phil, and Pepper- are not available.
(Nat is arguably also competent at bureaucracy, given the end of Cap2, but she is basically like "hey I think we should find this compromise position" and everyone else is like "lol")
Almost every other movie where SHIELD appears has it either under extreme duress (alien attack in Avengers) or infiltrated by Nazis (Cap2) or in disarray (every other movie). Iron Man 2 is the best example of what SHIELD was as an IDEAL, and that is embodied by Nick.
Yes, I understand, stabbing Tony in the neck without warning him was not the nicest move. But SHIELD isn't nice, it's good. The organization evaluated what was wrong, figured out how to solve it without causing an international incident, and did so efficiently.
Even watching through the lens of Tony-is-our-hero, it is extremely hard for me to not see SHIELD as heroic here, because Tony is spiralling out of control and his normal constants aren't able to stop him because he's trying to protect them.
I acknowledge that "we do what needs to be done even when it's ugly" is not the same type of heroism as Cap, Iron Man, or Thor, but I'd argue it's equally important if not more so. And Nick Fury gets NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT for how hard he works to do that.
In conclusion Nick is the best and I love him.
*wraps self around Nick and Natasha and hisses whenever anyone approaches*
