Iron Man 2

Six months after telling the world he is Iron Man, Tony Stark faces a Senate committee that wants his suit, a Russian physicist's son who wants revenge, and a palladium core that is slowly poisoning him. Iron Man 2 opened internationally on April 28, 2010, and in the United States on May 7, and it arrived with the weight of a franchise on its shoulders. Jon Favreau returned to direct, Robert Downey Jr. returned to the role that revived his career, and Marvel Studios used the sequel to widen the frame toward The Avengers.

The film cost a reported $200 million and earned $623.9 million worldwide, including a $128.1 million domestic opening weekend that ranked among the largest at the time. Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, Scarlett Johansson joined as Natasha Romanoff, and Mickey Rourke played Ivan Vanko, a villain whose electric whips made the Monaco Grand Prix sequence one of the more memorable set pieces of the early Marvel run.

Critics were divided. The consensus held that the sequel was entertaining but crowded, with too many subplots and too much S.H.I.E.L.D. business competing for time. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects and a BAFTA nomination in the same category, while picking up a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie: Sci-Fi. The film's reputation has shifted in the years since, though it is still usually ranked below the 2008 original in retrospective surveys. [edit]

Tony Stark has been Iron Man for six months, and he has made the most of it. He opens the film by leaping from a plane into the Stark Expo, lands on stage in full armor, and tells a cheering crowd that peace is imminent. The performance works on the public. It does not work on the United States government.

Senator Stern convenes an Armed Services Committee hearing and demands that Stark hand over the Iron Man suit, arguing that it is a weapon and that no private citizen should control it. Stark refuses, and he does so with a demonstration: he pulls up footage of Justin Hammer, a rival defense contractor, trying and failing to build a functioning copy of the armor. Hammer's test pilot crashes through a wall. The committee adjourns without the suit, and Stark leaves with his reputation intact and a new enemy in Hammer.

The victory is hollow. The arc reactor in Stark's chest runs on palladium, and the palladium is poisoning his blood. His toxicity levels are climbing, and he knows he is dying. He does not tell Pepper Potts, whom he promotes to CEO of Stark Industries in a scene that is part business decision and part attempt to put his affairs in order. He does not tell Rhodey. Instead he throws himself a birthday party in Malibu, gets drunk in the suit, and lets Rhodey watch him unravel. When Rhodey tries to intervene, Stark fights him. Rhodey takes the Mark II armor and leaves.

In Russia, Ivan Vanko watches the news and builds. His father, Anton, worked with Howard Stark on the original arc reactor and was deported after the partnership fell apart. Anton died in poverty, and Ivan has spent years nursing the grievance. He builds his own reactor, mounts it in a harness, and attaches two electrified whips. He finds Stark at the Monaco Grand Prix, cuts a car in half, and nearly kills him before security arrives. Vanko is arrested and imprisoned, but not before he tells Stark exactly why he came.

Hammer sees an opportunity. He arranges Vanko's release from prison, brings him to the United States, and puts him to work building a line of weaponized drones. Hammer's plan is to sell the military a fleet of remote-controlled suits and upstage Stark at the Stark Expo. Vanko agrees to help, but he is not interested in Hammer's contract. He is interested in the access.

Stark, meanwhile, is coming apart. A new assistant named Natalie Rushman arrives, and she is more capable than her résumé suggests. She is Natasha Romanoff, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent assigned to watch him. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson confront Stark about his condition and about his father. Howard Stark left behind more than a company. He left a model of the 1974 Stark Expo, and the model contains a hidden diagram for a new element. Stark builds it, replaces the palladium core, and survives. The new reactor is more powerful than the old one, and it buys him time.

Rhodey, now working with the military, brings the Mark II to Hammer, who rebrands it as War Machine. Hammer unveils the drones and War Machine at the Expo in Queens. Stark arrives expecting a fight. He gets one, though not the one Hammer intended.[edit]