7. Tony Stark’s arc in Iron Man 3 was completely undone
Whether we like it or not, Iron Man 3 was the last stand-alone Iron Man movie we got in the MCU. As such, it had the difficult job of bringing Tony’s arc to a definite end. But even when that seemed like a monumental task, the movie managed to achieve it with surprising ease. After all, Iron Man 3 ended with Tony destroying all of his Iron Man suits and ditching the arc reactor in favor of a simpler life next to Pepper Potts. It was truly a happy ending… until it wasn’t.
Just two years after Iron Man 3 premiered, Avengers: Age of Ultron was released in theaters. Unfortunately, bringing together Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for the second time completely undid Tony’s apparent farewell in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man suited up once again for Avengers: Age of Ultron and he even had an army of robot soldiers by his side (who were later corrupted by Ultron). Worse of all, there was no explanation whatsoever of why Tony decided to go back to his superhero life.
Sure, you could say Iron Man 3‘s finale was open-ended with Tony delivering the line: “One thing you can’t take away… I am Iron Man”. However, we’re supposed to look past the fact he completely rebuilt his many armors and fought alongside the Avengers once again, yet he still wanted to drop being a superhero so badly that he created Ultron to take his place in protecting the world.
It doesn’t matter how you put it, Tony’s arc developed backward between Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron and that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.