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What is your favorite superhero/capeshit movie?
I'll nominate a few, because it's hard to choose one.
The Incredibles is a superhero movie and I think works particularly well because it's animated and has so many comedy elements. Unlike most modern superhero films, it doesn't take itself that seriously, and is a better film for it. Superheroes are, at their core, rather silly and childish, and embracing that works. It's the difference between The Incredibles and every Fantastic Four movie - the former isn't pretending to not be silly. Anyway, it is amazing. I am fond of Megamind for similar reasons, though it's a less polished and ultimately less successful film than The Incredibles. Still, when I watch a superhero film, it's because I want to have fun, and these films provide.
On the very other end of the spectrum, The Dark Knight is still amazing. Batman Begins is actually quite solid too. However, I don't think I'm going to nominate them as my favourite because they don't fit the genre. The Dark Knight is a dark, gritty crime drama that just happens to have Batman in it. It's not realistic - on the contrary, it's more of a psychodrama about nihilism and chaos - but it's not fundamentally about superheroes either.
I will also mention Iron Man (2008), which is probably the best film to star the character. It's from back when the MCU wasn't a thing, Robert Downey Jr. wasn't famous, and the character of Iron Man was still an obscure B- or C-lister that no one outside of comics fans recognised. If you knew Iron Man at all, it was probably in the context of him being a total asshole in Civil War (the comic). The film singlehandedly brought him into the public eye and made people love him again. Anyway, what I think the original Iron Man has going for it is that it's just un-self-conscious? It has none of the burdens of being a Marvel film. It's just a film. But it's a film that has such enthusiasm for its subject matter, and such infectious joy? The whole film is a love letter to engineering and creativity. Tony's first flight is a sequence of pure joy. It's also from back when the Iron Man armour was genuinely cool, and part of that for me is that the armour in the first film clanks and whirrs and sounds like a machine. It's not this nanomachine nonsense that may as well be magic, as it is in the latest films. It is metal and gears. Lastly, I want to say that unlike a lot of later MCU films, it has a bunch of really good shots in it? The Jericho test at the start or the tank scene have these really well-composed, memorable shots. But do you remember any similar shots from the sequels? Lastly, Black Sabbath. It's just great.
Didn't he get a run in one of those 90's animated shows?
He did indeed. I and many of my generation knew who Iron Man was even if we weren't comic fans because of that.
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Its plain that the MCU as such would not exist if not for Iron Man being as freaking cool as it was, and also allowing the heroes to coalesce around a central figure that wasn't Spiderman. And using him as the catalyst for bringing Spidey into the MCU proper was a natural choice and done well.
And thus, killing him in Endgame made such beautiful thematic sense, it really made it impossible to continue the MCU as a coherent world after that point. Why keep watching if there's no chance a smarmy RDJ might show up and one-liner his way into and out of trouble and reveal new suit designs in the process, with the classic rock blaring all the time. A top 5 fave moment is his entrance in Avengers to confront Loki..
And as you say, he would wear out his welcome since there was nowhere else for the "iron man" concept to go after his magical nanobots mode.
Which was always going to be a problem. I think one of the best parts of Age of Ultron was the introduction of the Hulkbuster armor, showing that he puts a ton of thought into what designs he might need... but also showing this one as not quite up to the task it was built for and thus Stark isn't quite the walking 'counter everything' character that, say, Batman has a reputation as.
I dunno. Cap's my favorite of the main group, but Stark is what keeps me coming back.
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