Jeremy’s Tophunder №88: Iron Man

6 min readApr 23, 2020

I had a really hard time figuring out how many movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to include in my list, and where they should be placed.

It’s an idea that I’ve brought up a few times before in this space, but based on things like my mood in a given moment, and how recently I’ve seen certain movies, sometimes it seems like there are 200 or more movies that could fit into my Top 100. Am I in a bummed-out mood, and I want to watch a straightforward story where a Good Guy quite literally punches Evil in the face? In that moment, MCU movies might make up, like, 15 or more spots on my list. There are a ton of good Marvel movies.

At the end of the day, though, most MCU movies ended up on the outside looking in. Only two of them made the Top 100. I opted to go with one origin story (this one) and one ensemble (coming in a month or so), because those, generally speaking, are the Superhero movies that are most interesting to me (at least within the MCU). To some extent, I’m using them as placeholders for the rest of the series.

As such, I have to extend apologies to two Captain America movies (The Winter Soldier and Civil War), Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, and three of the four Avengers movies. All seven of those movies, at one point or another, were in drafts of The Tophunder list. Some of them were among the last movies cut.

I went with Iron Man as the one origin story not only because it introduces the central character of the first three phases of the universe, but more so because it introduces the universe itself. It’s the first movie that Marvel ever produced independently, and, intentionally or not, director Jon Favreau and producer Kevin Feige set the tone for the universe. There’s a reason that the overwhelming majority of movies in the MCU are filmed in a similar style, have a similar visual aesthetic, use similar storytelling techniques, and use music in similar ways. It’s not a coincidence. They set the standard and then followed it.

Iron Man, to me, is the most interesting and complex character in the Marvel universe. He’s the only one that has to constantly be grappling with his own sins and failures throughout the series. Characters like Thor and Doctor Strange have to confront harsh truths and grow because of it, but Iron Man is really the only one who has to not only confront harsh truths, but confront harsh truths that he himself was responsible for. It was Stark Industry weapons that the terrorists used to ambush the U.S. military convoy in Afghanistan. Stark was kidnapped to build a Jericho missile for them. He escapes, but the events change his worldview. He shuts down the weapons manufacturing operations of Stark Industries — he no longer wants to be responsible for death, when just a few days earlier, he was comfortable being labeled “Merchant of Death” by the blonde Vanity Fair reporter. He builds his suit to take matters into his own hands, to right the wrongs that his company has created around the world. When he finds out that his weapons have found their way into the hands of terrorists anyway, he travels halfway around the world in his new suit to destroy them.

There’s nobody else in the Marvel universe that come to the realization “I have made mistakes and caused pain and anguish to people I don’t even know, and I must make amends for those mistakes.” And even beyond the first Iron Man, Tony Stark is constantly grappling with these issues in just about every movie he appears in. For my money, he’s the most compelling character in the universe. The only ones that come close are actually villains (Ultron and Thanos).

Beyond what Iron Man represents as a character within the universe, though, the first Iron Man actually remains a really, really strong movie. It’s fast-paced, it’s funny, and it’s well-acted. Robert Downey, Jr. is perfect in the role, and Jeff Bridges actually makes for a great villain. Gwyneth Paltrow is kind of unbearable as a human being when not acting, but I actually kind of enjoy her here. Here’s her kicking Blonde Vanity Fair Writer out of the house the following morning (with a subtle edit).

Some of it’s sequences don’t quite compare to some of the movies that come later, and while that might be a valid criticism, I think it’s also a function of just being the movie that came first. Obviously, there’s going to be an element of one-upsmanship. And it’s not like the action sequences are bad. They’re actually pretty good. The F-22 dogfight scene is fantastic, and the final showdown between Iron Man and Iron Monger still holds up.

I’m not going to pretend like Iron Man is the best movie in the Marvel universe, but it’s the first one. When I wrote about Finding Nemo, I talked about how its ranking was influenced in part by the fact that it was the movie that re-sparked my love for animation. Iron Man did something similar with superhero movies. Prior to the MCU, I loved Batman movies, and, well, that was kind of it. I didn’t really like any of the Tobey Maguire Spidermans, I didn’t really love the first three X-Men movies, and the other ones that popped up in the late 90s and early 2000s were mostly terrible. Iron Man was the one that reminded me that Superhero movies can be amazing when they’re done correctly. There was way too much high-concept nonsense floating around for the decade previous — studios thinking that they can just throw any comic book character into a movie and it would be good enough. From a financial perspective, they were kind of right. The 2005 Fantastic Four movie did well enough at the box office that it got a sequel in 2007. The Ben Affleck Daredevil recouped double its budget, as did Nic Cage’s Ghost Rider. But they weren’t good. I can’t think of anyone that likes those movies (unless they’re doing it ironically, in which case I say, power to you).

Iron Man reminded all of us that superhero movies can be good when they’re taken seriously, instead of thrown together slapdash by a studio trying to just pump out a movie in order to hold onto the rights for another few years. It’s not the best Marvel movie, but it’s good enough to find a spot on my list.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s our progress on the list so far:

4. Dazed and Confused

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

9. Saving Private Ryan

11. The Big Short

13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

17. Ocean’s 11

18. Air Force One

21. The Other Guys

22. Remember The Titans