I started watching the MCU in timeline order almost two months ago. While I watched all the movies, I took notes. However, I couldn’t write up the notes until now because I had a repetitive wrist strain. Why do I mention this?

Because in the two months since I watched this movie, I forgot nearly everything about it. The only thing that stands out is Mickey Rourke thrashing up a car with his electric whip arms. So I definitely would not place this entry into the MCU as one of the more entertaining or engaging ones.

That being said, in Iron Man 2 the MCU begins to slightly expand and connect the past to the present. My takeaways …

The Iron Man party boy action figure

Tony is still giving us the center of attention rich party boy energy we got in Iron Man. Even though his arc reactor heart is killing him, he’s still arrogant AF and seeking to feed his large ego by playing out his hero fantasies. He is basking in his celebrity. For a while, Iron Man essentially becomes a media personality to sell Stark Industries, which is reminiscent of Captain America selling bonds. He drinks, he fights with Rhodey, and he acts recklessly. So, unfortunately, Tony hasn’t grown much yet.

The reveals

S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony learns that his father, Howard Stark, was one of the founders of SHIELD and a friend of Fury’s.

What is additionally interesting is that the Howard Stark we see throughout the MCU is often very different from the one that Tony describes. Tony obviously had a challenging relationship with his dad and clearly didn’t know much about him. We never quite get a full picture of Howard’s life, but what we do learn is fascinating. Leaves me to wonder who is Howard Stark really?

Perhaps another reason to explore Agent Carter!

Black Widow

While we don’t find out too much about her, we get our first taste of the badass Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. She is introduced as a member of SHIELD working with Nick Fury and Agent Coulson. I neglected to mention Fury and Coulson showed up in Captain Marvel together as partners. Now we see they clearly have a long history of working together. We learn that Romanoff has a close relationship with Fury, a secretive past, is highly intelligent, and can beat the crap out of people. Her one weakness as far as I can tell is a horrible wig.

The tesseract?

A drawing of the tesseract appears in Howard Stark’s notes, which would make sense since he found it at the bottom of the ocean at the end of Captain America.

PS

Why did Mickey Rourke decide to play his character with a toothpick in his mouth the whole damn time? Ugh.

Bill O’Reilly saying that Pepper Potts is not qualified to be the CEO of Stark Industries has to be the most on-the-nose cameo ever.

For more of my Marvel reviews, click here.