Proof that Tony Stark is not an alcoholic in the MCU. Part 4

Iron Man 3:

0:01:10 – we know that Tony was drunk at that conference in Bern in 1999. Yinsen told us in Iron Man (2008) and Maya tells us here. But come on, all we see there – are drunk people with bottles and glasses of alcohol. Because it's NEW YEAR celebration. And btw, we see that he’s not REALLY drunk, like he was pretending to be in Iron Man 2.

0:10:20 – see no alcohol, only veggies. There are bottles on the table, but they don't look like alcoholic drinks.

0:16:25 – Tony goes to his wine cellar (it’s big, we have to admit), and drinks Hundred Acre wine.

0:17:10 – he takes a bottle of white wine from the fridge.

0:19:25 – a bottle of white wine with two glasses are waiting for Pepper in the living room. They were never touched.

0:52:15 – Tony is at the bar and is holding a glass of something colorless and with ice. I don't think he needs to get drunk right now, so I'll assume it's water. Put your ideas in the comments if you disagree.

1:17:50 – Trevor offers Tony a can of beer. Tony refuses.

End of the movie.

Conclusion: he was drunk. Maybe. Back in 1999. During the New Year celebration. But in 2013, before our eyes, he drank only a little wine. Even if he drank a glass of wine every day – that’s “normal drinking”.

What If…The Iron Overtook The Man?

Here’s another horror-centric idea for a What If scenario before the end of the year, based on the recent Darkhold Saga from 2021.

{In this alternate timeline, when Aldritch Killian and Maya Hansen kidnapped Tony Stark, instead of just merely torturing Tony with footage of Pepper being given the Extremis Serum, Killian decides to go a step further and inject Stark with the serum as well.

Moments after injection, when Tony desperately tries to call the Mark 42 suit back to help him, the fusion of the suit’s technology and Tony’s Extremis-fueled blood caused a horrific side effect, merging the man and his mind into the suit.

After the newly created Iron Maniac brutally kills Killian, Hansen escapes and frees Rhodey, escaping with Trevor Slattery before Tony can hurt them.

As the heroes attempt to handle the horrific situation and rescue Pepper, Tony’s mind begins to descend into madness as he binds up Killian’s men and starts bonding them to his now-Extremis-laced armors, dissolving them completely into the suits.

He soon learns from them the whereabouts of Pepper and decides to spread this newfound “gift” to her and all of the his friends.

As Rhodey, Maya, and Trevor attempt to free Pepper from the Roxxon Shipyard, Tony shows up with an Extremis-Empowered Iron Legion, including the now-armored remains of Happy Hogan.

The group then battles both Legionaries and A.I.M. Troops alike in a bid to escape, with Trevor getting turned and absorbed in the process.

As the group gets close to escape, Stark corners them, cutting off their exit. Rhodey and Pepper engage with him in battle to allow Maya to repair their escape boat; as they fight Tony’s deep paranoia and emotions then begin to surface, making him more dangerous and erratic.

After Tony injures and knocks out Rhodey, he then gestures Pepper to a suit of her own, claiming that it will “cure” her as well. While Pepper seemingly agrees with him for the moment, she then uses this distraction to kick him back and rip into the suit’s weapons arsenal, ripping out a missile from it.

As Rhodey regains consciousness, she then heats up the missile with her powers and throws it at the Iron Maniac, which Rhodey follows up with a repulsor blast, knocking everyone back.

Pepper, Rhodey, and Maya manage to escape the horror scene, but unfortunately, so does a now-damaged Tony. Then on Christmas Day, as the trio assembles with the other remaining Avengers to deal with this rising threat, the Iron Maniac publicly announces his ultimate gift: a suit of armor around the world, one for every person in it.}

I know this one is probably dark in a lot of places, and that many would understandably prefer an Iron Man vs. Wenwu episode, but I thought it would be another possibility to remix for Season 3 or possibly beyond.

IDK, let me know what you guys think!

Hope you like it and have a Happy New Year!

MARVEL CHARACTER EVOLUTION

TREVOR SLATTERY

Full disclosure, I expected Trevor Slattery to be a throwaway line in this film. I was not prepared for him to be a wholeass character that joins Shang-Chi's party halfway through the film and remains involved in the plot for the rest of its runtime.

Yeah. Okay. That was a hell of a gamble to take. I'm not sure if it paid off. But y'all know me; I always appreciate films that are willing to take the leap and commit.

This movie looked at every single thing the Iron Man films established about the Ten Rings, discarded just about everything, and then picked out Trevor of all things and went, "That. I'm keeping that. Everything else goes. This stays. The audience won't even know what hit them."

There's this one youtuber named Neinfield, who made a video showing a map of the world and the geopolitical ramifications of the events surrounding the first half life (The BME, the portal storms, the seven hour war) and the world's reaction to it, and then a sequel covering the combine occupation before half life 2. I was just thinking one day, and I totally understand if this is cringe to some people, that this would be really cool to see done with the MCU assuming it included all the other media (Defenders shows, AoS, C&D, etc).

I'm not even the biggest fan of the MCU but I'd be fascinated by works that cover the social and political ramifications of so many of the different events that take place in the MCU, especially when you factor in the shows and whatnot.

Like, what was the public's and the larger FBI's reaction to Wilson Fisk's partial infiltration of it's members? Given that Trevor Slattery's breakout of Seagate and Luke Cage's breakout of Seagate happened almost one after the other, what happened to Seagate following two successful breakouts? Was the people's of New York's decision to call the Battle of New York 'the Incident' the result of some sort of cultural trauma that affected the people who witnessed it? How widespread were the terrigen's effects in the water supply and how did people react? What were the reactions to the growing gang wars in Hell's Kitchen and how did larger Superheroes react? What enabled so much normalized demonization of Spider-Man of all people by the Daily Bugle? Were connections ever drawn between the Defender heroes and Spider-Man in his early years? What was the public's reactions to Midland's Circle's collapse and did people ever uncover the dragon bones buried under New York? What was the news like during Fury's Big Week with so much happening at once? How widespread were worries about the end of times during this period and when did people start becoming used to it? And so many more opportunities

I dunno, there are so many opportunities with a bird's eve view of the MCU in particular and yeah, a lot of it would be headcanon and cleaning up the poor job some have done of the explaining the events in canon, but it would still be fascinating I would feel to see it all play out.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

acting inspiration

We're back (again) baby!

So excited for this one. Its gonna be fun, we're gonna have a good time. No one is gonna take a tactical nap half way through. Perfection.

Also this:

My personal MCU headcanon: Trevor Slattery played one of the bad guys in Tomb Buster. Not the main bad guy, you understand - probably the main bad guy’s henchman, the one who got killed at the end of the second act. And then years later, after Aldrich Killian hired him to pretend to be the Mandarin, in the MCU universe the movie Tomb Buster became one of those odd little pieces of trivia that ends up on Reddit ‘today I learned’ lists: “Hey, did you know that one of the actors who was in this terrible movie got involved in a plot to assassinate the American president that was stopped by Iron Man?”

Iron Man 3 (dir. Shane Black), starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau, Guy Pearce, and Sir Ben Kingsley

that’s the post

Movie: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings / Shang-Chi y la leyenda de los Diez Anillos (2021) | dir. by Destin Daniel Cretton

Xu Wenwu falls in love with Ying Li, they decide to marry and live together to form a happy family, leaving behind their powers and ambitions...

Me: I am so uninterested in a "Wonder Man" show.

Disney: Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery is the first person we have cast.

Me: I am so interested in a "Wonder Man" show.

Morris from shang chi is based off of the Chinese chaos god named Hundun (readmore here) and that’s so funny to me. Some sites say it’s also known for creative chaos which I think is why him and Trevor bound so closely

I Grade: The Mandarin

Appearance: Neither characters that make up the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 actually look like the Mandarin from the comics. The front man played by Trevor Slattery (who is played by Ben Kingsley) looks more like an Islamic terrorist leader than an Asian one despite what his name would suggest, and the true mastermind Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce) is just a guy in a business suit; his design based off Simon Kreiger whom he actually flat-out was in early drafts of the film. However, the former gets the job he’s doing done well enough, and the latter gains an edge when the shirt comes off and he reveals the stylish Fin Fang Foom tattoo adorning his bare chest. So I guess a middle-of-the-road grade is the best I can give here.

GRADE = 3

Performance: As the “fake” Mandarin, Ben Kingsley is fantastic, giving a gravelly-voiced performance that’s both kind of intimidating but also with an underlying silliness...and then the silliness, quite gloriously, becomes the entirety of the performance when Trevor Slattery’s true British-accented self is revealed. Guy Pearce is also phenomenal as the “real” Mandarin, being fittingly smug and smarmy before gradually revealing his terrifying inner madness.

GRADE = 5

Motivation: The worst part about the Mandarin is that both of them have highly lackluster motivations. Trevor Slattery just wants fame and money to buy drugs with, and Aldrich Killian is just a power-hungry psychopath for some sketchy reason about having felt weak and unappreciated by others in the past. There is nothing remotely compelling about them.

GRADE = 2

Villainy: But what the Mandarin lacks in interesting motives is more than made up for in engaging and depraved acts of villainy. A.I.M. the Extremis virus, military guinea pigs, one of Tony Stark’s past flings, the Ten Rings, the media, even the Vice President of the US are all different moving parts in a grand conspiracy to destroy Iron Man, steal all of his tech, and take over the country. Add to this a personal level of evil in how Tony and those closest to him are hurt, and you have a villainous threat that you really want to see get taken down hard.

GRADE = 5

Resolution: After an epic fight with Iron Man, the Extremis-powered Aldrich Killian is blown up by a furious, Extremis-powered Pepper Potts, and Trevor Slattery is arrested. While this is perfectly fitting endings for them, I must deduct a point for Trevor Slattery then being taken away from prison by agents of the Ten Rings to be brought before the true “Mandarin” in a 2014 short film follow-up, which then took seven whole years to receive a proper resolution.

GRADE = 4

Final Grade: 3.5; a true return-to-form in regards to villains for Iron Man to do battle with.

That man is going full Beatle