Rumors have been flying that Robert Downey Jr. will return to the MCU in the role of Tony Stark at least one more time in a future movie – likely Secret Wars, which will allegedly involve Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man recruiting Avengers from across the multiverse to battle the Council of Kangs.
With Earth-616’s Stark having died in Avengers: Endgame from using the infinity gems to erase Thanos and his army, bringing RDJ back to the role is going to require some plot tricks, and most likely, it will not be 616’s Tony at all that RDJ plays – he may not even be good. Below, we look at the eleven best ways that Iron Man can make a comeback in the MCU.
AI Hologram Simulation Built by Tony
We will begin with the path for Robert Downy Jr.’s return that virtually all fans are hoping is not the direction taken. We have seen in the Marvel movies that Tony has developed artificial intelligence with both Jarvis/Vision and Ultron, holograms of himself, and suits that do not require an operator. Put together a simulation of his thought patterns/personality with a hologram face and an empty Iron Man suit, and you have a mirage of Iron Man. Fans do not really want this because it is not really Tony.
Side Effects of the Soul and Mind Gems
There is a way that the rules can be fudged to allow Tony Stark to return to help the Avengers fight Kang, similar to the hologram in a suit scenario, but with the real consciousness of Tony in the suit that he died in. The infinity gems are strange things with minds of their own, as shown in Wandavision.
There are no set rules on what the long-term effects of using the gems together might have had on either Hulk or Tony. Tony’s body was killed by the radiation, but the gems are beyond just the physical – he was in contact with the soul and mind gems and died while still wearing them. Stark’s death while wearing these gems might have bound his soul and mind to the suit he was wearing, and it is just waiting for his daughter to wake him up when searching for a way to help the Avengers.
Ultimate Iron Man Variant
The opportunities for Earth-616’s Tony Stark to return are few. Every option from here forward on the list requires a variant from another Earth. We first look at the early 2000s Iron Man of the Ultimate universe of comics that began in 2001. This Iron Man’s suit features a wide, Samurai-esque helmet, a juicier armor with bell-bottom arms and legs, and a metallic gray torso and limbs.
This version of Tony Stark is drastically less human. While pregnant with Tony (Antonio), his mother was infected by a bioengineered virus she created, and the virus caused his skin to be hypersensitive and for Tony to become a super genius.
Superior Iron Man
When Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was in production, there was speculation that Tom Cruise would appear as Superior Iron Man and be a member of the Illuminati. This did not pan out, but the world of Earth-838 certainly has a Tony Stark, as evidenced by the Ultron droids, and like the deceased members of that world’s Illuminati, he was certainly not on the side of good.
With the alleged plot of Secret Wars involving the heroes jumping from world to world, trying to enlist the most powerful Avengers, they might arrive at the doorstep of the Illuminati on Earth-838 to find an unwelcoming version of Iron Man, played by either RDJ or Cruise, who has been working on a way to jump to Earth-616 and kill Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch.
Iron Maniac
We move from an Iron Man who is a selfish jerk to an Iron Man who is truly evil. Iron Maniac of Earth-5012 killed several of his world’s heroes in the comics before he was sent to Earth-616 by Reed Richards. Iron Maniac’s armor was plum purple and metallic gray. Mirroring Doctor Doom of Earth-616, this Iron Man had become an adversary of his world’s Fantastic Four, and his face had been burned by Human Torch, just as Doom’s face is scarred.
If Doom is to be introduced as a major player in the plot of Secret Wars, then Iron Maniac could be a preview of how Doom’s arc is destined across timelines.
Variant from Season One Finale of What If...?
In the final episode of season one of the animated series What If...?, an original variant of Tony Stark appears in a single scene with Gamora, who is then whisked away by The Watcher to join his Guardians of the Multiverse team. This Tony wears a chunky armor with an orange, yellow, and turquoise color scheme. We learn nothing else about this Tony, other than that he has gone interstellar and is working with a variant of Gamora.
In the scene, Tony floats his idea of Stark “suits” across the galaxy, repeating his error with Ultron that has led to the multiversal crisis The Watcher is currently trying to resolve, and when The Watcher appears, he dismisses Stark, saying, “Not you, Stark,” likely because of his role across the multiverse in creating Ultrons. Nevertheless, this Stark is one of the only variants we have seen in the MCU left alive, and he has to be one of the most likely versions of Stark we will see in Secret Wars.
Iron Sorcerer Supreme
We move from what if to why not. On Earth-9810, Tony Stark becomes Sorcerer Supreme on top of developing his armor tech, making him one of the most powerful variants of Iron Man (second only to the next entry). Anything that Doctor Strange or Iron Man of Earth-616 can do, the Iron Sorcerer can do.
We have already seen a glimpse of what this would look like in a behind-the-scenes video from Endgame,in which Robert Downey Jr. wears Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation. Tony Stark as Sorcerer Supreme is like a wrong puzzle piece that fits regardless. Doctor Strange and Tony Stark are both smarmy, genius-level middle-aged men with 1990s club-boy chin-strap beards.
Destroyer Iron Man x Iron Hammer
This proposal would be an amalgam of Earth-616’s Destroyer Iron Man suit, made of uru (the extraterrestrial metal the Destroyer and Mjolnir are composed of), and the variant from the Infinity Warps storyline. The Infinity Warps Iron Man was a combination of Tony Stark and Thor, possessing Mjolnir and all of Thor’s powers in addition to a power armor.
This version of Stark, with all the power of the demigod, amplified by the nearly indestructible uru suit, could be not only the most powerful version of Iron Man, but among the most invulnerable beings across the multiverse.
Tony Stark from Age of Apocalypse
With the X-Men now in the possession of Marvel, they can not only use the Fox-verse actors, but they can also access alternate timelines from the X-Men comics, and the most significant, which might become the big arc that a rebooted MCU builds to, is the Age of Apocalypse. In Age of Apocalypse’s timeline, the son of Charles Xavier, Legion, goes back in time to kill Magneto when he is still friends with Xavier, but Legion kills Xavier instead. The result of Xavier’s death is that no one stands in the way of Apocalypse when he awakens, and he conquers the world.
In this alternate timeline, Tony Stark does not become Iron Man. He pilots a battleship instead of a suit. If this version of Stark is recruited, it would mean that Earth-616’s Spider-Man might encounter this version of Stark, who either never knew Spider-Man because Peter Parker was killed before being bitten by the fated spider or whose Spider-Man died (if Marvel wants to make some changes to the live-action story to mirror the MCU). With Secret Wars possibly being the closing chapter of Earth-616, it would be the perfect place to plant the seeds of the next arc via AoA’s Tony Stark, making RDJ the beginning step of both cinematic timelines.
A Gen X Version of Iron Man
Perhaps the variant we get will be more familiar to older comic readers than the film version of Earth-616. In the comics, in the late 1980s, there was a short storyline in which Tony Stark was a paraplegic, without use of his legs due to a spinal cord injury from a gunshot. This version of Stark echoed the themes of earlier portrayals of Thor and the Hulk in Marvel Comics, whose human identities did not appear outwardly to be powerful or heroic.
Thor’s human form, Donald Blake, was a man with a weak/injured leg, who required a cane. Hulk’s human form, Bruce Banner, is a small, weak man with emotional scars and trouble with anger management. The idea between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee is clear, that a Superman without understanding of the frailty of life or the pain of the human condition would become a villain. This Tony Stark knows pain and has battled alcoholism – this is the version we might have gotten in the late 1990s, if the movie had been made then.
The House of M's Sapien Deathmatch Armor
The last variant on our list created our favorite armor design. In the alternate timeline of House of M, created by Scarlet Witch, in which mutants rule the world, Tony Stark created a Gundam-style armor called the Sapien Deathmatch Armor. Apart from being larger and assembled from chunkier, less aerodynamic armor pieces than a regular Iron Man exoskeleton, the suit has large external thrusters on the back, external piping, and a massive arm-mounted canon with an ammunition belt. This thing is designed for high-speed aerial combat like no other Iron Man armor.
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