But I digress. What this all comes back to, again and again, is a conflict of identity, and as previously noted, every element of the story is precisely tailored to further this particular arc. Killian and his plot are not just an empty excuse for action – although the extremis powers make for far more compelling foes than seen in the first two films – nor a cursory element to drive the film along while character development happens off to the side (which is how Iron Man 2 was structured). Instead, it is through this particular threat, and the investigation that ensues, that Tony discovers himself. It is reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, where the hero is stripped to his barest and forced to rebuild himself from the ground up, but where that film was slightly hampered by excess and narrative shortcuts, Iron Man 3 presents its climatic arc in a more coherent and cohesive fashion. Tony is the center of the story, at all times, and the things he uncovers about the villains directly inform what he discovers about himself.
The Mandarin is false. It is a complete and total façade, something calculated and falsified to distract and manipulate the masses. Aldrich Killian is an inherently ‘dissociative’ presence, because he acts through other ‘selves.’ And the nature of his extremis power is that of reshaping human flesh and physiology to his own will – in short, crafting the image he wants the world to see.
Putting these pieces together not only points Tony back towards his own internal issues issues (he is, after all, partially responsible for Killian’s evil plot existing in the first place – this notion of circularity pervades the film), but underlines just what it is that makes him special. Part of his ‘downfall’ early on in the film comes from overconfidence in his technology. He thinks the many, many suits he has created will protect him, but they can only do so much, and are easily destroyed. They are material. He is not. And it is his human immateriality – not just his intellect, but his underlying humanity – that allows him to stop Killian’s plot. The Iron Man technology lends him the brute force necessary to face Killian and his team physically, but the suits are just a natural extension of Tony’s capacity for problem solving. They would not matter one iota if Tony were unable to solve this mystery on his own terms, using the only thing he can ultimately rely on in all scenarios: Himself.
And so we return to that fateful proclamation: “I am Iron Man.” Tony repeats it as the last words of this film, but they mean something different now. He is not giving away his secret identity this time (and it is important to distinguish how, when he says it this time, he is doing it privately and internally, rather than at a press conference), but making a statement of identity. Tony Stark is Iron Man, and Iron Man is Tony Stark, inseparable and eternal. Iron Man is not a suit, or an image, but a meaningful, concrete identity within this one complex man.
A man who no longer needs to have metal in his chest to feel at one with his identity. Tony’s decision to remove the shrapnel from his heart and throw his miniature arc reactor into the sea can be seen, in a sense, as ‘coming out of nowhere,’ as it does not extend from any literal foreshadowing in the narrative. But it feels completely germane to the emotional arc of the story, for if Tony’s journey in this climactic chapter is about discovering who he is beyond the suits, and what makes him Iron Man even with all his technology stripped away, I think it feels emotionally dead-on to have him definitively separate his body from his machinery. It is not a rejection of the Iron Man persona for Tony to throw his miniature arc reactor into the sea, but the firmest acceptance yet that the mechanical heart does not make him a hero. Tony Stark, flesh and blood, is Iron Man, always, 100% of the time, and the only reason to keep the machinery physically within himself is if he insecure about this fact. The dissociative elements of Iron Man 3 are based in feelings of profound insecurity, and if Tony has truly surpassed such anxieties at the end of the film, then I absolutely believe he would remove the arc reactor. Doing so is a symbol of strength, a recognition that while he once held tight to these internal injuries, refusing to let go or define himself beyond his self-perceived limits, he is a more complete individual now, one who is comfortable and assured of his identity and self-image.
I could not love it as an ending any more if I tried. I am so hugely impressed at Shane Black’s ability to build upon everything that has happened to Tony Stark thus far to bring him to a place of true and meaningful healing, without ever threatening to rob the character of what makes him so entertaining or compelling. Getting an iconic protagonist like this to a point where his arc is defined and fulfilled is an extremely rare task to pull off in blockbuster filmmaking, and I actually feel Black does better by Stark here than Nolan did by Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises. Tony is in no way perfect by the end, but he is ‘whole,’ and fully understanding of the strengths and weaknesses that make him who he is. This sense of profound character resolution is all too rare in blockbuster filmmaking, and what Iron Man 3 accomplishes with its lead character is as clear and beautiful an example of ‘sticking the landing’ as I can think of in any major superhero franchise.
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