‘Mind-blowing’ Marvel revelation tries and fails to shed new light on the MCU’s most obvious character arc

Analyzing the MCU is the favorite pasttime of many a Marvel fan, and thanks to the vastness of the cinematic universe there is so much that can be dissected that there’s no end to new insights about the franchise’s characters and storylines. And yet, by that same metric, not everything is a discovery. Like, for instance, the purpose behind the biggest and most famous hero’s journey in the MCU to date, the one and only Iron Man.

As one excited Redditor recently posted on the r/MarvelStudios sub, “I recently realized that, despite not being recommended for the Avengers Initiative, it was Tony who ultimately, and ironically, saved the world when it needed it most.” To illustrate their point, the OP attached two screenshots from Tony Stark’s two most heroic moments — directing the bomb away from New York in The Avengers and, obviously, using the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame.

Not to diminish the OP’s own personal Eureka moment, but it’s fair to say most fans had already come to this shocking “realization” by simply watching the films in question. As the most upvoted comment on the thread succinctly put it, “That’s… kind of his arc.”

Sometimes fans get lost so far down the rabbit hole they end up over-complicating what’s already spelled out on screen. We saw that with all the theories surrounding WandaVision, when the truth turned out to be not as MCU-shattering as expected. And, honestly, history may be repeating itself with the equally conspiracy-friendly Secret Invasion.

There are still many fresh interpretations and insights to be made about the Infinity Saga, that’s for sure, but the ‘hot take’ that Iron Man is actually the best Avenger of them all probably isn’t one of them.