Robert Downey Jr. can take credit for a decent amount of the MCU’s ongoing success. 2008’s Iron Man launched the whole affair, with his performance as Tony Stark winning over audiences and critics alike. It was off the back of that smash hit that we began building up to The Avengers, with the actor playing a role in all major MCU events and finally sacrificing himself to save the universe in Endgame. His death in that movie seemed pretty final, but now prolific scooper Mikey Sutton is claiming that Marvel Studios are concocting plans to bring Downey Jr.’s beloved character back without resurrecting him.
The tipster says that the Secret Wars arc will be the next major development in the franchise and it will see our heroes journeying to parallel universes. On one of these worlds is where we’ll meet an alternate Tony who didn’t die in battle against Thanos and Reed Richards will apparently try to recruit him into his Illuminati group. But this won’t be the Stark we all know and love. Instead, Sutton says this version of the character won’t have become Iron Man in his reality (possibly indicating a more ruthless and amoral performance) and while he will have a relationship with Spider-Man, on his Earth it’s Miles Morales rather than Peter Parker.
According to Sutton, all this is contingent on Downey Jr. signing off on the idea. Personally, I think it’s wishful thinking and extremely unlikely to actually happen, but if you’d have told me last year that Michael Keaton’s Batman would be making a comeback in the DCEU, I’d have said that was similarly outlandish.
So, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether this pans out or not. Robert Downey Jr. may say he’s done playing Tony Stark, but that position might change if Disney offered him a ludicrous paycheque for Secret Wars.
