Film guide · 2010
The whole film, start to finish, told scene by scene in words. Read this and you'll know everything that happens.
Contains every spoiler, up to the ending.
In a run-down Moscow apartment, the old scientist Anton Vanko dies while Tony's "I am Iron Man" announcement plays on TV. His son Ivan takes his father's old designs, vows revenge on Tony, and starts building a glowing arc reactor of his own.
Tony revives the Stark Expo, the technology fair his father Howard once held, flying onto the stage in his suit to a roaring crowd.
At a government hearing, Senator Stern demands Tony hand the suit over. Rival arms maker Justin Hammer tries to undermine him. Tony plays footage of other countries' failed copies and insists he has privatized world peace.
But Tony has a secret: the palladium core in his chest reactor is poisoning him, and his blood toxicity climbs every day. Nothing he tries as a replacement works.
Expecting to die, Tony hands control of the company to Pepper. A new assistant from the legal department, Natalie Rushman, joins them.
At the Monaco Grand Prix, Tony suddenly decides to drive in the race himself. Ivan, disguised as a track worker, appears with electric whips powered by his own chest reactor and slices cars in half.
Happy and Pepper ram Ivan with a car and deliver a portable suit packed in a briefcase. Tony suits up and defeats Ivan.
Tony visits Ivan in his cell. Ivan says that if you can make God bleed, people will stop believing in him, and claims Howard Stark betrayed his father.
Hammer fakes Ivan's death, breaks him out, and puts him to work in his factory building suits to rival Iron Man.
Sure he's dying, Tony gets drunk in his suit at his birthday party and behaves recklessly in front of the guests.
His best friend Rhodey puts on another suit to stop him. Their fight wrecks the house. Rhodey takes that suit to the Air Force, which hands it to Hammer to arm.
Nick Fury finds the dejected Tony. Natalie is really Natasha Romanoff, a S.H.I.E.L.D. spy. Fury gives him a drug to ease the poisoning and says there's still a way out.
Fury hands over a box Howard left behind. In an old film, Howard says his greatest creation is Tony. Tony, who always thought his father was cold, learns how he really felt.
Tony realizes the model of the Expo grounds is actually the structure of a new element, one his father couldn't make with the technology of his time and left for his son to finish.
Tony builds a particle accelerator in his house and synthesizes the new element. With a new triangular reactor in his chest, his toxicity levels start to fall.
Ivan calls him. Realizing Ivan is alive and planning something at the Expo, Tony races there.
At the Expo, Hammer proudly unveils his army of combat drones and Rhodey's upgraded suit, War Machine. But Ivan takes control of them all and turns the drones and Rhodey against Iron Man.
Natasha and Happy storm Hammer's facility. Natasha takes down the guards and frees Rhodey's suit from Ivan's control. Ivan has already fled.
Tony and Rhodey team up to destroy the drones. Ivan arrives in a powerful suit of his own, and they beat him by crossing their repulsor beams. Ivan sets himself and the drones to explode.
Tony saves Pepper from the blast. After some sparring about her stressful new job, they kiss on a rooftop.
Fury shows Tony the assessment for his hero initiative: Iron Man, yes; Tony Stark, not recommended. Still, he wants Tony as a consultant.
Tony and Rhodey receive medals, presented by Senator Stern.
In the New Mexico desert, Coulson finds a strange hammer stuck in a crater.