Film guide · 2013
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.
Tony narrates. On New Year's Eve 1999, at a party in Switzerland, young Tony meets botanist Maya Hansen, who is researching Extremis, a way to make the body heal itself.
Aldrich Killian, a scientist with a disability, asks Tony to hear about his think tank. Tony tells him to wait on the roof, then forgets. Killian waits all night in the cold.
Since the Battle of New York, Tony is haunted by nearly dying in space and suffers panic attacks. Unable to sleep, he builds dozens of suits in his workshop.
Meanwhile, a terrorist called the Mandarin hijacks TV broadcasts to claim a string of bombings.
Happy, now head of security, tails one of Killian's men. An explosion outside a Hollywood theater leaves Happy badly hurt and in a coma.
Furious, Tony goes on camera, threatens the Mandarin and gives out his home address.
Maya, the woman from 1999, shows up at Tony's house. She seems to have something to tell him.
Gunships appear and fire missiles into the house. Tony sends his suit to Pepper to protect her, then flies out as the house collapses into the sea.
The suit flies him on autopilot to a town in Tennessee he'd been investigating, and runs out of power in the snow. The world thinks Tony is dead.
Tony hides the suit in a garage and meets Harley, a sharp, cheeky kid who helps him investigate.
The local blast was caused by a former soldier whose body overheated and exploded. The Mandarin's "bombings" weren't bombs at all.
Soldiers who glow with heat and heal instantly come after Tony. Without a suit, he survives with homemade gadgets and Harley's help.
Maya admits she works for Killian. The burning soldiers were enhanced with her Extremis. Killian kidnaps Pepper and injects her with it. When Maya tries to turn against him, Killian shoots her.
Tony tracks the Mandarin to a Miami mansion and sneaks in. He finds Trevor Slattery, an out-of-work actor drinking in front of the TV. The Mandarin is a fake, invented by Killian.
Killian explains his scheme to the captured Tony: invent a terrifying enemy and profit from the war on terror. And with the Vice President's help, he plans to kidnap the President and kill him on live TV.
Tony escapes and teams up with Rhodey. Killian's man, wearing Rhodey's stolen suit, boards Air Force One and abducts the President.
Using a remote-controlled suit, Tony saves the passengers blown out of the plane by having them link hands in midair.
At an oil platform, Tony summons dozens of his suits to fight all at once. Rhodey rescues the President.
Pepper falls into the flames, and Tony thinks she's dead. But Extremis keeps her alive, and she rises to defeat Killian.
To show Pepper what she means to him, Tony blows up all his suits in the sky like fireworks.
Tony cures Pepper, then has surgery to remove the shrapnel from his chest and throws his old reactor into the sea. Still, he says: "I am Iron Man."
Tony has been telling this whole story to Bruce Banner, who fell asleep partway through.