Film guide · 2008
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.
A U.S. military convoy crosses the Afghan desert. In the back of one vehicle sits Tony Stark, head of the weapons maker Stark Industries, drink in hand, joking and posing for photos with young soldiers as if he weren't in a war zone.
The convoy is ambushed. Explosions go off and soldiers fall. As Tony flees the vehicle, a missile lands at his feet, stamped "Stark Industries." The blast leaves him badly wounded in the chest.
Tony comes to blindfolded, surrounded by armed men and seated in front of a video camera. The story then jumps back to the day before.
In Las Vegas, an award ceremony honors Tony. A video recaps his life as a boy genius who took over his father Howard's company. But Tony is gambling and never shows up. His best friend, Air Force officer Rhodey (James Rhodes), goes to fetch him, and Obadiah Stane, his father's longtime partner, accepts the award.
Outside, reporter Christine asks Tony how he feels about being called a merchant of death. Tony brushes it off, saying weapons keep the peace, and spends the night with her.
The next morning, Tony's assistant Pepper Potts shows Christine out. Pepper manages Tony's chaotic schedule and life. Tony, late as usual, leaves for Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, Tony demonstrates his new Jericho missile for the military. One launch levels an entire hillside. On the drive back, the ambush from Part 1 happens.
Tony wakes in a cave with an electromagnet in his chest, wired to a car battery. A fellow prisoner, a doctor named Yinsen, put it there to keep tiny bomb fragments from reaching his heart.
His captors are a cell of the Ten Rings, led by Raza. Outside the cave sit piles of Stark weapons. Raza orders Tony to build a Jericho. Refuse, and he dies.
Tony knows he'll be killed either way. With Yinsen, he pretends to build the missile while secretly building an iron suit to escape.
First he builds a palm-sized arc reactor to replace the car battery: a shrunk-down version of the big power plant at his company. It powers the magnet in his chest and will power the suit.
Between tasks, Yinsen mentions he once had a family and asks if Tony has one. When Tony says no, Yinsen tells him not to waste his life.
Frustrated with the slow "missile," Raza threatens Yinsen to hurry them along. Tony and Yinsen rush to power up the suit.
When the guards catch on, Yinsen grabs a gun and runs into the tunnels to buy time for the suit to boot up.
In the gray iron suit, Tony marches through gunfire. He finds Yinsen dying. Yinsen says he'll see his family now and tells Tony not to waste his life.
Tony torches the weapons stockpile and rockets out of the cave, but soon crashes in the desert and the suit falls apart. As he walks, Rhodey's search helicopter finds him.
Back in the U.S., Tony wants a cheeseburger first, then calls a press conference and announces Stark Industries will stop making weapons. The room erupts.
Obadiah warns the stock will crash and moves to push Tony out of running the company, while acting like a worried father figure.
At home, Tony replaces the cave-made reactor with an improved one. Pepper helps by reaching into his chest to swap it, a moment that shows how close they are. He tells her to throw the old one away, but she keeps it.
Tony holes up in his basement workshop and builds a new suit with his AI, J.A.R.V.I.S. Testing the silver Mark II, he crashes into walls and the ceiling again and again, while the robot arm Dum-E stands by with a fire extinguisher.
On a night flight, Tony climbs too high, the suit ices up, and he nearly falls. He fixes the problem and builds the red-and-gold Mark III.
Pepper gives him the old arc reactor he told her to throw away, framed with the words "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart."
At a Stark Industries party, Christine shows Tony photos of a village where the Ten Rings are attacking people with Stark weapons. He also learns he's been pushed out of running the company.
At the same party, Tony and Pepper dance and feel the pull between them, but Tony can't stop thinking about the village.
Tony flies the finished suit to the village of Gulmira, defeats the Ten Rings fighters attacking it and destroys the Stark weapons.
On the way home, Air Force fighter jets chase the unknown flying object. Tony calls Rhodey, reveals it's him, and escapes the jets.
Meanwhile, Raza hands Obadiah the remains of the suit left in the cave. Obadiah had been secretly selling weapons to the terrorists and paid them to kill Tony. With Raza no longer useful, Obadiah has him and his men killed.
At Tony's request, Pepper copies data from Stark Industries' computers and finds proof of Obadiah's deals with the terrorists, including his order to have Tony kidnapped.
Escaping the building, Pepper turns to Coulson, the government agent who kept asking to talk with Tony.
Obadiah shows up at Tony's house, paralyzes him with a sonic device, and rips the arc reactor out of his chest. Without it, Tony will die.
Tony crawls toward the workshop but can't make it. Dum-E hands him the old reactor Pepper saved, and Tony survives.
Using the reactor stolen from Tony, Obadiah powers a giant suit, the Iron Monger, and attacks Pepper and Coulson's team.
Tony suits up and arrives, but the old reactor is too weak. They fight high in the sky, and Tony turns the icing problem he once had against Obadiah, freezing his suit.
Obadiah still won't go down. Tony has Pepper overload the giant arc reactor beneath the roof. In the blast of light, Obadiah's suit falls.
At the next day's press conference, Coulson gives Tony a cover story: the flying iron man was a Stark bodyguard.
Tony starts reading, then stops and says, "The truth is... I am Iron Man." The room erupts, and the film ends.
Back home, a man with an eye patch is waiting: Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He says he's there to talk about the Avengers Initiative.