It’s been pretty much common knowledge that story for Iron Man 3 is borrowing heavily from the popular Extremis story arc from the Iron Man comics. But the film may be looking to other recent comic book events for additional material.
Possible major spoilers below. Proceed at your own risk.
While speaking to a conference in Sao Paolo earlier this week, Marvel Entertainment’s president of worldwide licensing, Simon Philips, let loose with a spoiler concerning Gwyneth Paltrow’s character of Pepper Potts. According to Omelete (via Bleeding Cool) among the number of new armored Iron Man suits we will see in the film will be one that will be worn by Pepper.
Anyone who has read Iron Man over the last couple of years will know that in the comics, Pepper has recently adopted her own armored identity, Rescue.
Additionally Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) will have a number of spare sets of armor stashed in an underground storage area and he will mix and match from them to form a special suit at some point in the film.
While I am sure that this will excite some fans, I have to question putting yet another franchise character into armor. Is Happy going to get his own armor in the inevitable Iron Man 4? Sure, this has happened in the comics, but there are decades worth of stories to be mined and I have to wonder what is getting passed over in order to concentrate only on more recent plots. Additionally, Pepper has served to ground Tony during all the craziness of his life and serves as his voice of reason. I think she may lose that role if she becomes more actively involved in that craziness.
Iron Man 3 opens May 3.
