We knew Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man was going to appear in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but a newly-unveiled toy may hint at a larger role for him than we previously thought. ComingSoon has just revealed some of Hasbro’s new Marvel Legends figures, and one of them is an Iron Man suit we haven’t seen on the big screen before.
That suit seems like a clear reference to Iron Man’s suit in the Ultimates comics.
More importantly, it caused me to raise an eyebrow and wonder just how big Stark’s role is going to be in the events of Homecoming. It’s not like Marvel and Sony are trying to hide his involvement in the movie or anything - he’s featured right there in the trailers - and his relationship with the young Peter Parker was one of the best aspects of Captain America: Civil War, so it makes sense that they’d want to continue developing that on screen as much as possible moving forward in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But I think many fans assumed he’d be used as a utility player: maybe he’d pop in and drop a few witty one-liners, but then he’d disappear for a majority of the movie until Spidey called on him to help battle Michael Keaton’s Vulture.
This suit, if it appears in the movie, might mean Downey’s role is a bit more substantial than that. First of all, the suit on the toy above is not the same suit we’ve seen Stark wearing in action at the end of the trailer:
So what does that mean? The way I see it, we have three possibilities. First, and perhaps the least likely option, is that this is the suit Iron Man is actually wearing during the entirety of this movie, and the studio cut a version of the trailer that had his old suit to throw fans off the scent and attempt to preserve the surprise. (Like I said... not super likely.) Second, the trailer shot is legit, but Iron Man needs to upgrade to a new suit at some point during the film. If that’s the case, the idea that he’ll have two suits’ worth of screen time means he’ll have a larger role than many of us anticipated. The third and most disappointing option would be that this toy is just a toy, and Stark won’t actually suit up in this sucker during the movie at all. It would be unfortunate, but that kind of thing has happened before. Hasbro released an Iron Man toy in 2014 that was tied to the Guardians of the Galaxy, but that character didn’t even appear in that film at all.
Do you think we’ll see Iron Man rock this new, Ultimates-inspired look in Spider-Man: Homecoming? In the meantime, take a look at some of the other new Homecoming toys below:
Directed by Jon Watts and starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, and Donald Glover, Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives in theaters on July 7, 2017.
Images: Hasbro/Marvel
