Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark is dead, and he's not coming back to the MCU. But Marvel Comics may have just introduced the perfect way to bring RDJ back for one more ride as Tony Stark without tarnishing his immaculate record as Iron Man.
Tony Stark could be said to be the main character of the MCU's Infinity Saga, which kicked off with 2008's Iron Man and ended with 2019's Avengers: Endgame. And it's looking like he's going to be one of the central characters in the mythos of Marvel's reborn Ultimate Universe as well, going by the events of September 27's Ultimate Invasion #4.
In that story, the young Ultimate Tony Stark becomes not Iron Man, but Iron Lad, with lots of evidence to suggest that Tony is also the true identity of the new Ultimate Kang.
That's an interesting twist to existing Marvel Comics mythology, in which Kang is Nathaniel Richards, a future descendant of both Reed Richards and his archenemy Doctor Doom. And it seems to set the stage for Tony's place at the center of a certain branch of the new Ultimate Universe continuity.
But it's also just given Marvel Studios the perfect opportunity to give Robert Downey, Jr. one last appearance as Tony Stark in the upcoming Avengers: Kang Dynasty or Avengers: Secret Wars, both of which will likely center strongly on the villainous Kang the Conqueror and his many Multiversal Variants.
So… Why not have one RDJ show up as one of those Variants, a version of Kang from a world where Tony Stark wound up as the villain down the road? After all, Tony Stark is the inventor of time travel in the MCU. Could one of the many failed MCU futures seen by Doctor Strange in Avengers: Infinity War include a timeline where Tony Stark becomes a time conqueror?
It wouldn't be the first time Marvel Studios drew on the Ultimate Universe as inspiration for its movies. That goes all the way back to the original Iron Man movie, which kicked off Samuel L. Jackson's still running career portraying Nick Fury, whose physical appearance in the original Ultimate Universe comic line was directly based on Jackson himself.
And while it would probably cheapen Tony's Avengers: Endgame sacrifice to bring the core MCU Iron Man back, coming back as one of what will likely be many Kang Variants showcased in the next few Avengers movies might offer Robert Downey, Jr. a fun way to return to the armor one more time for a very different take on Tony Stark which leaves his heroic legacy in the core MCU intact.
And frankly, at this point, Marvel Studios could use a big win that makes its movies feel like appointment viewing again, with the kind of thrills that deserve to be experienced in a theater full of like-minded fans. It's hard to imagine much that would get fatigued MCU fans' blood pumping once again more than a little dose of the film series' most popular characters.
Tony Stark is the hero of the best Iron Man stories of all time.
