Iron Man 3 Trailer: 11 Questions Raised

At the beginning of Iron Man 3 , Tony's just literally saved the world from destruction.

Sure, he did it as part of a team, but it was his selfless act that proved decisive.

He should be having constant parties to celebrate.

And yet, here he is unable to sleep because he's having nightmares.

Perhaps those nightmares contain a clue…

After Tony admits he can't sleep, we immediately cut to some fairly nightmarish images - shadows burned to the wall, which is a side-effect of nuclear attack.

This seems to suggest that a large part of Iron Man 3 will involve Tony facing up to his past as a significant arms dealer.

The trailer opens with Tony admitting that he's "Got a lot of apologies to make."

Is he recognising that his weapons-dealing has left a karmic debt so huge that even saving New York can't cancel it out?

There is another possibility.

Maybe these aren't images from a nightmare at all, and they're actual recent events.

Perphaps Tony's invented something new, something that's gone very wrong…

We've already seen that other people will be wearing versions of the Iron Man suit - the trailer involves a grand unveiling of The Iron Patriot (more of him in a minute) - but we've got a feeling that Pepper and Tony aren't being woken by a person here.

We think Stark's been experimenting with artificial intelligence, and it's gone a little screwy.

After all, in Avengers Assemble Tony's eyes were opened to the advantages of working in a team, and - bearing in mind the size of his ego - what better team than one entirely made up of versions of himself?

We see a brief glimpse of the gold suit (Mark VIII) hunched over a prone Tony later in the trailer.

Something about the positioning and size suggests to us it's a robot.

This would explain the trailer moment when Tony exclaims "I hope that I can protect the one thing I can't live without."

He's talking about Pepper, and as he says it, he has the Mark VIII suit looming behind him.

Has he pushed his genius too far in the pursuit of protecting Potts?

The Mandarin has a great speech towards the end of the trailer. "Ladies, children, sheep. Some people call me a terrorist, I consider myself a teacher. Lesson number 1: Heroes, there is no such thing."

Ignoring the fact that Kingsley sounds like Bane doing an Elvis impersonation (which is a good thing as far as we're concerned), this is a properly evil bit of posturing.

He addresses (threatens?) women and children first, then dismisses the menfolk as being mere sheep.

Then he announces his first lesson, which is presumably because the adventures of The Avengers played out on a world stage, and inspired the oppressed to stand up against their tormentors - which would be a significant problem for The Mandarin.

It appears that his main aim is to prove that people who rise up will be taken down.

We're not looking forward to lesson 2!

In the comics The Mandarin found his power rings in the ruins of a starship, gradually learning how to use them as weapons.

In the trailer, we see him wearing them - but not using them. In fact, the only weapon he wields is a handgun.

Does that mean the rings are only symbolic of his power in Iron Man 3 ? Or are they simply being saved for the third act?

They're a significant aspect of the character, so expect him to use them. It would be essentially like doing a Captain America movie without the shield.

Speaking of Captain America...

Comic geeks will recognize this new suit as belonging to Iron Patriot. Casual cinema-goers will assume that Tony's given his mate Captain America a new toy.

In fact, in the comics, the Iron Patriot suit was very specifically modeled after Captain America and Iron Man.

But expect the character's movie origin story to be significantly remodeled.

As in the comics, Norman Osbourne created the armour, and as we all know by now, Marvel don't have the rights to that character.

Here, we expect Iron Patriot to be a U.S Government redesign of the War Machine armour.

The synopsis revealed that one of the key themes of Iron Man 3 is "Does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?"

We'd wager that Iron Patriot will go too far in the pursuit of international justice, and Iron Man will be forced to stop him.

That's Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce).

*Possible spoilers follow*

Killian is a scientist who was involved in the creation of the Extremis virus, a bio-tech weapon that rewrites the human genetic code.

Killian sells the virus to a gang of terrorists, then commits suicide because of the subsequent guilt he feels.

The trailer suggests that the movie version of Killian appears to be Tony and Pepper's friend - initially at least. Here, he seems to be comforting Pepper. We'd suggest that Tony is in hospital at this point, possibly as a result of Extremis experimentation.

And we've got a feeling that he's the reason Pepper's in that weird cage thing later on in the trailer.

*end spoilers*

We're really looking forward to what Pearce does with the character.

At first, we thought it was Maya Hansen, played by Rebecca Hall.

*Possible spoilers follow*

In the comics, Hansen is an Extremis scientist. She's an old flame of Tony's who comes to his aid when he's attacked by a terrorist powered by the virus.

However - plot twist alert - it turns out that's she's working with The Mandarin, who has infiltrated the US Government, and has been using the scientists to create an Extremis army.

*spoilers end*

But on closer inspection, it appears to be someone else - our best guess is Stephanie Szostak, whose character name is being mysteriously withheld from imdb.

We have no idea why she's getting so up close and personal to Mr Stark.

The whole tone of the trailer is extremely dark.

It definitely feels like Tony is facing his greatest threat yet - we see him bandaged, beaten up, exploded, ditched in some snow, dumped in some water, and fighting for his life in hospital. All that pain, in a two-minute trailer.

But, perhaps most significantly of all, there isn't a single signature one-liner. Tony Stark spends his trailer time apologising, complaining, and worrying.

There are many memes highlighting the similarities between Batman and Iron Man - they're both billionaires who rely on gadgets to fight crime - but Iron Man has always been the lighter, funnier, superhero, which is a Marvel tradition.

We love Chris Nolan's Batman films, but we're concerned to see them have such an influence here. Hopefully the next trailer will include a bit more fun.

All this darkness is making us worry that Pepper Potts isn't going to make it to the end of the movie.

Gwyneth Paltrow was asked earlier in the year if she'd be returning for Avengers Assemble 2 .

She replied: "I don't know. I'm getting old for this shit, you know what I mean?"

Which sounds to us like a no. And, specifically, like a no that paraphrases a quote from a Shane Black film.

Combined with everything we've seen in the trailer, and that line in the synopsis - "When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible." - it doesn't look good for Gwyneth.

Iron Patriot looks to be a bit of a brutal fighter, from the brief glimpse of him smashing someone through their desk.

We don't get to see who's under attack - but the office looks very official.

Is it a government agent? Has Iron Patriot turned on his masters?

Or is it a scientist who's been revealed as a villain?

We'll find out the answers to all of these questions and more, when Iron Man 3 is released on 24 April in the UK, ahead of the 3 May US release.