If you pick up a new Iron Man comic off the shelves today, Tony Stark is alive and well, suiting up, fighting crime, and looking like he's barely aged at all. Over on the big screen? Not so much. When Robert Downey Jr. took his final bow as the live-action version of Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame, it was supposedly for the last time. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continued, his presence was immediately missed—but given the definitive nature of his character's exit, it felt highly unlikely that we'd ever see Downey Jr.'s Iron Man again. That said, if duty called, would the actor ever don the red suit again?
"Happily," Downey Jr. tells US Esquire in their latest cover story. "It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me. And look, I always say, Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win."
Even so, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige maintains that there are no plans to bring Iron Man back into the fold. Referring to Downey Jr.'s final Endgame scene in an interview this past December, Feige stated, "We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again. We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way." Feige's comments arrived a month after Variety revealed that the studio was engaging in "talks to bring back the original gang for an Avengers movie" that included "reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in Endgame."
Well, crazier things have happened in the MCU. With the introduction of the multiverse, Marvel can pull off just about anything. All three Spider-Man actors met face to face, people! Anything is possible.
Josh Rosenberg is an Assistant Editor at Esquire, keeping a steady diet of one movie a day. His past work can be found at Spin, CBR, and on his personal blog at Roseandblog.com.
