Iron Man 2

After the wobble of The Incredible Hulk the MCU took a year's hibernation before hitting on the idea of just doing a sequel to Iron Man, cleverly named Iron Man 2.  What could go wrong? Well, quite a bit actually... It made the same mistake as Spider-Man and X-Men by following Superman II's example and seemingly having as little superhero stuff as possible because what could be more exciting than a hero's civilian identity going through a crisis? It's also got no convincing bad guy as a clearly bored Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko can't even pretend to be a serious threat, his whole plot-line and relationship with Hammer making next to no sense. So yeah, we're still 1 from 3 but there are at least a few good bits...

TEN GREAT THINGS FROM IRON MAN 2

THE SENATE HEARING

Tony mucking around, taking over screens, patronising Hammer and Stern in the Senate hearing is perfect for the character - charming, a little bit arrogant and fiendishly clever. While crisis is good for character development that Tony spends the rest of the film in a drink and Palladium-induced slump does rob the movie of perhaps its' great asset. There was surely a good enough story in Stark struggling against the military-industrial complex but the film doesn't really look at it.

DON CHEADLE IS JAMES RHODES

Terrence Howard wasn't outright bad as Rhodey in the first film but he's certainly never been missed. Don Cheadle is a much better fit both as Rhodes and War Machine, a little more self-effacing and versatile. He's gone on to be an absolute stalwart for the whole Marvel Universe and a beloved character despite often scant screen-time, and has instant chemistry with Robert Downey Jr.

TONY & PEPPER SQUABBLING

Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow really do have a great rapport and especially for the first part of the movie the pair squabbling like an old married couple over everything is fantastic fun, clearly illustrating that their relationship is growing. Pepper's also given the backbone to tire of Tony's emo behaviour later, which puts us on her side, and it all means their kiss later doesn't come out of the blue.

THE FOOTBALL ARMOUR

While the complicated mechanical devices for adding and removing the Iron Man armour during the early days were fun there's something incredibly cool about the suitcase device used at Monaco, a great shout-out for the comic version in some of the finest comic stories, and the effects really nail it. And then just for the icing on the cake it's red/silver, like something straight out of Bob Layton.

BLACK WIDOW

The first taster for Marvel's policy of carefully yet off-handedly introducing new key players, Nat has a fantastic debut despite her hair becoming inexplicably terrible when she dons her SHIELD suit later on. Not only does she get to beat up loads of people (including Happy) but she also saves everyone when she's able to reboot the War Machine armour, rounding out a fine debut.

SAM ROCKWELL

Iron Man 2's greatest sin is wasting Sam Rockwell's superb performance as Justin Hammer, a proper bastard. Everything about Hammer is brilliant, from his mispronunciation of Anthony to his ridiculous spiel in the USAF hangar. But instead he's saddled with this weird relationship with Vanko, who he springs from jail and then seemingly lets do basically whatever, eventually getting anticlimactically arrested near the end. Such a waste. 

HAPPY HOGAN

Happy is great throughout this film, whether it's tearing the wrong way around Monaco, driving into Vanko repeatedly, silently chastising Tony for inappropriate jokes, perving at Nat changing in the rear view mirror or boxing a Hammer Industries guard while she takes out half a dozen he's always a highlight when on-screen, once again further rounding out the character. 

WAR MACHINE

War Machine was the hippest thing ever for about a year in the early nineties, which were a grim time for Marvel and the Iron Man section of the universe especially - Force Works, the Crossing and Teen Tony were all mad fumbles to try and out-Image Image. War Machine was Iron Man as if designed by Rob Liefeld, all never-used weaponry piled on and on, and predictably the floor fell out. Kurt Busiek saved Iron Man during Heroes Reborn by basically junking the whole period, an upshot of which was to revert War Machine to plain ol' Rhodey. But in Iron Man 2 the character makes a high profile return and it's just fantastic to see a semi-forgotten nineties character up there on screen, looking fabulous and grounded by quasi-realistic design and capability, and without the overt extreme mindset.

WHEN THE ACTION ACTUALLY HAPPENS IT'S GOOD

After the damp squib of the Monaco duel and a badly-soundtracked rumble with Rhodey there's a definite surfeit of shameless fun, but at least when things finally kick off it's really well done as the hacked War Machine and the Hammeroids chase Iron Man around the Expo. Both suits get a good show-off workout during the well-directed night scene and the subsequent battle with the drones, and even though the second duel with Whiplash is as underwhelming as the first it means the film ends on a relative high.

MJOLNIR

One thing that is coming through is just a bit more swagger. Not only do we have two second-tier characters who've never shifted  comic books dived in played by Hollywood royalty and given no other option that to accept them as a big deal but we also have a big shameless tease for the next film as the blank Coulson is called away to New Mexico. Ooooh, exciting. But wait - after the film comes the tantalising sight of Mjolnir buried in the desert. We haven't even seen or heard the name Thor but we all know what's coming, and even casual audiences are intrigued about a completely different film.