Hey guys, I watched the Iron Man 3 trailer and couldn't help but notice the uncanny parallels between his movies and their Dark Knight trilogy counterparts.

Iron Man; Batman Begins

The similarities are uncanny

Tony Stark ; Bruce Wayne

• Both are billionaires, and are son to philanthropist parents.
• Both start out somewhat flawed, until getting somewhat of a wake-up call (Bruce Wayne finally learning what it means to bring justice, and not hatred, and Tony Stark learning to fix problems rather than blowing them up).
• When they first don there costume, they keep their identity a secret, and the first enemies they encounter are defeated rather easily.
• The people they were once friends with, stab them in the back unexpectedly (Though with Ras al Ghul he had it coming)

The Ten Rings; The League of Shadows

• Both are a clandestine organization who seek to fix the would-be errors of the modern world (Ten Rings is not suppose to be Al-Qaeda).
• Though never mentioned in the 2nd film, they come back by surprise and overwhelm the protagonist in the third film, and have a completely different leader.
• The Ten Rings seek to take out Tony Stark, due to his considerably corrupt ways, while the League of Shadows seek to take out Gotham due to its immense corruption and imbalance.

Ras' Al Ghul ; Obadiah Stane

• Both are the focus of the final battle/climax of the film.
• They both have the ends justify the means approach to getting the job done, as opposed to the protagonist more humanitarian ways.

Extras:

• Phil Coulson = Commissioner Gordon, though very partially
• Pepper Potts = Rachel Dawes. In allot of ways actually

Iron Man 2; The Dark Knight

Ivan Vanko ; The Joker

• Both oppose the protagonist in every way.
• They are driven the villany due to there anger at the world and what it's done with them
• They point out the flaws in both the hero, and the politicians.
• They both manage to escape from jail in a nifty fashion, though Vanko's was assisted.
• They are both interrogated by the hero while in jail, though for Stark it was more of a taunt.

Hammer Tech ; Dagget Industries

• Daggett industries is in TDKR, although they both have the parallel of trying to take over or sell out Wayne Enterprise/Stark Industries

Iron Man 3; Dark Knight Rises

No more fancy listing, I'm getting tired of that -_-

• Litterly and metaphorically, the hero gets a big run for there money, that they have to push there limits to get out of
• Villain works with organization from first movie
• Mandarin = Bane (obviously)

UPDATED AFTER VIEWING IRON MAN 3

• Mandarin (Kingsley) = Bane
  • They both play as the figurehead of the antagonist terrorist group. However, it turns out they were pawns, taking order from someone else. However Mandarin was more of a patzy, and Bane seem to be completely aware of the cause he was fighting for.
• Aldrich Killan = Talia
  • Both play as the true villain behind the figurehead mentioned above. However Aldrich was more than obviously a villain in the movie, while Talia was pretty unseeming. There is however the similarity of both of them being linked to the past of the main character (Talia being linked to Ras Al Ghul, who mentored Bruce Wayne)
• Protagonist gives up Superhero persona
  • Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne are done dealing with the stresses and psychological pain involved with being a superhero. They both see that their prescense attracts trouble, so they just throw it away. I assume Iron man knows there is already the Avengers, so he's ok with retiring. Bruce Wayne however passes the Cape and the Cowl to John Blake (Joseph GL).

On a personal note

It is unfortunate that it seems that nobody will take on the mantle of Iron Man, some say he won't even be in the Avengers 2. I think that's okay though, It will provide space to introduce a new avengers. I was hoping for the after-credits scene to hint at who that might be, but it was nice to see Bruce Banner/The Hulk again, it also begs the question why Stark wasn't like "Hey big guy where you when me and the US Govt. were taking it up the ass!". Which could be explained by Banner's recluse lifestyle, and no gamma radiation that needed to be tracking. The events seem to only take place in a matter of days anyway.

And? Is there something you're trying to say? "Iron Man is a copy of the Dark Knight Trilogy." - is that what you're trying to say? Well, I've heard the same bull before, so I'm gonna say it again: You people are retarded. These threads are retarded.

@Galactic_Man said:

And? Is there something you're trying to say? "Iron Man is a copy of the Dark Knight Trilogy." - is that what you're trying to say? Well, I've heard the same bull before, so I'm gonna say it again: You people are retarded. These threads are retarded.

Exactly.

@Galactic_Man:

No I'm just saying it has alot of parallels

When I watched the Iron Man 3 trailer, I couldn't help but think of Bane when the Mandarin gave his little speech.

@JSH92:

Same here

bump

Fascinating theory. I might buy it more if Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne weren't such polar opposites.

Also the scene were Tony stark has to destroy the arc reactor is like the scene where Ras al Ghul burns Wayne Manor. Where both loose what they hold dearly against their mentor turned villain

UPDATED AFTER SEEING FILM

Gotta admit, they DO have a lot in common..especially Iron Man 3 and TDKR.

I saw a few similarities here and there, but overall nothing that made me think that Iron Man 3 was trying to be anything like Dark Knight Rises. But did I miss the part where Tony said he was giving up being Iron Man?

Uhh yeah, it was like at the end.

Definitely parallels there. I've noticed them myself. Especially the imagery of the broken hero used to promote each movie. Maybe this is like the new template for superhero trilogies, if they ever make it so far.

It's left in the air, he destroys the Iron Man suits, which could be a signal that he's quitting or maybe he's just taking a break, after all he did say that he will always be Iron Man.

Yeah, that's what I saw.

WHOA where did this come from? He's just pointing out some interesting parallels - there's no need to go around calling others 'retarded'. Lord in Heaven.

I'll be honest, the "surprise! Mandarin isn't the villian!", ending monogues, and ending scene with the little boy reminded me of Miranda Tate is Talia/Bane wasn't the only villian and "sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded". I raised an eyebrow when I thought about it.

they both reached their lowest points, were believed dead, had to overcome their fears to come back from defeat, and had a villain with a weird voice who had a nationality change from the comics and no powers who turned out not to be the main villain.

Some of these seem like a bit of a stretch

Haha actually that's so true, I think he might be involved in Avengers 2, or he just got his roomed pimped out

Mia and Talia being love interests.. or sex interests, then being revealed to be a villain. The whole deception and theatricality of the Mandarin was pretty blatant in my opinion. Leaving the ending as REALLY ambiguous as to Tony returning to the role of Iron Man is pretty similar to the ending of Dark Knight Rises. Both houses getting destroyed by the villains.

It doesn't make IM3 bad by any means, but I think it's worth pointing out.

I will say that one thing that really irritates me is that comedy is presented really heavily in Avengers and Iron Man movies and that annoys me because I link that with people not taking the movies seriously. Even Captain America was far more serious in tone and wasn't received NEARLY as well as any of the Iron Mans by general audiences. There are definitely TWO distinct audiences. Comic fans or even fans of cartoons of the source material are much more apt to accepting a serious toned move than general audiences. It bugs me.

Ironman Trilogy sucked ass

Fixed.

Side by side, action movies are all the same.

But good job on noticing these two specifcally even though the iron man trilogy is horrendous.

Congratulations to Christ-opher Johnathan James Nolan for holding back not one, but TWO CBM trilogies from taking its crown. TDK trilogy is STILL the King!!!