10 Movie Characters That Mean More Than You Think

2. Ho Yinsen - Iron Man

Captive doctor Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub) has a small role in the first half of the original Iron Man, and as such it's easy to forget just quite how massive his contributions were to ultimately saving the universe from Thanos (Josh Brolin).

Yinsen is effectively the co-creator of Iron Man, not only helping Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to create the Mark I suit, but also assisting with the creation of the miniature arc reactor which stopped shrapnel from travelling towards Tony's heart and killing him.

And if that's not enough, Yinsen eventually sacrifices himself to allow Tony to power up the Iron Man suit and in turn escape from Afghanistan, become an awesome superhero and eventually sacrifice his own self to stop Thanos' in Avengers: Endgame.

It goes deeper than mere causation, though, because Yinsen's dying words to Tony were literally, "Don't waste your life." While it took Tony a lot of time to grow up and come around to the idea, he ended up doing the exact opposite of wasting his life.

Yinsen just might be the real unsung hero of the MCU, honestly. It's either him or that rat.