10 Movie Villains That Were Total Fanboys

Iron Man 3's main villain is genius scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who during the film's opening 1999-set flashback is revealed to be a fawning Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) fanboy.

The nerdy Killian approaches Stark and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) at a New Year's Eve party, where he gushes his admiration for the pair and invites them to join his company Advanced Idea Mechanics.

Hansen politely humours Killian but Stark cruelly pranks him by promising to meet him on the roof yet never showing up.

This ends up being a huge mistake on Tony's part, though, given that it motivates Killian to seek revenge years later under the guise of the Mandarin.

When Killian resurfaces, he's shed his scruffy prior appearance and been cured of his physical disabilities by the Extremis virus, which has also given him superhuman regenerative capabilities, making him quite the adversary for Stark.

And to think, things could've been so different had Stark simply shown some respect and not blown him off quite so rudely back in 1999.