10 Movie Villains Who Caused Their Own Defeats
6. Aldrich Killian (Iron Man 3)
The Defeat: You've got to give Aldrich Killian credit where credit is due: he gave Tony Stark quite the run for his money. Having cornered him outside the wreckage of several hefty cargo containers, Killian could have struck the killing blow any time he liked, but instead, he decided to do a spot of monologuing.
This gave an Extremis-infused Pepper Potts the chance to whack him in the face with a pole, before kicking a missile at him and exploding it with a detached Iron Man hand.
How He Caused It: Pepper Potts wasn't turned into a super-soldier all by herself, or even with Tony's help: it was Killian who gave her those powers.
He wanted to use her as bait, hoping that Tony would walk into the trap, where he could possibly be persuaded to help Killian stabilize the Extremis formula. Since, y'know, it has been known to cause spontaneous explosions in people, and now Pepper was at risk of succumbing to a similar fate.
But it's really odd (and stupid of him) that Killian didn't consider the possibility that Pepper might develop the strength necessary to overthrow him. Or perhaps he did consider it, but just assumed she would never be powerful enough. Either way, he willingly provided his enemy with the abilities needed to take him down, and that's exactly what Pepper did.