2. Iron Man - "I Am Iron Man"
Back in 2008 there was a heavy weight of expectation on Iron Man's shoulders. Not only would the film have to provide the blueprint of the nascent Marvel Studios' attempts at producing their own film products from the pages of their comics and set in motion the possibility of a never-before-seen crossover "cinematic universe", but it would have to do so with a hero that was decidedly B-list. While the movie itself may have been far from perfect (it lacks a decent villain and, thus, much by way of a decent third act), it succeeded admirably in setting the style, tone and iconography of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The casting of the enormously charismatic Robert Downey Jr., once Hollywood's persona non grata, in the lead was the making of the movie and allowed Marvel and director Jon Favreau to build around Downey a flippant style that was a touch subversive yet crowd pleasingly mainstream. This approach has become the cornerstone of Marvel's movies and is perfectly exemplified in Favreau and Marvel's response to the classic superhero trope of the secret identity. A central conceit of the previous cinematic superhero big-hitters - Superman, Batman and Spider-Man - the convoluted secret identity narrative has been virtually ignored by the MCU's pacy, light-footed capers (to the extent that it may turn out to harm the story of the upcoming Civil War). The reason for that can be traced back to the bold, playful final moments of Favreau and Downey's first Iron Man and its gleeful tearing up of the comic book movie rule book. It appears as though the final press conference following the movie's climax is about to utilise the comics' ludicrous secret identity storyline in which Iron Man is described as Tony Stark's bodyguard (one that is curiously never actually seen in the same place at the same time as his genius billionaire playboy philanthropist employer), before an exhausted Tony just cracks and admits that that story is nonsense and, yes, he is Iron Man. In the comics, Stark would not reveal that it was really him in the Iron Man suit until 2002 (39 years after the characters' first appearance). Doing it in his very first movie appearance establishes quite a different version of the character on screen, but it is a perfect fit with the MCU take on Stark. Not only is it impossible to imagine Downey's Stark actually going along with the bodyguard story, not to mention not taking credit for his own success, it also perfectly establishes that Marvel's movies, like their main hero, are going to play by their own rules.