Avengers: Infinity War - Why Tony Stark's "Specific Connection" To Thanos Means He'll Die
You don't simply retire from being Iron Man...
As we all hurtle headlong towards the release of Avengers: Infinity War's release, it's impossible to miss the increased information dump that Marvel Studios has made part of its pre-release schedule. Despite the fact that the Russos begged everyone not to spoil the movie, the studio has released an avalanche of TV spots and hints from interviews - as if everyone isn't already going to see it anyway.
Some of the reveals in there have actually been intriguing, including Anthony Russo's recent confirmation that Tony Stark and Thanos have a "specific connection" that will impact Infinity War (viaThe Telegraph India):
“It’s all the heroes. I think he has the most specific connection to Tony because Tony is a futurist, and he has predicted a threat like Thanos. It’s lived in his brain even though he couldn’t name it. Tony is the most desperately driven, down to the core, to react against something like Thanos, although all the heroes will face a threat, no matter who it is or where it comes from. But I think this is intrinsic to Tony’s psychology, and because Tony started it all with Iron Man, he has a special connection to the threat that’s facing him.”
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Now, obviously Russo is talking about how Stark's "vision" in Avengers: Age Of Ultron and his underlying fears of letting humanity down when he COULD provide a defence against alien invasions (as he tried with the Iron Legion) and how Thanos represents that fear manifested. But he may have given us too much information for how the remainder of Iron Man's arc will go.
What he's saying here is that no matter what, there is no way Tony Stark could retire from being Iron Man. Hell, he tried in Iron Man 3 and that lasted a grand total of a few months, which cost him his relationship with Pepper Potts and almost cost the world dearly when Ultron was born out of his anxiety.
Time and time again, the Russos and most of the faces behind the scenes at Marvel have spoken about how Robert Downey Jr IS Tony Stark. In other words, he's irreplaceable and not at all recastable. And yet, usually around the same time, they'll also mention the fact that the actor wants to move on and can't be Iron Man forever.
In other words, there's an end point in sight and the confirmation that Stark is driven at his very core by the need to do his heroic duty offers a huge hint of where that end-point will come. It even suggests that Tony will go down fighting - perhaps even sacrificing himself to save the universe (it's not like he hasn't tried it before).
And at its heart, this is one of those issues that has driven most of the narratives within the MCU: the question of worthiness. Thor obviously sought an answer to his own debate on worthiness (and had the most tangible gauge in the shape of Mjolnir), but worthiness has been an issue for Captain America, several of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, Bruce Banner, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Black Widow... And it's been even more so for Tony Stark because he's always been fighting against burdens he created himself.
Tony was a bad guy to begin with and all he's done since Yinsen sacrificed himself to save his life has been an attempt to prove himself a worthy enough hero to justify that sacrifice. He's lost his way sometimes along the way, but when it comes to Infinity War, his drive and that burning need to prove his worth will inevitably lead to his tragic - but very porbably heroic - death.