Iron Man wasn't the most popular or well-known character for Marvel to launch their independent productions with, but he did have one thing that set him apart from all other superheroes: he's a genuinely interesting, well-developed character. He isn't perfect. He has foibles. He was vices. He's ultimately heroic, but his motivations are sometimes muddy. That's more we can say for Thor. It's also more than we can say for any of the villains that Tony Stark has been put up against thus far, each of whom has been some variation on the Evil Corporate Suited guy who takes the phrase "hostile takeover" entirely too literally. With hilarious results! By which we mean, violent results with lots of explosions. The sub-villains tend to be a lot more fun - Mickey Rourke's characteristically eccentric Whiplash, for example, and we're still reeling from the bait-and-switch of Ben Kingsley's Mandarin in Iron Man 3 - but the principal antagonist? So boring, so predictable, so like everything we've seen before in every other blockbuster. They're rich dudes who want to take over the world because they're rich dudes, and rich dudes tend to be pretty greedy. They also have the resources to try and take over the world, as a result of the rich dudeness, so it makes sense you'd pitch them against a superhero who uses his rich dudeness for good instead. But it's been played out. Bring us something a little more interesting, something different, and possibly a totally new creation for Iron Man to do battle with for his fourth big screen outing (since, to be fair, most of the classic bad guys he fights in the comics are either rich dudes or, well, the Mandarin proper).
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
