3. Armor Wars
One of the all-time classic Iron Man stories, written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton, the quintessential Iron Man writers, and featuring art by Mark D. Bright and Barry Windsor-Smith. Running through Iron Man #225-231, the seeds for the story were actually laid in the previous issues, Iron Man #219-224 when the Spymaster stole Tony Starks designs. After encountering an armored foe named Force, Tony analyzes the armor and discovers its based on his designs. He finds out a number of other armored villains are also using suits based on his technology. Tony discovers that Spymaster stole his designs and sold them to Justin Hammer, who in turn gave them to criminals for a cut of their heists. Enraged, he develops a negator pack capable of disabling his stolen technology. Iron Man embarks on a one-man war to disable all his stolen technology. But not satisfied simply going after villains, Tony also goes after heroes who are using his technology, like the Guardsman at the superhuman prison known as the Vault, who wear suits of armor designed by Tony. The government turns on Iron Man and the Avengers expel him from their ranks. In the end, to cover everything up, Tony fakes Iron Mans death (back then, Iron Man had a secret identity). An Armor Wars movie could be just the thing needed to tie up Downeys tenure as Iron Man. We could get the return of Sam Rockwells Justin Hammer, rebuilding himself and his image. Wed also see a classic Iron Man foe (and a different kind of threat for these movies) with Spymaster. And Tonys designs being stolen and used to arm criminals could give us the chance to see a lot of foes who may not be a big enough threat for a single movie, characters like the Beetle, Firepower, Force, Stilt-Man, and others. Plus, this would clear the deck for what would come next. Iron Man being expelled from the Avengers and faking his own death (with Tony appearing alive and well in a post-credits sequence) would give the Iron Man franchise a rest for a few years so Marvel could develop other projects, and then eventually come back with a recast Tony Stark.