Ranking The Best Movie In Every Major Comic Book Franchise

One of the most important blockbusters of the 21st Century, Iron Man is also one of the most purely enjoyable. As well as serving as the launchpad for what would quickly become the biggest and most powerful brand in the business, Jon Favreau also made a deliberate effort to head in the complete opposite of the 'dark and gritty' template that had dominated the genre since the release of Batman Begins three years previously.

The studio weren't entirely convinced by the idea of casting the troubled Robert Downey Jr. as the lead in their first-ever movie, but by the time the credits had rolled Tony Stark was already an icon, and now that his time in the role is done, only Hugh Jackman's Wolverine can come close to matching such an iconic marriage of star and character.

Iron Man isn't just a one-man show, but RDJ's tour-de-force lead performance is the driving force of the entire movie, one that refreshingly focuses largely on the human characters at the center of the story rather than delivering a nonstop barrage of action scenes to placate audiences that had come to expect it from their superhero flicks.