Spider-Man: Far From Home - What The Explosive Ending Really Means

7. Tony Stark WAS Looking For A Replacement

To circle back to Tony Stark's mostly invisible part in all of this, the very fact that Tony hands over EDITH to Spider-Man and mentions "the next Iron Man" suggests that he was actively seeking a replacement. Quite when he came up with that plan or enacted EDITH's handover protocol remains to be seen, since he had little spare time around the events of Endgame, but that's neither by-the-by here. What matters is that he had legacy intentions.

Even with the Avengers initiative in tatters (which Nick Fury confirms) and the remaining superheroes spread out and "unavailable," there is at least someone trying to look after Earth's interests from a superhero point of view. That's quite apart from the secret defence system that will come under discussion soon.

This may explain why Tony was so happy to make Pepper Potts her RESCUE armor and it's clearly also why he built tech specifically geared towards making Spider-Man costumes on his Quinjet. Even in death, Tony can't give up on the idea of Iron Man - whether it's him inside the armour or not.

In the end, Peter rejects being the new Iron Man to be his own hero. He goes back to being the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man (until the ending revelation flips his entire world), so there's still space for a replacement. Could this all lead to a second generation Iron Man character?