Spoilers after the fold, although by now you’ve probably seen the movie. Well, I assume. Over 2 billion dollars in ticket sales? …Well, somebody’s watched it.
Anyway, as you probably saw Avengers: Endgame had its dramatic climax when Thanos seemingly retrieved the Infinity Stones again, did his trademark Sneering Boast of I am inevitable, and does the Snap again — only to have nothing happen, because Tony Stark’s suit had nano-grabbed the Stones and now he’s got them. And that’s where the Dad Joke comes in: And I am Iron Man.
As an exit line, that’s great. As an exit line that’s also a quip, a shout-out, and a dad joke (I should note, by the way, that the movie itself reveals that Tony Stark and I were born in the same year)? It’s sublime. And it almost didn’t happen. From an interview with directors Anthony and Joe Russo:
“Tony used to not say anything in that moment. And we were in the editing room going, ‘He has to say something. This is a character who has lived and died by quips.’ And we just couldn’t, we tried a million different last lines. Thanos was saying “I am inevitable.” And our editor Jeff Ford, who’s been with us all four movies and is an amazing storyteller, said ‘Why don’t we just go full circle with it and say I am Iron Man.’ And we’re like, ‘Get the cameras! We have to shoot this tomorrow.’”
What makes this extra-entertaining is that the line was originally an ad-lib itself. And, yeah: there was no way having Tony Stark die without one last good zinger would have worked. I’m going to miss this character*, but he went out the way he would have wanted to.
Moe Lane
*Mind you, I get that Robert Downey is so totally ready to go do something else. ANYTHING else. And it’s gotten rather hard to wave enough money in his face to get him to change his mind.