Marvel StudiosBY ERIC VESPE/DEC. 18, 2023 1:45 PM EST”Iron Man 2″ took some heat when it came out, but man does it look good looking back from 2023. And I’m saying that as someone who thinks the current state of the MCU is merely a hiccup and not the fall of Rome, like so many of my other online colleagues.

Sure, the movie has an abrupt ending, but, man, is there a ton of personality to it, thanks in large part to their choice of villain. Mickey Rourke is an imposing dude. A weird dude, most certainly, but one you don’t want to mess with and one that you genuinely believe poses a threat to Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark.

Rourke brings that sense of danger to this movie that seems to be missing from a lot of recent MCU entries. Kang (Jonathan Majors), for instance, doesn’t come close to making me think the heroes are really up against the wall this time around. A lot of that is the tone set by the script, studio, and director, and a lot of it is casting, but it’s pretty clear the grounded days of the MCU are behind them. I don’t know if audiences would accept a smaller “Iron Man 2”-style MCU movie at this point.

The story behind getting Rourke in the movie is a little wild, but that’s to be expected from any story involving that dude. Turns out we can thank … the awards circuit?

Look what happens when The Academy recognizes comedyParamount PicturesMickey Rourke was coming off of his big comeback with “The Wrestler.” He was getting nominated for awards all over the place, and guess who else was, too? That’s right, Robert Downey Jr. Downey was grabbing nominations for his hilarious (and often misunderstood) turn as Kirk Lazarus, the method actor who goes way over the line, turning himself into a walking caricature of a black Vietnam vet named Lincoln Osiris.

I’ve seen some recent young influencer types discover “Tropic Thunder” for the first time and try to label it as problematic, obviously missing the whole point of the satire on display. I have to imagine many of these young TikTok folk might lose their minds when you tell them that not only did audiences at the time totally embrace this comedic turn, even the stuck-up Academy nominated him for Best Supporting Actor for it.

According to the recent (and excellent) book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios,” it was this nomination that brought Mickey Rourke to “Iron Man 2.” Rourke was also on the awards circuit for “The Wrestler” and it was at one of these Oscar banquets where Downey convinced Rourke to sign up to be the villain in the next movie.

Now, it took a whole lot of negotiating on the Marvel side of things, especially when they lowballed Rourke on salary, but they got the deal done and the MCU got one of its most threatening and oddball villains out of it.