Recap of Iron Man 2.
It's been six months since Tony Stark dropped a bombshell by announcing to the world that he was Iron Man. In that time, his popularity exploded as he holds a Stark Expo to continue his father's legacy while resisting attempts by the United States government to claim his Iron Man suit technology for military use. Unfortunately, not all is well for the millionaire playboy superhero: the palladium powering the arc reactor keeping him alive is slowly poisoning him, and without a suitable replacement, he has been forced to contend with the specter of death...
Rather than reveal his failing health to anyone, he keeps his condition under wraps while appointing his personal assistant Pepper Potts to be the new CEO of Stark Industries, taking on a new assistant to fill her vacant position, Natalie Rushman. Wishing to live his best life, Tony decides to race personally in the Monaco Grand Prix, only to be ambushed by a Russian mad scientist named Ivan Vanko — the son of disgraced Soviet physicist Anton Vanko — in a self-built arc reactor-powered suit. While Tony is able to dawn his Iron Man suit and defeat him, Vanko taunts Tony: the attack was not to kill him, but to prove he was not invincible. Vanko is captured, but shortly afterwards is freed by Tony's business rival, Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries, for the purpose of using his knowledge of arc reactors and powered armor to crush Stark Industries after Tony humiliated him during a Senate subcommittee hearing by revealing the inferiority of Hammer's attempts to replicate the Iron Man technology.
The combination of Vanko's attack and increasing levels of palladium poisoning push Tony over the edge as he holds what he believes to be his final birthday party, becoming drunk and belligerent towards his friend James "Rhodey" Rhodes, who wants Tony to get a hold of himself so he can prove that he is responsible enough with his tech to not turn it over to the government. With Tony beyond reason, Rhodey commandeers Tony's Mark-II suit. A bitter fight ensues between them that ends in a stalemate, with Rhodey taking the Mark-II suit with him.
Afterwards, Tony is approached by Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, who also reveals that Natalie Rushman is actually one of his agents, real name Natasha Romanoff. Having recognized that Tony is succumbing to palladium poisoning, Fury tells Tony that the only way he will survive is to find a new power source for his arc reactor, and that the answer to how to find this new power source lied in his father's work with Anton Vanko, who worked for Stark Industries for a time before being sent back to the Soviet Union by Howard Stark and imprisoned. Tony eventually finds the answer in an old diorama of Stark Expo 1974, which was designed in the same way as an atomic structure for a theoretical new element. With a bit of ingenuity, Tony manages to synthesize this new element, which not only is safe to use as a new power source for his arc reactor, but much more powerful than palladium.
Around the same time as the creation of his new power source, Tony learns that Vanko is at large and working with Hammer, who is preparing to present a demonstration of a new line of autonomous humanoid drone soldiers, along with his customized Iron Man suit variant piloted by Rhodey, the "War Machine" suit. Tony heads to the expo to warn Rhodey, but it's too late: Vanko hacks into the drones and Rhodey's suit and turns them on Tony. As Pepper has Hammer arrested for collaborating with Vanko, Natasha hurries to Hammer Industries to confront Vanko. He had escaped, but Natasha is able to restore Rhodey's control over his suit. Together, they destroy the Hammer drones before being confronted by Vanko, now wearing an improved battle suit. Ultimately, Tony and Rhodes defeat Vanko, but not before he sets off a self-destruct mechanism in his suit and the drones.
After the battle, Fury debriefs Tony, providing him with Natasha's evaluation of him: she concludes that while Iron Man would be an asset to the Avengers Initiative, Tony Stark would not. As such, Fury would hire Tony merely as a consultant.
At the same time, Agent Phil Coulson travels out to the New Mexico desert to investigate a strange discovery: a massive crater, at the center of which was a certain warhammer...
