So I watched IM3 last night, and one part had me remembering the confrontation scene between Steve and Tony in Avengers 1 – specifically, the part where Steve says that Tony’s “not the kinda guy to lay down on a wire and let the other guys crawl over you.” Tony’s reply is “I think I would just cut the wire,” and Steve responds with “Always got an answer for everything,” or something like that.
And it just abruptly struck home how incredibly representative that scene is of Tony’s overall character. Because in IM3, in the space of four minutes of film, Tony “cuts the wire,” so to speak, twice.
First off, Rhodey tells Tony that they can either save the President and AirForce One, or they can save Pepper, but they can’t do both.
But Tony manages to do both. The options were “pick between the President and Pepper,” and Tony didn’t like those options, so he created a third option, and he managed to get to both AirForce one and Pep. He “cut the wire.”
And secondly, after all the staff have been sucked out of the plane and are falling to their deaths, and Tony flies after them:
“How any are there?” he asks JARVIS. “Thirteen, sir,” J replies. “How many can I carry?” Tony asks. “Four, sir,” is the answer.
Yet, again – Tony manages to save them all. He can only carry four, but that’s just not gonna fly as an option, so he creates another choice. Thinks outside the box, and runs a team effort game of barrel o’ monkeys and saves all 13.
And that’s just in four minutes of film. That’s not counting all the other times someone has told him “these are your options,” and Tony has replies with “cool, thanks, I’m gonna go with none of them,” and then goes off script ans creates a whole new, unique, successful option.
“I think I would just cut the wire ” “Always got an answer for everything.” Yes, actually. He kinda does.
And obviously, sometimes when the only option genuinely is to lay down on the wire and make the sacrifice play, he doesn’t hesitate to do that too: hi, nuke through a wormhole.
So yeah. Just got to thinking. Everyone quotes the “genius billionaire playboy philanthropist” line as a way to sum up Tony’s character, but I think the “I think I would just cut the wire” encapsulates him far better.
