For as long as one can remember, Robert Downey Jr. has been a beacon of pure and absolute joy. The actor, ever since his debut in Pound (1970), has made his audience split sides with laughter while being unable to stop wondering about the utter brilliance of his subtle and vastly understated comic performance.
With each role crafted with precision and ingenuity, the modern-day cinematic landscape would have failed without the presence of RDJ to bring alive a franchise as well-built as the Marvel universe. But with his exit comes a flailing derailment of what was once considered a great and epic masterpiece.
Robert Downey Jr. Hints a Comeback as MCU’s Iron Man
After what seems like forever, Robert Downey Jr. is finally openly talking about some of the mainstream Marvel events, almost as if he’s been holding back until the dust officially settled on Phase Four. Speaking to Deadline about Marvel CEO Kevin Feige, his co-stars, his Iron Man role, and what he misses the most among all of it, RDJ claimed,
“What I miss most? Being in the trenches with Kevin Feige throughout; the beginning, with Jon Favreau, it’s like a beautiful dream now; the middle, with Shane Black on Iron Man 3, we’d just had Exton and shot it mostly in Wilmington NC. It was idyllic and subversive. And the end, when I realized I’d made so many close friends in the MCU cast, and the Russo Brothers helping me embrace Tony’s arc.”
And all of the Marvel talks have made the fandom spring up from their slumber in the hopes that the actor might be finally reconsidering his 100%-confirmed resignation from the MCU since the Multiverse has made it impossible for any actor to ever be fully gone from the Marvel universe.
With Avengers: Secret Wars planning a showdown big enough to put even Endgame whimpering in the former’s shadow, the debates surrounding the appearance of past legends like Iron Man and Black Widow have taken center stage among the unfolding events. It is well known in the comics that many Avengers were picked up from their respective timelines moments before their death to fight in the Multiversal War and that opening has now become the ultimate go-to for fans wishing for one more cameo from the godfather himself.
RDJ and Chris Evans in Endgame
Also read: Robert Downey Jr. Misses Being a Part of the MCU and Lists 4 Reasons Why
Nostalgia Helps RDJ Reconcile With His Marvellian Past
The time for Robert Downey Jr. to be away from the limelight is over. The actor is now back at the forefront with his role in the Park Chan-wook project, The Sympathizer, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by the Vietnamese-American author, Viet Thanh Nguyen. However, even with such literary and industry greats filling up the actor’s roster, an aspect that has been missing considerably from his life is the role, the people, and the franchise to which he has been devoted since 2008.
“I exchanged my previous obsession with an obsession for this role… Then we proceeded to launch a historic run of what is now the cinematic universe with Favreau.”
MCU’s the original six
Iron Man not only gave the actor his career’s biggest success but a second chance and a family when he had barely any credibility to hold on to. Kevin Feige’s vision, even then, had been sharp and his nose for potential even stronger, and when it landed on RDJ, there was little doubt that the actor whose reality looked exactly similar to Tony Stark’s (sans the technological aspect of it), would be the perfect fit to represent the latter on the screens with absolute precision. Robert Downey Jr. did not disappoint.
