Iron Man (film)/WMG

Tony Stark is suffering from PTSD.
At least initially. Okay, the whole PTSD thing is a cover story put about by Stane in order to force Tony out of control of the company; but Tony's actions at the press conference (and shortly afterwards) are quite unstable in many ways. Let's be honest: most people don't cope with stress by building a war suit and beating the snot out of terrorists. (Although if easy-build snap-together war suit kits become available, it may become a popular option.)
 * Rumours that the sequel will deal with Tony's alcoholism arc from the comics might support this theory.
 * This is a plot point for the comics' version of Tony, as well as the whole rationale for the introduction of War Machine. Keep in mind that War Machine is in the sequel.
 * Yes, he should do something sensible like Bruce Wayne, who dressed like a flying rodent and wandered the streets of his city beating fellow pedestrians to a pulp.
 * Bruce Wayne is also suffering from PTSD.
 * ...No. Batman's mind is working way too well for him to be suffering from PTSD. Also, he keeps his cool under gunfire, which someone with PTSD related to his parents being shot wouldn't be able to do. Bruce Wayne is managing his stress through meditation, regular exercise, asskicking, and volunteer work.
 * Batman is as Psycho as the monsters he hunts, it's why he dreasses as a bat, and why he's so obbsessed about Gotham being 'his' turf even at the cost of the people he protects.
 * Depending on the Writer, he can be either.
 * No flashbacks, or intense overreactions to related stimuli, or etc., so, no. If nothing else, strictly speaking it's not PTSD unless he's been suffering those symptoms for at least six months (or something like that). His "unstable" actions are probably a pretty normal response. And no, most people don't cope in that specific way, but coping by pouring everything into your passion or artform or hobby or whatever is a normal response to stress, and Tony's just happens to be engineering. Weapons engineering in particular.

Tony came in contact with Optimus Prime at the Burger King where he picked up his Whopper coming home from Edwards AFB.
Naturally, Pepper was ticked off at having to pose as Prime's driver to complete the transaction.

Stark Industries was part of the Super-Soldier Project.
Tony's father was active during WWII and helped make the atomic bomb a reality and, given that genius apparently runs in the family, it seems possible he was involved in other secret projects the government was running at the time. With the Avengers movie being set up in the Sequel Hook, it's likely that Captain America (comics) will make an appearance, and his origin will naturally be addressed. Perhaps a recently-unfrozen Steve Rogers knew Tony's father during the war and bears ill will?
 * Alternatively, Stark Industries is still part of the Super-Soldier Project. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, attempting to create the next big super-soldier serum knockoff is an industrial sector all its own, as, according to Ultimate Nick Fury, the next war will be fought with super-soldiers. The sequels will reveal Stark Industries has a secret genetic engineering lab (under cover of those enhanced crop projects Tony mentions when wooing that reporter), which will be the source of a bunch of supervillains for the movie Avengers to fight.
 * Possibly Jossed by The Incredible Hulk. In that movie, it's revealed what happened to the Weapon Plus program (the name appears on a canister), but Stark Industries may still have been involved...
 * The Stark logo was there because they made the cryogenic canister which held the serum.
 * The Wal*Mart Exclusive comic that came with the DVD reveals that Tony's father worked on "an alloy" for Project: Rebirth; Tony found an example of it and used it to strengthen the suit. The "final product" was lost.
 * Since Captain Americas shield can be seen veeeeeeery briefly in the background of Tony's lab, it's easy to assume that it was the product of his father's alloy. But the original formula must have been lost because, as we all know, Cap's shield is even more indestructible than Batman and Chuck Norris combined, which is why his suit could only be 'strengthened' rather than turning him into a walking pile of adamantium/steel alloy.
 * The Super-Soldier Project was Weapon-I under Weapon Plus in the comics.
 * Then again, Spiderman shows that the U.S. government is once again hiring private corporations to design super-soldiers - who knows whether they approached Stark Industries before the events of the film? Maybe Stark even worked with Norman Osborne, providing some inspiration for the Iron Man suit.
 * The Spidey films are non-canon (Sony still have the rights, so none of the Spider-Man characters can appear in the Marvel Movieverse flicks), but it's an intriguing idea nonetheless.
 * One of the trailers for the Captain America (comics) movie confirms that a "Mr. Stark" was indeed involved in and present during Steve's injection with the Super Serum.
 * And the actual movie shows that Howard Stark was very involved in the whole process, and made Cap's shield, and hung out with him quite a bit as well. (Which gets rid of the "Steve doesn't like Tony's dad" WMG.)

Stane had Tony's parents killed.
This is based on absolutely nothing but a quick headline in the "Tony's backstory" montage at the beginning, which mentioned that Tony's parents were killed in an automobile accident. Automobile 'accidents' are notoriously easy ways to dispose of someone without making it look like you disposed of someone. It's immediately clear that Stane isn't the most ethically minded person around, and it's unlikely that he only recently decided to become an underhanded prick who sells weapons to bad people and arranges for people to die in ways that can't be connected back to him. He certainly has no qualms about offing Tony. Plus, there's something just a little bit sinister in the way Stane's always stressing how he and Howard were close and whether Howard would be proud of Tony or not. It's not difficult to imagine Stane deciding that Howard (who, although we know next to nothing about him, we can imagine via Tony's eventual moral awakening to be a bit more ethical) was being 'selfish' and needed to go. As for keeping Tony around: well, a wunderkind is pretty useful for coming up with all those lovely profitable weapons, especially if he's at an easily influenced and malleable age and you're his only father figure -- until he starts getting in the way and you start getting sick of being in his shadow, of course...

Stane never reveals this to Tony, but then, he's not an idiot; not only does he not want to give anyone any more rope to hang him with (okay, international weapons profiteering and treason are on a slightly higher level than a double murder; but it all adds up, especially with a confession to go with it), but he's probably Genre Savvy enough to know that being stupid enough to confess something like that is just going to give Tony the resolve he needs to kick Stane's ass all the way to Afghanistan and back.
 * If the movie meshes with the comics, then it was the fault of poorly-made brakes, with no connection to Stane at all; in fact, the first thing Tony did upon inheriting Stark Industries was to buy out the company that made the brakes and fix the flaw.
 * Tony's dad and Stane got along excellently; the whole source of animosity between Tony and Stane is that Tony's so different from his father.
 * Maybe so; but then again, Stane and Tony appear to get on excellently before Stane tries to have Tony whacked. Stane doesn't appear to be the kind of person who'd let friendship get in the way of profit. Furthermore, as mentioned above, one of the only real sources we have in the movie that indicate that Tony's dad and Stane got along famously is Stane himself; Tony's dad is for obvious reasons not available for comment and Stane's hardly going to tell Tony, "Hey, I actually hated your Dad and plotted to have him murdered. No offence, kid."
 * Nah. He just fired them.

Raza is alive and will become the Mandarin.
A couple of times in the film, we see Raza fiddling with a ring on his finger. He talks about ruling Asia and mentions Genghis Khan, whom the comic's version of Mandarin claims to be descended from. He even calls his terrorist group the Ten Rings. In the end, it appears that he's killed by Stane, but we never see him die.

No, what happened is, Stane just killed all his men and left him alive. Over the course of the next film, we'll see Raza gather the rest of the rings and become the Mandarin for either the climax of Iron Man 2 or for Iron Man 3.


 * I cannot think of a single reason why Stane would let Raza live.
 * Raza seems more like a henchman from the get go... and the Mandarin is known to give some of him more trusted servants one of his rings from time to time.
 * Raza is at best The Dragon to the Mandarin's Big Bad, and it will be revealed in the second movie (that they ARE working on) that Mandarin is pulling the strings of at least the Ten Rings and possibly even Stane. Stane probably wouldn't be fully aware of his manipulations though (if they exist).
 * Raza one point mentions, "the man who's ring I wear", meaning the Mandarin already exists and Raza was in some way working for him.
 * Raza survived only to be killed by the Mandarin.

All of Stan Lee's characters in the live action Marvel films are the same person

 * Yes, but that would mean that in The Incredible Hulk, the Abomination managed to go crazy in New York without bringing in the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, Daredevil, or any local X-men. Also, that would mean Willie Lumpkin somehow got gamma poisoning in Milwaukee and is still able to pick up women in California.
 * There's also the problem that he was Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four 1, and Stan Lee trying to get into the Storm-Richards wedding in the sequel.
 * No, no, he is obviously traveling between dimensions. He knows a lot more than he lets on...
 * Time Lord. Duh.
 * No, The One Above All DUH.
 * Surely it would make more sense if there were seperate Stans for each series of films? So there's a Spider-Man Stan, a Willie Lumpkin (who passes himself off as Stan), a Marvel movieverse Stan, an X-Men Stan... you get the idea.

Tony Stark got good with the suit so quickly, not because of his 20th-level badassery, but because every powersuit skill had a basis in one of his pre-practiced "for Drama" skills.
Example: When the Jericho missile goes off, he knows not only exactly how far away to be that the shock wave just barely reaches them, but also how to hop from the front of his feet to the back and lean back at just the correct angle. Everyone else is shown to be straining against the shock wave, but he manages to stay upright with his hand in his pockets the whole time without batting an eye. Why? He does this sort of thing all the time; he spent most of his free (before Iron Man) time between inventions practicing for his next big Crowning Moment of Subtle, and each such skill later made him that much better at each powersuit skill (in this case, stabilized free flight).

Jarvis is not an AI.
He's never explicitly identified as such, and he delivers more sass than you'd expect from a computer program. Who's to say he isn't some guy sitting in a control room? Yes, Tony's trusting him with his secret, but he seems pretty casual about it, all told. And yes, Tony keeps him on some pretty crazy hours, but Jarvis is likely well recompensed and, after all, Tony seems to attract people who are willing to let their lives revolve around him.
 * The novelisation explicitly mentions Jarvis being safe in his mainframe, but you're free to disregard the canonicity of the novelisation.
 * The "Avengers initiative" scene at the end looks more like a Hollywood AI losing power than some guy in a control room wondering WTF is going on.

Stane is alive.
Stane somehow survived the explosion of the arc reactor (Tony did, after all) and in Iron Man 2 will become the Mandarin's Dragon, and/or will become involved in the creation of some other Iron Man villains (Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man).
 * No, Stane abides. Which he no doubt does. Although he won't be back for the sequel - league finals.

Rhody is was severely injured between films and require skin grafts
The recovery process resulted in Rhodes getting thinner and his skin getting darker.
 * He had re-vitiligo?

Tony Stark is really Iron Man.
I've got it! Iron Man is supposedly an employee of Stark Enterprises but no evidence of this has ever been really seen - he's never seen following Stark even though he's supposed to be Stark's bodyguard, and on the rare occasions they are seen in the same room, Iron Man never speaks, so it could easily be anyone wearing the same armour. Stark has numerous times supposedly fired Iron Man but it doesn't stop Iron Man from appearing even though he should be out of funding and Stark always welcomes him back with open arms in the end. What more evidence do you need?
 * Dude, where have you been? He claimed so in that one meet the press thing the military did about Iron Man.
 * No, that press thing was just a stint to throw us off it was just like that time Harvey Dent said he was the Batman but he wasn't! But maybe you're on to something with the jerkass billionaire playboy idea... Hmm. Have we ever seen Bruce Wayne and Iron Man together?
 * And Peter Parker can never get photos of Superman! It's all so clear.
 * Yes, of course... BRUCE WAYNE IS TONY STARK!
 * Obviously, they agreed to a corporate merger. It was cemented by Stark and Wayne by using the Dragon Ball Z fusion earrings. Ladies and Gentlemen: Toby Stayne!
 * Would that make the actual Fusion Dance version of them be Brony Wark?
 * Brony Wark?
 * Bruce and Tony are both genius billionaires with a penchant for fighting crime despite lacking innate superpowers. Given their intelligence and resources, swapping roles to further derail any suspicions of Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark being superheroes is another logical layer to obfuscate any further probing, as it would be obvious to the untrained observer that Tony Is Iron Man and Bruce is Batman. Bruce dons the Iron Man suit and Tony Stark defends Gotham as the Caped Crusader.

Tony Stark is the power source for his armor.
His power is not his inventive genius, it's his ability to make the arc reactor work better by producing more power than it should.
 * So it's powered by Spiral Energy?
 * Or the Speed Force. Or The Warp. Or The Source. Or Mana. Or The Force. Or Zero-Point Energy. Or Magic. Or The Power of Rock.
 * More likely....his Ego. If there isn't a line in one of the movies of 'Stark's ego could power New York', there should be.

Tony Stark is a clone of Nikola Tesla.
Minus the madness, of course.
 * The man builds an arc reactor (in a cave with a box of scraps no less), plugs it into his chest, builds the iron man suit and hunts down the people who got access to his weapons without him knowing about it and you're trying to tell me he's not crazy?
 * He's crazy in very different ways than Tesla. Certainly he doesn't have the phobias about touching or sex. And he's way too impulsive to have OCD.
 * Too impulsive? OCD manifests in different ways for different, or even the same people. Being compelled to stick screws up your nose is not the opposite of being compelled to arrange them all in the proper drawers. It's just a different, more socially-acceptable target.
 * Completely Missing the Point that that's not the kind of OCD Tesla had. And compulsive behavior of any kind is not impulsive, by definition, whether sloppy or neat.
 * It's not impulsive, but it does look that way from the outside.
 * And again, Tesla's compulsions were not of that sort. They were repetitive and precise.
 * In Iron Man 2, a film of Howard Stark calls Tony 'His greatest creation'.

Fin Fang Foom will make it into the movies somehow.
Let's face it, Iron Man doesn't have the most interesting rogue's gallery. What he DOES have however, is a giant Dragon from space. This is an opportunity to good to pass up.
 * A giant Dragon from space that talks!

Robert Downey, Jr. is Tony Stark

 * Because honestly, have you ever seen a more perfect choice/portrayal of any role, ever? When the IM movie was greenlit, an experiment was conducted (make up your own theories as to what) to literally bring the character of Anthony Edward Stark off the pages of a comic book and into a living, breathing, flesh-based organism. The real Downey sadly died of an OD around the time he was reported in the news as "going to prison," and they chose a form impeccably similar to his to pass off for Tony's "actor."

Clint Barton wasn't in Iron Man 2, because he was on a mission
In Iron Man 2 Black Widow is not a russian Spy but a S.H.I.E.L.D shadow operative. Why ? Because in this universe Fury recruits from the best. A former marine sniper, raised in the circus and having a history of petty theft. Clint Barton is saved from years in the Stockade and becomes a SHIELD Special Operative. Called Hawkeye for his aiming skills he takes after the Ultimate Hawkeye using two handguns and a Sniper rifle he calls ' the Longbow'. As a Mythology Gag one time he will have to use an actual bow and arrow and be surprised how natural it feels. He, former Fighter Pilot and transport officer Sam' Falcon' Wilson, Undercover and recon Expert 'Mockingbird' and Logistics and tactical Commander Dum Dum Dugan along with the Widow will end up Captain Americas support team in the 2012 film.
 * Hawkeye is confirmed to appear in The Avengers movie in 2012
 * He does make a cameo in Thor, and he is a SHIELD agent.

Howard Stark is Captain America
Howard was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s founding members, and Captain America's shield has been seen in both films (albeit way more explicitly in Iron Man 2). He would have had the knowledge and technology to develop the super-soldier serum and create his signature shield.
 * Biggest problem with this: Captain America is a World War II veteran. Howard Stark probably wasn't even born by that point.
 * ...except Tony EXPLICITLY mentions that his father worked on the Manhattan Project. I would say there's potential in this theory!
 * Alright, I was mistaken about that bit. But that would still disqualify him as Captain America, for two reasons: A. It's sorta hard to be both fighting on the front lines in Europe and working full-time in a laboratory in the southwest United States at the same time, and B. Captain America was lost, frozen in a block of ice, right after the war, so he, you know, couldn't have created a multi-million dollar company, had a family, and then died publicly.
 * That's what they want you to think. See "Pre-Civil War Cap is already dead" below.
 * Clearly, 'working on the Manahattan Project' was Howard's cover to his family for being Captain America so they could be normal civvie genius millionaires; conversely, 'lost in a block of ice' was the government/public cover for what happened to cap when he demanded to have his happily ever after family retirement.
 * No. But he did work alongside him and designed a lot of the tech that made him who he is.

The second movie is like the second act of a "Behind the Music" special.
Or the third, if you go by commercial breaks. The part just before the band gets back together. Anyway, someone floated this on io9. "This is a movie about a rock star going through the pains of stardom, realizing being a rock star doesn't make you immortal and freaking out and trashing the hotel room as a result. It's about the just-peaked star becoming self-destructive and the friends and staff around him being worried about it."

Vanko sends Tony his burd.
He takes it, puts it in a Hammer box, and leaves it with the company mail. It's delivered the next day, and Tony is a little freaked out by it and the accompanying note before trying to pawn it off on Pepper. "I can't handle a bird! I can't even handle a cactus!" Something like this. *cough*

Alternately, it becomes a supervillain and seeks revenge.

The 'unknown element' is based on Captain America's shield.
Howard Stark had an absolute unshakeable conviction that the element he needed existed/could exist and an exact structural formula for that element -- but he couldn't make any himself. This isn't likely if he's just working on pure theory: theory can be potentially be wrong until it's tested by experiment, and any decent scientist knows this. But it does make sense if the reason Howard Stark is so adamantly convinced that his wonder element actually exists (and could derive its exact structural formula) is because he already had a sample of it to analyze. Its just, he didn't create it (i.e., it was found or made by accident) and he can't make any more of it with the technology of his era. Now, in the Marvelverse, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think "lump of supreme wonder-metal that was created by accident and nobody's ever been able to make another one"? Answer: Captain America's shield. Which just happens to be in the very same trunk of stuff that Howard Stark hid his element formula in. (Note that as near this troper could tell, Cap's shield was not incomplete, it was merely disassembled -- all the separate ring segments had been separated from each other and the centerpiece. As if somebody had been trying to reverse-engineer it...)
 * Captain America's real shield was lost along with him, but Howard did create it - out of Vibranium.
 * It was heavily implied in a scene in Captain America: The First Avenger where the elder Stark tinkered with some captured power, that the "new element" serving as a power source was based on the Asgardian power of the Cosmic Cube.

The only Captain America in the movie continuity will be Bucky Barnes.
Pre-Civil War Cap is already dead. Bucky is discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. in their investigations of Vankov's laboratories and allies (the same investigation where one of the Avengers adopts his bird), and in finding out that his mentor has been dead for decades (possibly at or shortly after the end of WWII, possibly twenty years ago after living a long, fulfilling life and having a brilliant yet impulsive son) takes up the Shield. The Avengers' Initiative was based on an idea the original Captain had that he was unable to carry out before his death, mostly because Nick Fury was really the only other available superhero of the time.
 * Very no. It's Steve Rogers. But Bucky was in the movie, did grab Cap's shield at one point as a Mythology Gag,

Hammer will be a supervillain in Iron Man 3.
Either Played for Laughs when the hammertech fails horribly, or having bought some shiny new toys from someone who can actually engineer (or both).

North Korea and Iran weren't building Iron Man ripoffs, they were building Metal Gears.
Both are too large and non-humanoid to be power armor. Get a good look at the NK - it looks like a bastardized REX/Gekko hybrid. (The Iranian MG's going too fast to see.)

Vanko's Bird was behind everything.
The bird was previously owned by Vanko's father, who taught it intelligence, and eventually all of his knowledge, up to and including arc reactor technology. The Bird gained some sort of telepathy through becoming so intelligent, and controlled Vanko like a puppet while he built his machines. Vanko could only build a few rudimentary machines on memory without the Bird's presence, since the Bird was feeding him the instructions. Vanko claimed that the bird given to him was "not my burd," but this was just to mess with Hammer. The Bird now has a secret identity as "Not His Bird."

Stark Industries cut a toy deal with Hasbro.
Where else would all the fun RP toys come from? It's not like Stark Industries has a toy division...
 * Maybe it grew one after Tony shut down the weapons division.
 * Considering that the kid's helmet and other prop toys are all real Iron Man 2 merchandise, this could be spot-on.

The kid was rewarded for blasting away a Hammeroid.
Congratulations kid, have this burd.
 * I could hardly stop laughing.

Tony Stark became a Heartless.
Or a being that can switch his hearts out at will. When Stane took away his reactor near the end of the first film, he was briefly a weak Heartless until his heart could be restored thanks to the intervention of his close friend and love interest. However, he was not complete as his Nobody, Stane, and his giant Heartless helper Iron Monger, still had his heart. But thanks to the explosions rendering that heart somewhat unretrievable, Tony has had to improvise and create new hearts for himself later...and his body continues to reject the ones he makes, still wanting his real heart back.
 * Tony's the nobody. Heartless are made of hearts, nobodies have no hearts. This does, of course, mean that the new chip is a Power Ring (note that it is open in the center).

The Burd joins SHIELD.
It built an arc reactor IN A CHEAP APARTMENT, WITH A VENGEFUL RUSSIAN. I think it's SHIELD-worthy. When it's bored with R&D, it can hang out with Hughen and Munin while they nannycam Thor (once he joins the MCU).

Howard Stark and Anton Vanko were best of friends; hence, Howard named his son after Vanko
...and the break between Vanko and Papa Stark wasn't due to a disagreement about making money from arc reactor technology. As a co-inventor Howard Stark would've had the right to license the technology for free even without Vanko's assent. No, Nick Fury knows the real story, but the real story doesn't paint either man in the best light, and so he made something up to get Tony out of his depression.

The element that Howard Stark discovered isn't just something random, it is Vibranium
That is why Howard Stark had Captain America's shield, he was the one who originally made it, but could not make it into the one we know and love because he did not have the technology to create Vibranium yet.
 * He was the one who made Captain America's shield, but it was made of Vibranium - all of the Vibranium they had. However the original got lost along with Cap.

Tony is a descendant/distant relative of Sherlock Holmes.
You know it makes sense.
 * Actually, this makes a lot more sense than you probably think. Both Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes are innovative and inventive geniuses who easily understand the concepts of technology that is incredibly advanced for the time period they live in (Stark's Power Armor and the wireless device in Sherlock Holmes). Holmes's drug problems (eye surgery medicine used to be laced with Heroin) could have easily been a heretical problem which passed down and evolved into Tony's alcoholism. On top of it all, both of them, plus Howard Stark, were workaholics who needed to keep their mind busy in one form or another otherwise they went nuts. Add to that their shared Deadpan Snarker and Jerk with a Heart of Gold personalities as well as both having Heterosexual Life Partners (Holmes has Watson and Stark has Rhodey, respectively), a special pet (Gladstone and "Dummy"), That woman who is the one exception (Stark's never hit on Pepper and has yet to sleep with her, while Miss Adler is the only women/criminal to outsmart Holmes), and of course the fact that they look alike, makes it almost seem like this was intentionally planned from the start.

Vanko asking Hammer for his burd was a Secret Test of Character

 * Hammer failing to get him the "right" burd proved either his ineptitude or his dishonesty. Either way, Vanko knew that a.) he could easily manipulate Hammer to get his revenge on Stark and b.) he really ought to because Hammer would only keep Vanko around as long as he was useful to him.

Vanko survived the end of Iron Man 2
The self destruct of the drone arc reactors had a time delay much more than long enough to allow Iron Man to escape. A poor means to kill Tony. . . unless it wasn't meant to kill him. Instead, the delayed detonation was meant to drive away Iron Man, giving Vanko a chance to escape from the site, leaving behind his armor to destroy itself. A stretch, yes, given the on screen time interval between Tony and Rhodie fleeing the site and the explosions happening. . . but just this side of possible. After all, we *don't* see a body, or see him specifically engulfed in an explosion ala Stane. *hat tip to the Fridge Logic editor who first posted the idea*

Rhodneys new look is because of Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch had one of her Meltdowns that rewrote reality and lead to the timeline where Xmen First Class was the origin of the Xmen, Reality reverted back to normal sort of and Rhondney ended up with a new look.

The element in the blueprints Howard passed down to Tony was vibranium, and the Captain America shield shown was a prototype from him trying to recreate the element.
It was comfirmed in Captain America: The First Avenger that Howard Stark designed Steve's shield, and that it was indeed made of vibranium - all the vibranium they had, actually. But the original shield was lost alongside Cap, so their entire supply of it was gone after that. But since Howard made the shield, he had probably been studying the element in an attempt to figure out how to create more of it. The shield we see in Stark's lab could have been a test model he was trying to use to recreate it, since he didn't have the original anymore. There's a pretty good chance that that was the element in the blueprints he passed down to Tony.
 * The novelization has Tony actually name the new element Vibranium.

Dummy the robot was built because Tony wanted a little brother

 * Tony begged his dad for a little brother to play with and Howard answered absently "Build your own." So 8-year-old Tony built a robot to play catch and do other brotherly activities with.

The arc reactor is the product of an attempt to build a new Cosmic Cube.
According to Nick Fury, Howard Stark always derided the arc reactor as "unfinished technology" and "the stepping stone to something greater." Even Tony acknowledges it as having been terribly inefficient before he started working on it. Whatever this something greater is, it would supposedly dwarf the energy output of nuclear reactors in the same way they outshine batteries. It makes even more sense when you remember that Howard Stark did a lot of work in WWII that showed concern for more than the bottom line: he secretly flew two Allied agents over enemy airspace for a rescue mission, allowed the world's only vibranium sample to be carried into battle for propaganda purposes, and personally experimented on a fragment of the Cosmic Cube recovered from HYDRA. Having witnessed the Cube's power and the ridiculous technological advantage it offered HYDRA, Howard would conversely understand how useful the Cosmic Cube could be if it was applied peacefully and shared with the world.
 * I feel really stupid for having put almost the same WMG on the WMG page for the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe without checking here first, though there is some minor differences in terminology (positing that the arc reactor was an attempt to reproduce the energy-generation with human technology rather than stating it as an attempt to build a new Cube, mostly - they have the Cosmic Cube, so strictly speaking they could just do what Hydra did but for non-military uses, but that has flaws). When one thinks about it, even the palladium-based arc reactor that Tony built after getting home could count as something greater, if only it was reproduced (that little thing seems to generate a lot of power for something that small), though of course Tony seems rather reluctant to do the sharing with the world bit.

The "Ex-Wife" actually isn't worthless.
It just needs a bigger gun. While the movie does play up Hammer's inability to match Tony Stark, it seems like too much of a stretch to assume that the "Ex-Wife" was never actually tested, as testing would have revealed if the shell really was as worthless as what was shown on screen (as opposed to saying they just constructed it and assumed any simulations were the same as actual results). The reason it failed utterly is that the launcher built into the War Machine suit wasn't big enough and didn't have the proper fire power to make the shell effective. Put it in an actual cannon or a proper launcher and it will be just as devastating as advertised.
 * Maybe it can only destroy bunkers. Ivan is not a bunker
 * In point of fact, real life grenade launcher shells won't detonate until they're past a set distance. If the Ex-Wife is really as powerful as Hammer says it is, it's probably similar in that it doesn't arm itself until it's a safe distance away from whoever fired it.

Natasha and Happy hook up later.
Hilarity Ensues when he learns that she goes by the name Black Widow...

Iron Man is actually set in the Stargate Universe
It happens back in the time of the Ancients, before they got all their awesome tech. The Arc reactor is a primitive ZPM. Think about it: small, cylindrical, energy source with phenomenal amounts of power stored inside. Tony will eventually make larger, yellow versions and return to the cylinder shape instead of the triangle.
 * There are Asgardians in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and they're nothing like those in Stargate at all...
 * Actually, Stargate-Thor's first "appearance" is as a hologram. In the hologram, he impersonates a large, powerful, blonde Norseman.

Tony Stark is actually a Heterodyne.
It makes perfect sense! "The technology they need hasn't been invented yet"- "A strong Heterodyne will take about two hours to truly warp the laws of physics." Clearly, it's not that the tech hasn't been invented, it's just that they aren't Sparks. Howard Heterodyne's breakthrough device was actually a dimension warper. Everyone in Mechanicsburg thought it had killed him, when really, it just dumped him in the 1940s Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was probably still in the Madness Place when he first encountered people, and so said something unintelligeable including "Howard" and "Spark", which they misheard as "Stark", and assumed that was his name. He quickly realized that as the only Spark, he'd probably live a good bit longer there than back home. We've seen what the nursery looked like, it's no wonder he never went back. The reason he was less into the weapons than Tony is that he saw a chance to get away from all of it, so he could just invent stuff, be famous, rich, etc. Tony, on the other hand, didn't have the experience with the insanity of the Heterodyne family, so he didn't have any real reason to not make that stuff until the movie.