17) Helicarrier Attacked, Avengers Work Together, Phil Coulson Dies – The Avengers
Barton and the other possessed agents attack the Helicarrier, forcing the Avengers to work together for the first time. In the ensuing action, Romanoff tries to calm Banner down, but is unable to do so, which forces him to transform. The Hulk chases Romanoff down, but Thor arrives just in time and tries to ward the him off, though he’s unable to do so before the Hulk falls off the Helicarrier.
Stark and Rogers fight off a few agents and attempt to fix the engine, and are successful in doing so. Romanoff ambushes Barton and knocks him unconscious, breaking Loki’s mind control. With that, Barton becomes the final member to join the Avengers.
Loki is able to escape his cell and manages to kill Coulson. Checking up on his brother, Thor arrives on the scene but is tricked into being trapped in Loki’s old cell and is sent plummeting off the Helicarrier.
The attack ends with Loki escaping as the Avengers mourn Coulson’s death.
18) Battle Of New York, Loki Is Seized, Thanos Revealed – The Avengers
Loki lands in New York City and uses the Tesseract to open a portal to the Chitauri fleet. As the extraterrestrials pour into the city, destroying anything in sight, The Avengers arrive. At the command of Rogers, each Avenger utilizes his or her own skills to avert the waves of Chitauri and to protect the citizens of New York City. However, with each wave seemingly growing in size, the Avengers’ only option is to find a way to shut the portal. Romanoff learns that the only way to do so is by using Loki’s staff.
At the same time, Nick Fury’s superiors view the invasion as impossible to contain and decide to bomb New York City with a nuclear missile. Stark is able to redirect the missile through the portal and into the Chitauri fleet, destroying it, but his suit loses power and he freefalls back through the portal just as Romanoff is able to use Loki’s staff to close it. The Hulk catches Stark just in time and the Avengers corner Loki, who surrenders.
Thor takes his brother back to Asgard along with the Tesseract and the Avengers part ways knowing that when another threat of the same caliber threatens the world, they’ll reunite.
The Other, angry at his fleet’s failure, is revealed to be under the command of Thanos.
19) Tony Stark’s House Is Destroyed By The Mandarin – Iron Man 3
Having seen the world terrorized by the mysterious and threatening broadcasts of The Mandarin, and having seen his close friend, Happy, seriously injured and hospitalized by one of his attacks, Tony Stark issues his own threat to the villainous figure, suggesting his wish to take him on one-on-one, and revealing his address.
Scientist – and ex girlfriend of Stark – Maya Hansen arrives at the Stark residence as Pepper Potts and Stark argue about the need for immediate relocation to ensure their safety. As they argue, the live news feed from circling helicopters reveal an incoming missile. Thrown back by the blast, Stark commands his Iron Man suit to apply itself to Pepper – thus saving her from injury. Hansen, however, is knocked unconscious by falling debris. As the roof begins to crumble, the suited Potts shields Stark and he instructs her to retrieve Hansen and leave the building.
With Potts and Hansen safely outside, Stark recalls the suit and tries to fight back until JARVIS informs him that, as the suit is a prototype, it is not battle-ready. Stark proceeds to take out one of the attack helicopters with a piano and he destroys another by throwing a rocket and firing at it. Regardless, the house slips into the ocean, as does Stark. He is buried, in his suit, into the ocean floor. JARVIS is still operational, however, and instructs Stark on breathing techniques as the hand of the suit detaches, turns and pulls him out of the debris. The suit takes off into the sky with Stark inside, leaving Pepper Potts at the site of the destroyed house.
20) Aldrich Killian Is Exposed And Subsequently Defeated – Iron Man 3
With the help of a young boy he has befriended during his self-imposed exile in Tennessee, Stark tracks The Mandarin to Miami and breaks into his headquarters. He discovers that The Mandarin the world has seen is actually a British actor named Trevor Slattery, who is seemingly under the impression that he was simply taking part in an acting job. He has no idea of the barbaric acts being carried out in his name.
Aldrich Killian – a scientist once snubbed by both Stark and Pepper Potts – reveals that he is the real Mandarin, having appropriated the ‘Extremis’ project created by Maya Hansen. The project is designed to ‘evolve’ the structure of the human brain and DNA, making the body self-repairing and virtually indestructible. The project remains unstable, however, generating extreme heat – which had previously been the cause of explosions, such as the one that injured Happy.
With Stark strapped to an iron bed, Killian reveals he has also captured Pepper Potts and subjected her to the Extremis process in order to guarantee Stark’s assistance with fixing the fatal flaw in the project. Hansen has second thoughts, and is murdered by Killian, who has also lured Rhodes into danger in order to steal his Iron Patriot suit. Stark escapes, rescues Rhodes, and together they discover Killian’s real plan – to abduct the President of the United States from Air Force One mid-flight, and kill him on live television.
Heading for a final showdown aboard an oil tanker platform, Stark and Rhodes arrive to see the President suspended from cables in the Iron Patriot suit. Outnumbered by Extremis enabled mercenaries, Stark summons a battalion of Iron Man suits as back-up, ordering them to destroy any target with an Extremis heat signature. Finding Pepper Potts trapped in wreckage, Stark is prevented from rescuing her by Killian – now fully in the throes of the Extremis procedure. Stark cuts Killian’s forearm off in self-defence, with the over-heating severed limb melting the floor beneath Pepper.
Rhodes rescues the President while Stark finds Pepper once again, hanging from the part-collapsed structure. Encouraging her to let go, he promises to catch her, but a jolt knocks her free and she falls into the flames below, while Stark is powerless to save her. Killian returns – healed – and fights with Stark. While Killian uses Stark’s wearing of the suit against him – heating it up with him inside – Stark thinks creatively, encasing Killian in Iron Man parts and ordering it to self-destruct.
As Stark lays on the platform, dazed, Killian rises from the flames and approaches Stark once again – only to be slammed with a girder by Pepper Potts, who survived her fall due to the Extremis procedure. Feeling the effects, she uses parts of an Iron Man suit to destroy Killian, once and for all, while Stark watches. The confrontation finally over, Stark commands JARVIS to enact the ‘Clean Slate Protocol’ and he and Potts watch as his remaining suit collection self-destructs.
Stark oversees a medical procedure to stabilize Potts’ Extremis condition, and then undergoes surgery himself to finally remove the shrapnel from his chest that started the whole journey to Iron Man in the first place. Happy wakes in the hospital, while Stark throws his now obsolete electro-magnet into the ocean from the site of his destroyed home, safe in the understanding that – even without his suits – he is Iron Man.