Tony Stark is back! The film 'Iron Man 3' announces the magnificent return of the hero, and with a little difference this time. Perhaps, you might be disappointed if you expect breathtaking action or an innovative suit which Tony Stark wears, because what we have to focus on instead, is something else. With 'Iron Man 3' you will get to pay attention to Tony Stark as a human being rather than him as Iron Man wearing his armor suits.

According to Captain America in 'The Avengers', Tony Stark without the Iron Man suit is nothing but a rich person as he has no supernatural powers, which means that he is not a superhero at all. As a matter of course, at the end of 'Avengers', he brings the matter to a pause for the present by succeeding in the last mission to get a nuclear missile to pass through a wormhole and to finally save the earth. However, it might not be a good enough answer to the pithy question asked by Captain America: What makes him a superhero? 'Iron Man 3' reveals the answer to every audience’s question.

Tony Stark, suffering anxiety from the after effect of the wormhole, is severely attached to the idea of making a new Iron Man suit. Meanwhile, the worst terrorist 'Mandarin' and the scientist 'Dr. Killian', who turn out to actually be the same figure, open a terror campaign against the whole world, and, at the same time, attack a residence of Tony Stark. After that, defeated Tony Stark lands in some countryside village, and, while repairing his broken suit, begins to make preparations for a comeback with the help of a child named 'Harley'. In the process, the fundamentals of the heroic identity, which Tony Stark himself was not even conscious of, is revealed by implication.

He introduces himself to Harley as a ‘mechanic’, and finds a breakthrough after all. Since his suit is totally broken, he buys ordinary instruments at a hardware shop, makes weapons, and steals his way into a residence of Mandarin. This scene is rather comic, but very profound in meaning, for it becomes evident that the 'mechanic nature' of Tony Stark, who is too anxious to confront danger unless he makes something and uses it to cover himself, is the very superpower of Iron Man, namely, his heroic identity.

To make the central motif of the movie about discovering the heroic identity of Iron Man can be seen as the best move by Marvel because people grow tired of the same repetitive pattern in a series of movies. At the same time, they also succeeded in raising discussion on the essence of a superhero to the realm beyond that of supernatural power. This is quite outstanding because they revealed the difference between Iron Man and other heroes well known to people. Even though Iron Man surrounds himself with steel, he is the closest hero to humans, and a symbolic being to maximize the strongest power of human: the ability to make something great.

We can understand the fundamental history of human civilization from the ‘mechanic’ nature of Tony Stark. Modern civilization definitely developed from human nature hoping to create something, and then constantly trying to make it better. This human nature is heroic itself, and has been the very moving force of the whole of human history. In this sense, it can be possibly determined that Iron Man's heroic features are not his super-expensive armor suit, but Tony Stark's identity itself. As a whole, by exploring the heroic identity of Iron Man, the film 'Iron Man 3' induces reconsideration about Tony Stark as a human being, and simultaneously discloses the greatness of humanity.