Iron Man: The Archive

• The Ultimate Story Checklist: Iron Man
• Straying From the Party Line # 9: Iron Man
• Rulebook Casefile: Exchange of a Symbolic Object in Iron Man
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Plant Solutions as Problems 

This is another one where I had to cut a question from the checklist that elicited an interesting answer, so I’ll preserve it here for posterity:

Are set-up and pay-off used to dazzle the audience (and maybe distract attention from plot contrivances)?

Yes and no: some plot contrivances could have been covered up better with set-up and payoff: At the end, why is Pepper standing in the same spot 10 minutes later? Why doesn’t Pepper call Tony earlier? On the other hand: The icing problem is nicely set-up as a problem, so that we don’t realize that it’ll be a solution later, and Tony giving away his heart, and getting it back, is set up as a character beat, so we don’t realize that it’ll be a plot solution later. Also: Coulson always being around pestering Tony is seen as a problem, so we buy it when it turns into a solution later.