The hand thing was one of the missiles that was in the iron man suit, wasn’t it?
I think it was an arm from a suit. But that still shouldn’t do as much damage as a self-destructing suit?
Didn’t the arm fly off Pepper & impale Killian through the chest? Similar to when Tony killed the guy on Air Force 1 by blowing a hole through his heart with the chest repulsor. Maybe destroying the heart is the only sure way to kill a super-Extremis user.
I think the best way to describe it is that his health bar was really high before the exploding suit and that lowered it immensely (let’s say he was at 90% and then the suit took him down to 10%). Extremis was repairing the damage but then then Pepper threw/shot or whatever (I can’t rember) and that lowered his bar to zero. Normally what she did would only have done 15% damage, but since his health bar was so low, it actually killed him.
Ooo. That’s gotta hurt.
Yeah, I think that was the final form of a boss battle. 
The PTSD was the most interesting thing about the entire thing. It shows a more human side of Stark. And that’s important for a self-described Billionaire, Genius, Playboy, Philanthropist.
Plus, of the Avengers he’s the only real candidate for it.
Thor - Fuck it, I’m a God. Shit like this happens every day.
Hulk - Hulk smash. Hulk not in danger. Hulk not COMPREHEND danger.
Captain America - Warrior, Fought against Nazis. Aliens are punks
Black Widow and Hawkeye - High-stakes fighting and getting shot at is what they do
Stark’s the only one in that final battle completely out of his element. To show him suffering some post-survival-stress problems is fundamental to developing his character. Let’s hope Marvel keeps that sort of character development up.
And the big fight scene in THE AVENGERS is, effectively, Banner having just had the most uplifting epiphany of his life.
NO chance of a duel with the giant Titanium Man? I nominate Yao Ming for the role.
I nominate Terrence Howard.
What’s his height? He has to be at least two heads taller than Downey.
That’s a good point. Maybe it was both that killed him.
Well, I’d have expected if a few months as a hostage in a cave didn’t cause any PTSD, a 25 minute fight with some punk-ass aliens wouldn’t either. Though the nuke & near death experience probably didn’t help. That’s probably more the cause - he willingly sacrificed himself to save NY, which is completely out of character for Tony, so he’s having trouble coping with it.
What I saw was Pepper tossing something at him, a little unexploded missile or something, and then shooting it with the repulsor just as it hit him. So it was explosives plus repulsor ray plus previous damage all at once.
I think the Manhattan even triggered it, but that doesn’t mean his cave experience has nothing to do with it. PTSD isn’t always based off just one incident, but can be the results of lots of things adding up.
Well, in the space of 3 movies, he went from -
Rich, Genius, Naive CEO of a weapons company that was betrayed by his best friend/mentor and set up to be killed, lugging around a battery to stay alive, inventing a new power source, having best friend/mentor steal and then try to kill him with it, next movie he finds himself face to face with his fathers ‘failure’ and someone equally smart that darn near kills him while he’s fighting to stay alive with the invention of his that is slowly poisoning him - to fighting off an alien race brought down by a Demi-god and sacrificing himself - he got yelled back to life at by the hulk forgodsake.
So, yeah - I think he’s had ‘lots of things adding up’ recently…
Not to mention that being held captive in a cave while seriously injured is something that actually happens to people. It sucks but it’s “real life”. Aliens and gods, those aren’t “real life” - if that actually happened can you imagine what it would do to people? Shake up your entire world view. Form new religions. Doomsday cults. Everything you thought you knew would be wrong - especially if you were a cold hard facts science dude. You’ve spent your whole life thinking things are explainable and now there’s magic?
For the cherry on top, remember the chat with Steve Rogers. Imagine you’re Tony: your dad never shut up about this guy, and now Captain America himself patiently explains that he served in WWII with guys who didn’t inherit ten cents, but who are worth ten of you: men who’d sacrifice themselves to save others.
In retrospect, of course, that’s merely a bit of setting the stage before Tony then goes out and proves Cap wrong by living up to the big guy’s example – but for all I know, part of the reason he makes that sacrifice play is because the living legend just sized him up as a style-over-substance jokester who isn’t a real soldier.
What could be more traumatic than risking death because your idol’s idol looked at you with disdain?
You mean Jon Favreau? He was Vince Vaughn’s buddy in Swingers. They must have liked his robot work from Zathura to have him direct IronmanI&II.
Or it could have been Elf…