It all began with Iron Man when he was kept prisoner in a cave, in Afghanistan, against his will. He is forced to provide weapons to the terrorist group known as the Ten Rings. This is an easter egg and reference to Iron Man’s archenemy, The Mandarin, who possesses ten rings of great power. 

Tony Stark had a piece of shrapnel close to his heart, so a fellow captive named Ho Yinsen built him an electromagnet to keep the shrapnel away. However, Stark built an arc reactor to power the iron suit he would come to pilot and so began the days of Tony Stark as Iron Man. 

In the film, we meet his personal assistant Pepper Potts, his chauffeur and bodyguard Happy Hogan, and his best friend James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, who we all know becomes War Machine. The villain featured in this film is Stark’s business partner Obadiah Stane, who in the comics is known as the Iron Monger. Stane makes a reference to this title in the film. 

​The first evidence that Iron Man has become part of a ‘bigger universe’ in the MCU is right at the end credits when he meets Nick Fury, played by the perfectly cast Samuel L. Jackson. Nick informs him that he isn’t the only superhero in the world and about the Avenger Initiative - and so the MCU begins. It then makes its second film on another, actually much more well-known superhero, the Hulk.