Where were the Avengers/SHIELD in Iron Man 3?

Lionsfan

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Jan 29, 2010
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Maybe I just missed a line or something in the movie, but this just bugged me while watching Iron Man 3.

Where the hell was Captain America/SHIELD/Hawkeye etc. etc. during all of this? I understand it's Iron Man's movie, but if the "trouble" was really a national crisis involving the President, why wasn't there any backup for Iron Man? Or even when his house got destroyed, and Pepper was in danger, why wasn't it "Go chill with Captain America/Hulk/Nick Fury for a little bit while I take care of this stuff"

Did that bother anybody else?
 

Terminate421

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Well the rest of the Avengers were doing their own thing.

Also Shield was mentioned slightly at the beginning of the movie. Besides, they're not really "needed" until something world threatening comes it's way.

It's kinda the same reason Warmachine was never mentioned in the Avengers, it just wouldn't make sense (from our perspective) and could be reasoned that they had their own battles to fight.
 

Scarim Coral

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Yeah I was wondering about SHIELD involvement in the film other than being hacked so easily by Stark. You would think a terrorist leader who can hacked into the news network at will while killing a person on aired and aswell making threat to the President in a form of "education" would caught the SHIELF attnetion.

As for therest of the Avengers member where about, I just assume they are still AWOL or something like that as in not reporting back to SHIELD after the alien invasion.
 

MisterGobbles

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Hulk's character showed up in the after credits scene. Other than that, I'm reasonably satisfied with the explanation "the comics get away with it, why not the movie?"
 

Orange12345

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Lets see my guesses would be,

Shield- I imagine that shield would not want to be drawn into a fight that is so "public" since they are all hush hush, also remember that no one knew that extremis was involved in the attacks it just seemed like a very well organized terrorist not something that the guys who are on world saving watch should be wasting time with

Captain America- seemed to be "retired" from the military, not that he would have been very useful in tracking down a terrorist anyway

Thor- doing Asgard stuff in Asgard

Hulk- Has no real stake in fighting a terrorist he is also in hiding so hunting down the mandarin would probably expose him

Hawkeye and Black Widow- both shield agents if shield isn't there they wouldn't be either
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Same reason as War Machine wasn't in The Avengers, or the Eagles didn't fly the fellowship to Mount Doom - it would make a shorter movie. Any other explanation is more of an excuse than an explanation. Plausible, perhaps, but we all know why they REALLY weren't in the movie.
 

Crispee

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My theory was that Stark was deliberately avoiding SHIELD because he worried that their presence would trigger his PTSD, but he was ok with seeing Bruce Banner because The Hulk is the one who saved his life when he fell out of the portal. After all, just the word 'electricity' when he was fixing the armour triggered an anxiety attack, presumably be reminding him of Captain America.

Johnny Novgorod said:
Same reason as War Machine wasn't in The Avengers, or the Eagles didn't fly the fellowship to Mount Doom - it would make a shorter movie. Any other explanation is more of an excuse than an explanation. Plausible, perhaps, but we all know why they REALLY weren't in the movie.
But yeah, you're right, any suggestion's still an excuse, not an explanation.
 

Froggy Slayer

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I'm thinking that they might be doing what happened with Phase 1 and have everything happen within a short time span, which would mean that everyone is off doing solo films.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

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I'm just going to go ahead and assume that Cap was busy at the exact same moment, Hulk didn't want to get involved and Thor was being Thor away in Asgard. Maybe SHIELD was after Kony or something.

It was an Iron Man movie, I expected it to be about Iron Man with only a few references to the other heroes/agencies out there. That's what I got. I don't need every Marvel movie to be an Avengers style collaboration from now on. XD
 

Genocidicles

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Maybe all the movies are happening at the same time? Like whilst Iron Man 3 is going on, Cap is dealing with whatever is going down in the 'The Winter Soldier', and Thor is dealing with the elves.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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I think to an extent they want to keep the Avengers and the individual heroes seperate so that fans of one but not the other aren't constantly burdened by content they don't care for. Whether or not that makes narrative sense.
 

MarsProbe

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Dec 13, 2008
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It never crossed my mind actually. It was an Iron Man movie after all, not an Avengers one. Is this question going to be asked for every solo Marvel movie featuring an Avenger that comes out between now and Avengers 2? Probably....
 

Tomaius

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Anyone else think it was odd that it was a Christmas movie?

I think thats going to be a running theme, maybe Thor and Captain America will be focused on another holiday event and a timeline could be built up.
 

Kolby Jack

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Apr 29, 2011
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Like others have said, it's an Iron Man movie, not an Avengers movie, so despite the shared continuity separation is still important.

But if I had to pick a plausible reason for SHIELD being not-so-present, I'd say the organization faced some serious fallout from the shadowy council (who, despite not being identified as such, I think is a stand-in for the UNSC permanent members given their varying nationalities) and was probably under heavy scrutiny and unable to actively participate in any major ops at the time. After all, the council wasn't exactly pleased with Nick Fury's methods, despite their success.
 

Tiamattt

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Eh, they usually don't deal with the "where are all the other heroes" question, I can't imagine it being fun for writers find a excuse for it every single story. Granted Marvel kindas begs for it when they stick most of their heroes within easy travel distance from one and another, especially when you count flight and/or planes. Then there's DC where a whole lot of heroes can quickly circle the globe with ease. And in both cases we have magic or teleportation.

So yeah, it's kinda something you're supposed to let go. :p
 

Shocksplicer

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Same reason as War Machine wasn't in The Avengers, or the Eagles didn't fly the fellowship to Mount Doom - it would make a shorter movie. Any other explanation is more of an excuse than an explanation. Plausible, perhaps, but we all know why they REALLY weren't in the movie.
No, there's a REASON the eagles didn't fly the fellowship to Mount Doom.
The Avengers aren't in Iron Man 3 because it's Iron Man's movie, and they're all reasonably high profile actors at this point.
 

8bitmaster

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Nov 9, 2009
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Besides being mentioned, I don't really see a reason to bring them in to the movie. The movie is about tony stark's demons once again and its meant to be his spotlight, his fights. Its not a big enough enemy (unless the next one involves AIM creating M.O.D.O.K) to bring anyone else into it, as AIM was an iron man villian first (I believe). It just wasn't a big enough enemy to have anyone else dirty their hands. They'll all get their own shots as they have their own movies coming out. Why jump into Iron Man's show?
 

Snotnarok

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Better question, where was Spiderman in the Avengers? I mean it was New York right? Couldn't even show one badguy webbed up as like a lil' easteregg thing?
 

Laughing Man

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The simple answer, apart from it's an Ironman movie so it's about Ironman but if you want a canon or story based reason it's because SHIELD and The Avengers are a last line of defence, the answer when their is literally nothing left to save the Earth. While a terrorist doing terrorist shit is all very bad when you look at what the Manadrin was doing compared to what Loki was going to do, well blowing a few locations up and killing a President isn't really Earth shattering stuff now is it?

Even Stark didn't bother until Happy got himself blown up by the bad guys.
 

CriticalMiss

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The way I see it:

Thor - The Bifrost bridge was destroyed in his film, he only came to Earth in The Avengers because Odin was willing to use a huge amount of dark energy to send him there (Loki says so in the film). Odin probably didn't want to waste more energy sending Thor back to Earth for something that seemed as if someone else could handle it, plus in The Avengers Thor went to retrieve Loki.

SHIELD - They might have been busy rebuilding the Helicarrier since it had a small war fought on it, plus as was mentioned earlier they are very hush-hush.