Tony Stark has a bad day in debut Iron Man 3 trailer

After months of waiting the first trailer for the upcoming Iron Man 3 has hit the ‘net. You can find the entire clip embedded below, but first a few thoughts on what we see here and what it may mean for the film as a whole.

It seems that Tony Stark has been having issues since we last saw him in The Avengers, saving the world from alien invasion. It appears that he’s haunted by the events of that film. This seems a clever move by the filmmakers as not only does it build upon earlier Marvel Studios films (thus expanding the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe), it also offers viewers a believable reason why this normally smug, infinitely capable superhero is overcome with feelings of self-doubt and vulnerability. Which, thanks to comic book logic, makes a supervillain attack inevitable.

Actually, that might be two supervillain attacks. Obviously Ben Kingsley’s depiction of classic Iron Man foe The Mandarin serves as one of the key antagonists, but we’re still wondering what purpose the Iron Patriot suit serves in Iron Man 3. We don’t ever see Iron Man battle his star-spangled doppelganger, just footage of it being unveiled to the public. If we’re sticking with comic book logic, the Iron Patriot (and whoever is wearing that suit) should attack Iron Man at some point — not just because Norman Osborn did it in the comics, but also because two characters this similar are rarely allowed to exist together for long. Iron Man is our hero, so by default Iron Patriot gets to be the “evil” Iron Man.

Unless, of course, the Iron Patriot armor isn’t that important, and is just a new paint scheme for one of Tony Stark’s new suits designed for public relations work at things like parades and park dedications. We have no evidence for this idea, but then again, we also don’t have any evidence against it.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be in the dark on this question for the immediate future. We expect more information on this movie’s plot to emerge as we inch toward the May 3, 2013 release date Disney has assigned Iron Man 3. In the meantime, leave your reaction to the trailer in the comments.