As the release of 'Iron Man 3' grows closer, more details about what we can expect from the third adventure of Tony Stark have begun to emerge. One development that should prove surprising to movie fans (if not necessarily comic fans) is that another major character may find themselves piloting a suit of highly advanced armor in the film: Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts!

Although Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige doesn't straight come and say "Pepper Suits Up!" in a new interview, he treats it like it's a known quantity at this point (and various set reports from around the internet have already confirmed as much). It's a plot point that everyone's already understood at this point, even if it hasn't been in the marketing at all.

When asked to speak about what Pepper being in a suit of her own means to Tony and the Marvel Universe, Feige had this to say:

In ['Iron Man 3'] we play with the convention of the damsel in distress. We are bored by the damsel in distress. But, sometimes we need our hero to be desperate enough in fighting for something other than just his own life. So, there is fun to be had with 'Is Pepper in danger or is Pepper the savior?' over the course of this movie.

Paltrow and the 'Iron Man' creative team have always done an excellent job of elevating Pepper above the generic love interest that she would've been in so many other movies, but to hear that they plan to break the mold even further is, quite frankly, awesome. The Marvel Universe is full of wonderful female characters and we hope that Pepper can join the likes of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow in the pantheon of great lady superheroes. After all, there's comic book precedence for Pepper suiting up and kicking ass:

In the comic books she does get a taste for the suit and becomes her own hero named Rescue, who doesn’t necessarily battle other people, but is on missions to help people and to save people. Will we do that down the line with Gwyneth Paltrow? Who knows. But her being in the suit is something we have been playing with since 'Iron Man 2,' where we did some designs and it didn't end up fitting in that movie.

'Iron Man 3' opens on May 3rd. If you thought the previous two films were lacking in Iron Man armor in any way, this one should probably scratch that itch.

More From ScreenCrush