“On the first Iron Man, we went out and we went to Comic Con, and had a flip phone in his hand and he goes, "This is how it's working from now. You know, the filmmakers, the artists, the departments heads they're all showmen and the audience is talking back, and they're going to ask you that question. In the post Avengers world, "what was it like for Tony and this and that?" So you kind of have to have thought about, and you have to have addressed it creatively.”

The man responsible for addressing it in 'Iron Man 3' is Shane Black, who directed the film and collaborated on its screenplay with writer Drew Pearce. We spoke to the pair at the film’s Los Angeles press day, where they talked about the changing landscape of Tony Stark’s life, and the changing world of superhero films within the Marvel Universe.

After the events chronicled in 'The Avengers,' where Manhattan was nearly leveled by invading aliens and Tony himself was almost killed, he's become obsessed with upgrading his armor -- leaping all the way from the Mark VII to the Mark 42 in a matter of months. When anyone mentions New York or aliens, Tony gets panic attacks. There's a reason Daredevil, not Iron Man, is the Marvel hero known as "The Man Without Fear." Poor Tony is terrified.