All of a sudden, people have started talking about Iron Man 2 again, for a few little reasons. Although we’ll cover those reasons, we feel we should lay the groundwork for why Iron Man 2 is such a tricky little film for Jon Favreau.

The second Iron Man needs to take the Marvel universe and unite it with the Captain America movie and  Kenneth Branagh’s Thor to eventually launch an Avengers  movie featuring a whole bunch-o-heroes. It’s a real problem to take the most successful non-Spider-Man Marvel film property and rapidly expand the universe in an organic way within the running time of the film.

That’s quite a hurdle, as audiences who loved watching Robert Downey Jr play with the realities of Tony Stark may not be up to a story where RDJr is sharing his fun with a boat load of ancillary characters.

We know that Don Cheadle will eventually become War Machine, and now we’re hearing another original Iron Man cast member has been replaced and 2 other Marvel characters will appear in roles much bigger than cameos…

From Latino Review:

From what I’m told, Tim Robbins is going to be playing Howard Stark in an important flashback sequence that is going to set up the Avengers and Captain America films.  Jon [Favreau] wanted to get a good actor because he didn’t think the guy who played Howard in the last film could carry such an important scene.

I’m also told that HAWKEYE and BLACK WIDOW are definitely in Iron Man 2 and they wont be cameos either.

This is a wild guess, but you think Daddy Stark had a hand in the Super Soldier program covered in The Incredible Hulk? Eh? Eh?