Iron Man 3 Official Trailer Released Today!

Who is that, dressed in the red, white and blue of the American flag (and, if we miss it, the flag happens to be flying behind him to make sure we don't miss it)? Is that the "teacher" who some people call a terrorist and has been "bringing down" the "house of American lords," the upper 1% of billionaires? Has a Chinese enemy disguised himself as the all-American Iron Man and is he pretending to be the "new Iron Man," while demonizing the original? I had high hopes for this one, but it easily exceeded my expectations!
In other words, and these are only hints and suggestions at this point, does Tony Stark--like Aaron Cross from The Bourne Legacy and James Bond in Skyfall--symbolize the American economy that has been "replaced" by an enemy dressed to look "American" but is, in fact, communism? Stark's "fall from grace" is more than the typical spiritual fall and conversion we are used to in all artistic mediums, but Stark's fall (like the many falls it looks Bond will take in Skyfall) is an economic collapse. Because a man's body usually symbolizes the economy (because of his active nature) Tony Stark pulling a dog sled at the end of the trailer reveals how slowed-down "economic growth" has become in America while Pepper, obviously being taken as a hostage, symbolizes the future of America "trapped" and being held against her will,... now, where on earth did they come up with this storyline? It can't be an accident that, of all the days and times this trailer was released (I thoroughly expected it to not be released until Skyfall, as one of those opening trailers, another reason to drive people to go see it), why was it released just hours after the final presidential campaign debates?

An important aspect of this trailer lies in the final seconds, when the "heart" generator (another good sign of the "engines" of the economy) have gone dark, then it comes back on again after we see Stark and the "dog sled" of his worldly possessions. Why? This might be a "resurrection" of Stark (a word seductively thrown around by Bond in Skyfall teasers) and which we have seen with Bruce Wayne after his time in The Pit in The Dark Knight Rises and Aaron Cross' illness and massive recovery in The Bourne Legacy. In other words, I fully expect Iron Man 3 to be a "teacher" and "lesson number 1" on how the economy should really be run, and what it means to be an American, not just dressing the role.

Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3.

This appears strange in the trailer: at 0:22 seconds, Stark stands in his "lab," and a piece of the Iron Man armor flies through the air and fits itself onto his arm; why? Technically speaking, it's part of the plot that Stark has been able to modify his suit to remotely assemble and fit itself to him from anywhere; symbolically, it is rather like that old saying (Warren Buffet, perhaps?) that even if one did take all the wealth in America, divide it equally, it would still pretty much end up in the same place as from where it was taken because of those who have the knack for making money and investing it, and those who don't. In other words, the armor being in a sense magnetically attracted to Stark demonstrates that Stark isn't just a playboy billionaire philanthropist, but someone who actually has a head on his shoulders in being able to make money because he has "capitalized" on his skills and talents (his making the Iron Man suit) and is, in his very essence, a hero, maybe a flawed hero, but that's the whole point of a story--any story--so we, too, can overcome our own falls and become heroes in our lives and protect those without whom we can't live.

This is a memorial wall from the trailer, suggesting New York City, and those who perished in the battle depicted in The Avengers (probably American civilians). The shadows act like ghosts "haunting" the current story, or, the battle for New York--the financial "capital" of the world (as in "capitalism")--is still the driving force of today's battles. What was The Avengers about? The 2008 economic collapse and whether that was going to be the "death blow" to American identity as a capitalist country, or the beginning of America--or whatever it might come to be called---as a socialist country.

At 0:53, we see Stark in a hospital setting; this might be a reference that he, like Aaron Cross and Steve Rogers in Captain America, is going to receive a serum, an injection to enhance his body's performance,... there have been rumors and this part of the teaser might have been put in to substantiate or just further tease those rumors, but it is certainly a possibility that this will figure into the plot. So what is the difference in the government injecting a "stimulus" into the economy, which we saw being symbolically done in The Bourne Legacy, and a billionaire injecting his capital into the economy? Socialists argue that government does it better because no one loses anything; capitalists argue that capitalists do it better because capitalists have everything to lose: only the ambiguous "taxpayer" dollar is lost when the American government invests in Solyndra, Solar Trust Of America and Solar Power (among a long list of other billion dollar failures), but private enterprise is better at taking risks because it's better at judging the market and knowing what people want, instead of forcing people to start buying what it has invested in; whereas capitalists usually enter on joint ventures to minimize investment risks, the government just throws money at something. These are embedded economic issues we will see being played out for us in Iron Man 3 and I can't wait! (Please recall in The Avengers that Stark had invested in green energy to run Stark Industries and that was turned against America and used by Loki, likewise, in The Dark Knight Rises, Wayne's fusion energy was turned against all Gotham).
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The Fine Art Diner

The accomplishments and contributions of America's upper class being destroyed, blown apart and used against them; what had been an advantage is now a liability.