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Robert Downey Jr. is entering his villain era

The MCU's biggest hero is about to become the MCU's biggest villain - and its a path RDJ has been charting for years

"You know who I am." 

That's the tagline Robert Downey Jr. has as his social media bio, but unbeknownst to most people, we're in a liminal phase moving beyond the RDJ you do know and into something else. In the first Iron Man movie - the one which got the whole MCU rolling - RDJ-as-Tony Stark responded to a reporter by saying "I'm just not the hero type," before proclaiming, "I am Iron Man." Here now in 2024, however, he is definitely moving beyond Marvel Studios' "hero type" with what comes next: returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Victor Von Doom.

While some see this as RDJ threading the needle and moving from becoming MCU's biggest hero to becoming the MCU's biggest villain, it's part of a larger move by the actor regarding his career to move beyond the

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Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant: Chris Arrant is the Popverse's Editor-in-Chief. He has written about pop culture for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel, Newsarama, CBR, and more. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. (He/him)

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