3) Iron Man 2 – The Kid In The Iron Mask Is Peter Parker
Sometimes retroactive continuity changes work, and sometimes they fall flat. In Iron Man 2, that was luckily not the case. Taking place six months after the events of the first movie, the sequel depicted the world’s response to the revelation that the Iron Man tech was Stark’s, with the government wanting to acquire it and private enterprises like Justin Hammer wanting to replicate it.
Hammer, thanks to the work of Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko, manages to partially succeed as numerous suit drones were created. Only, Vanko’s plan involved using them to attack Stark, setting off a remote-control program that made them rogue. One of these drones arrives at the Stark Expo, where a young kid wearing an Iron Man mask decides to stand up to it. Before the robot can kill the kid, though, Stark arrives in time and destroys it.
Obviously, Iron Man 2 was made before Marvel Studios reached a deal with Sony to incorporate the Spider-Man character into the MCU. But after actor Tom Holland openly supported the theory that this kid was a young Peter, Spider-Man: Homecoming director John Watts and MCU producer Kevin Feige decided to officially canonize it – and it definitely lends the film more weight as a result.