Enjoy This Beautiful Iron Man Concept Art From the First 3 Solo Movies

It's hard to overstate just how impactful Iron Man's character was on the modern cinematic landscape. Marvel really did the impossible here—they were on the brink of complete bankruptcy and, as a last effort to save their company, they gambled on Iron Man. And it was a crazy bet at the time. If they could, they would have made a Spider-Man movie, a Fantastic Four movie, or an X-Men movie—but they couldn't. They had already sold the rights to these characters just to stay afloat, and now they were stuck with their second-tier characters—the Avengers.

It's funny to think about the Avengers as second-class superheroes, especially Iron Man, but it's true—no one cared about Iron Man until the first movie came out and changed cinema for the next ten years. In this listicle we gathered some beautiful concept art from the first three Iron Man solo movies. They are not just pretty to look at, they give an insightful look into the process behind the scenes.