‘Iron Man 2’: Mickey Rourke’s Bird had to Die so the MCU Could Live

Iron Man 2 premiered in cinemas 10 years ago today, on May 7, 2010. The film was a monster hit, thanks to the fact that it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first major sequel. It was also the film that did the most heavy lifting in terms of setting the foundations for what would evolve into one of the most successful film franchises in history. However, it’s also an uneven film, unsure if it should embrace the erratic indie energy that made Iron Man a hit, or if it should hew closer to some carefully constructed master plan. Nowhere is this internal creative debate better illustrated than in Ivan Vanko’s beautiful, but non-consequential, bird, Irina.

Iron Man 2 is the sequel to 2008’s Iron Man and only the third film ever made in the MCU. The second film? The hardly remembered Ed Norton-starring The Incredible Hulk; a film whose lackluster performance could have possibly derailed the newborn concept of an interconnected Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man 2 had to succeed, and it had to further the set up for the wildly wished after crossover event, The Avengers. Iron Man 2 succeeded by deepening the relationship between Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), successfully introducing Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, and sewing the seeds of multiple plot-lines to come. Gary Shandling’s shifty senator joining forces with the bad guys years before he whispered “Hail Hydra” in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Inspired! The film even proved that you could replace stars and the audience wouldn’t miss a beat. (Yeah, I do think successfully subbing in Don Cheadle for Terrence Howard helped give Marvel the confidence to recast Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.)

So Iron Man 2 helped smooth the transition from Marvel making their first in-house movies to masterminding an inter-connected universe. But Iron Man 2 is also a film that is struggling to figure out its tone. It’s a movie with lavish set pieces that really work and others that seems clunky or ragged compared to the symphonically orchestrated beats in MCU films today. When we see any sort of flashy detail in a modern Marvel movie, we know that it might be an Easter Egg for comic fans, a seed for a future storyline, or a joke that will be cleverly revisited later. Iron Man 2, however, is full of absurd grace notes that don’t have a later payoff in the MCU. Chief among them? Irina, the cockatoo.

Irina the cockatoo — yeah, she’s a cockatoo, and not a parrot, okay? — is first introduced in the foreboding opening credits of Iron Man 2. While her owner, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Roarke) works on his Whiplash costume, the sweet feathery princess peaks out to check out the action in the lab. Later, this bird becomes a comic source of contention between Vanko and his would-be keeper Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). While the American tycoon thinks he needs to woo the vengeful villain with luxuries, he just wants “my bird.” There’s a whole scene devoted to Vanko’s anger when Hammer brings the wrong bird, and from then on, Vanko and the bird are inseparable. That is, until Vanko leaves the compound to fight Iron Man.

It is kind of a mystery as to what fate befell Irina. There is one Marvel fan wiki that implies that Vanko broke her neck before heading into battle and that Black Widow discovered her corpse. I can find no proof of this in the version of the film streaming on Disney+. In other words, it is unclear what happened to Irina, the cockatoo from Iron Man 2. That’s weird because there’s usually an explanation for every little detail in the MCU. At least there is now.

Irina the Iron Man 2 bird fascinates me not only because she’s a show-stopping beauty of a bird, but because she feels like the sort of thing the MCU needed to purge from its system before it could move forward. Her quirkiness harkens back to the first Iron Man, a film that was made with independent film alums and an improvisational style. Now, in order to keep the story connected, there’s less room for the jazzy sprinkles of weird that Iron Man 2 had in spades.

Mickey Roarke’s bird had to die (spiritually) so the MCU could live.

Where to stream Iron Man 2