Will Captain America 3 Turn into Iron Man 4?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is probably my #1 Marvel movie and it'll probably fall somewhere in my top 10 of 2014. And I became instantly pumped for the upcoming 3rd entry in the Captain Ameria solo series (due out in May 2016). It'd be great to see Cap (Chris Evans), Natasha/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) team up again with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) against HYDRA after whatever game changing events happen in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Following the sad tale of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) was also something to look forward to in Cap 3.

So when news broke a few weeks ago that Robert Downey Jr. would reprise his Tony Stark/Iron Man role in Cap 3, I was hugely disappointed. And that was for several reasons. One, I really can't stand RDJ. Oh, sure, the way he got over his personal troubles and became a big movie star again is admirable. But he is just so smug and his whole snarky, too cool for school persona is really annoying.

But also once Iron Man becomes a part of Cap 3, he will eventually push out the supporting characters like Sam, Sharon, Bucky. Now it's been announced that Cap 3 will be titled "Captain America: Civil War" and it is reportedly based on a story in the comics which pitted Cap and Iron Man against each other.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this potential plot line. The Marvel movies could use a little more real tension and conflict between the Avengers. My main issue with Iron Man coming into Captain America's movie is that the studios think of Iron Man and/or RDJ as the unofficial Avenger team captain. He's had the most solo movies, top billing in the Avengers and the highest grossing solo movie (Iron Man 3, which grossed over $1 billion). And so I can foresee Marvel execs pushing to give Iron Man more screentime. Why focus on lesser known actors when you have ROBERT DOWNEY JR in your stable?

When RDJ was promoting The Judge (a film that was supposed to be his comeback into serious non-franchise related films but ended up getting disappointing box office returns and bad reviews), the talk was that he was not doing Iron Man 4. But if he takes on a "supporting" role in Captain America: Civil War then that movie will become a de facto Iron Man 4.

Part of my issue with the idea of Iron Man coming into Captain America's movie is that it robs the effect of having the solo movies. I get that Marvel wants to do this big Expanded Universe and from what I understand, there are a lot of crossovers in the comic books (disclaimer: I don't know anything about the comic books). I like seeing Cap lead his own adventure with his own support team. Bringing in another Avenger, especially Iron Man who's played by a bigger star than Chris Evans or Scarlett Johansson, will diminish Captain America and Black Widow's roles. Can you imagine RDJ getting top billing over Chris Evans even when the latter is the title character? The suits behnd the movie will prtobably keep pushing and hyping RDJ's involvement simply because he's RDJ.

All of this is speculation. And the Civil War plot was probably planned all along and I'm just upset that some of my favorite parts of Winter Soldier are being overshadowed by a Cap vs. Iron Man story. And I am positive that if I a) knew anything about the comics and/or b) didn't have an anti-RDJ bias I'd be thrilled about this. But, darn it, I want my Captain America movies to stay Captain America movies, not turned into some pseudo-Avengers sequel/Iron Man 4/RDJ vanity project. I really can't stand Robert Downey Jr.