| NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Rescue from the Marvel Cinematic film series. The mainstream version can be found here: Pepper Potts. |
| “ | I am trying to do the job that you were meant to do. | „ |
| ~ Pepper Potts to Tony Stark. |
| “ | Tony, look at me. We're going to be okay. You can rest now. | „ |
| ~ Pepper's last words to Tony upon his death. |
Virginia "Pepper" Potts, also known as Rescue, is a major character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is introduced as Iron Man's assistant, but they gradually become involved and eventually get married and have a daughter.
She was portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow. In the 2008 and 2010 video games, she was voiced by Meredith Monroe.
Personality[]
As one of Tony Stark's oldest and closest friends, Pepper Potts knows Stark better than most and has always been there for him, whether he knew it or needed it. Though outsiders would view her as a degrading assistant or lackey, Tony himself appreciates her dedication and how long she took out with him when compared to everyone else and trusted her enough to run Stark Industries but his own self-obsession irritates and occasionally drive her away due to forgetting her birthday and buying her strawberries as a gift, the one thing on earth that she is allergic to.
Despite knowing her place, Potts does not take disrespect to herself lightly. A sarcastic woman, when Christine Everhart condescends to her, she retains her decorum but snidely insinuates Everhart to be trash she needs to take out. With Stark, despite being her boss, Potts is not above a barbed remark for him such as buying herself a birthday gift with Tony's money when he forgot and keeping his arc reactor in a glass case, reading; "PROOF TONY STARK HAS A HEART". She seems to dislike violence in general, becoming deeply shocked over the explosion of the Hammer Drones at the Stark Expo and disgusted over violently killing Aldrich Killian with Extremis.
Even though Potts has proven to be a defining point for Stark's development and maturity, the relationship between the two of them is a definite struggle. At times, although he originally took up the mantle of Iron Man because the world needed it, Potts became to realize that Tony needed to be Iron Man more, causing strain as his tinkering and his suits were only a distraction to what really mattered in his life. His actions over anxiety of a world with gods and aliens were designed to protect the ones he love, which included her. However, this also pushed her away further. Ultron was designed to be the last line of defense for Earth against these threats so Stark being Iron Man would no longer be a necessity, but as his mistake created more problems and thus more reasons why he needed to be Iron Man, Potts could no longer be in a relationship with him and they decided to take a break.
Tony experienced further maturity, such as his attempt to hold heroes like themselves accountable through the Sokovia Accords (even if misguided), witnessing the paralysis of his best friend Rhodey, finally properly processing his grief over his dead parents, and becoming a mentor for Peter Parker, thus Pepper was willing to reconcile with him. While he remained Iron Man, she could accept it since he was able to establish a healthy balance between superhero life and at home life. He also overcame his fear of commitment as he proposed to her, which she accepted, even though she knew the timing was to cover for Spider-Man's decision to remain out of the Avengers for the time being.
While they may have always planned to have children, because of the Infinity Snap, the relief they felt at finding each other still alive, emotional support that they provided for each other, and the confrontation with how precious life truly was, made them choose to have a child as soon as possible, thus the birth of their daughter, Morgan. Pepper and Tony were both loving parents, though Tony would sometimes playfully compete over who Morgan loved the most. Another side effect of the deathwave was that Pepper came to better understand Tony's previous fears that had once sabotaged their relationship; she also appreciated how important Iron Man really was, thus agreed to wear the Rescue armour he created for her, and likely trained periodically to be ready if such a galactic threat arose again.
Despite earlier dissuading Tony from forsaking his life for the sake of superheroic whims, when he discovered the secret to time travel during the Blip,and he was reluctant to follow it up, she understood him well enough to note that he wouldn't be able to rest if he just kept the possibility to save half the universe, thereby gently gave him permission to once again risk his life to save them and strangers alike. Pepper was concerned about the danger Tony was entering yet again, however, she was compassionate enough to be willing to suffer potential loss, rather than allow half of everyone to remain in grief.
During the battle between the Avengers with their allies, and 2014 variants of Thanos with his Black Order, Chitauri, Sakaarans, and Outriders, Pepper and Tony were able to perfectly coordinate in their respective armours, displaying implicit trust and practiced talent. She aided Okoye, Shuri, Wasp, Valkyrie, Scarlet Witch, 2014 Gamora, Nebula, and Captain Marvel in escorting Spider-Man with the Nano Gauntlet to the van with access to the Quantum Realm, therefore showing that Rescue/Pepper had a level of bravery on par with those who had been facing danger for greater cumulative time.
After Tony used his improvised Iron Gauntlet to snap Thanos and his forces out of existence, Pepper, Rhodey, and Peter Parker comforted him as he was dying from the fatal level of gamma radiation that the Infinity Stones released upon usage. Tony's last word was an utterance of his nickname for her as Pepper met his eyes, emphasising how important she was to him, and vice versa; Pepper reassured Tony that he could finally rest now, and he could be content knowing that she, Morgan, and everyone would be capable of thriving because of him, and would be okay in spite of their grief. Pepper being able to set aside her grief to ease Tony's passing helped display how she had become even more emotionally mature and considerate than she already was from the start.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Rescue Armour:
- Flight
- Rapid Evasion Jets
- Protective Reactive Shell
- Energy Projectiles
- Concentrated Laser Blasts
- Multiple Mini-Missiles
- Superhuman Strength
- Radar
- Compatibility with Iron Man to generate Enhanced Energy Blast
- Charisma
- High Intelligence
- Business Expertise
Relationships[]
Family[]
Friends[]
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Enemies[]
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Trivia[]
- She is allergic to strawberries.
- While it was Tony's plan, Pepper overloaded the large Arc Reactor to kill Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, and when injected with Extremis, she killed Aldrich Killian, therefore she killed two out of three of Iron Man's main antagonists
- Incidentally, Ivan Vanko/Whiplash was defeated by Iron Man and Warmachine, yet ultimately killed himself in a suicide bombing. Thus, Iron Man doesn't directly vanquish a main antagonist until Endgame. Similarly, Captain America never directly killed a main antagonist himself.
- As seen in The Avengers, Pepper is good at "negotiating" with Tony by promising something that he enjoys very much in exchange for him helping others out in important matters.
- Pepper's given age is never stated in any medium of the MCU, but given the birth of her daughter Morgan around 2019, its safe to say 1980s; making her at least a decade younger than her husband.
- Rachel McAdams was the first choice for Pepper Potts in Iron Man, but she turned it down.
- McAdams would go on to portray Christine Palmer in the MCU film, Doctor Strange.
- In Iron Man 3, the original main antagonist was Maya Hansen, which was to reinforce the idea of Tony's careless and decadent past being bested by his selfless and honorable future, since Pepper would have defeated Maya, instead of Aldrich, who was initially just the manufacturer of Extremis and underling, rather than main antagonist.
External Links[]
- Rescue on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
- Rescue on the Marvel Wiki
- Rescue on the Marvel Movies Wiki
- Rescue on the Disney Wiki
- Rescue on the Near Pure Good Wiki
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