The first look at Eternals has been released and it highlights one of the biggest mistakes Marvel Studios committed when it comes to the Iron Man trilogy. Directed by Chloé Zhao, the blockbuster will introduce the MCU's newest superhero team, which has supposedly been in the universe for centuries but only making their presence known now. However, while the Eternals will be a significant part of ushering this fresh era of storytelling in the franchise, it has a secret connection with the universe's inaugural movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.

Released in 2008, Iron Man was a massive gamble for Marvel Studios. As a budding production company, Kevin Feige had to put all of their remaining characters in collateral just to secure funding for the blockbuster. That in itself was a risk, but they even pushed it further by tapping Jon Favreau – who was mostly known for his indie projects – to direct and Downey Jr., who was dubbed a problematic talent, to star. The film was largely improvised, with the script only having the overall arc of the narrative, but without narrative specifics; in short, they made it up as they went along. But Iron Man turned out to be a hit. It was successful enough for Marvel Studios to continue making films and, more than a decade later, it's still the foundation of the MCU.

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Among the many aspects of Iron Man that worked, there's one particular element that's mostly overlooked — its soundtrack. It was composed by Ramin Djawadi, who did a great job capturing the rock-and-roll essence of Tony Stark while also perfectly encapsulating the more emotional scenes in the film through his music. As in the early days of the MCU, Djawadi wasn't brought back to do the scores for Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3, which were done by John Debney and Brian Tyler respectively. Unfortunately, nothing from Djawadi's work was explicitly carried out in the next few films so, unlike Captain America who has a signature theme, Iron Man doesn't. Now, Djawadi is making his return to the MCU after more than 10 years to score Eternals; his new work's preview through the movie's recently-released trailer set to "The End of the World" is a reminder that Marvel Studios should've brought Djawadi back to do the rest of the Iron Man trilogy. That way, there's a cohesive musical theme for the MCU's inaugural hero.

Iron-Man-2008 Cropped

Looking back at the MCU as a whole, its musical aspect is something that's often sidelined. There's barely any character theme that's immediately distinguishable, especially when it comes to Phase 1 heroes. This is something that Marvel Studios seems to be actively working on in recent years. For example, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier brought back Henry Jackman who did Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War. Meanwhile, Ludwig Göransson's work on Black Panther and Michael Giacchino's on Doctor Strange and Spider-Man: Homecoming are all distinctive and effectively associated with their respective projects. But arguably, its most obvious step towards correcting this mistake is rehiring Alan Silvestri to work on both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. After writing the Avengers theme for 2012's The Avengers, he was replaced by Tyler and Danny Elfman in Avengers: Age of Ultron which didn't use the team's original score. But by the last two Avengers sequels, the theme been effectively incorporated in the films and is now ingrained in viewers' minds.

After working on Iron Man, Djawadi went on score all eight seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones, and his work remained consistently good until the series wrapped up in 2019. While it's indeed disappointing Marvel Studios didn't bring back the German composer to do the score rest of the genius, billionaire Avenger's journey, they should've at least carried over his work from the first film throughout Tony's 11-year journey in the franchise. Hopefully, as he rejoins the MCU through Eternals, Djawadi sticks around for much longer.

More: Eternals Trailer Confirms Why The Avengers Lost In Infinity War

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