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Ironheart Rescue
Ironheart Rescue
Origin Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963(as Pepper))
The Invincible Iron Man #10 (May 2009(as Rescue))
Iron Man (2008(as Pepper))
Avengers Endgame (2019(as Rescue))
Alias Virginia Potts
Pepper Potts
Rescue
Type Human
Role Anti-Hero
Gender Female
Alignment Stark Industries (formerly)
Stark Administration (formerly)
Shin Avengers (currently(MvSS timeline))
Home World Earth
Family Tony Stark (former husband, deceased)
Morgan Stark (daughter)
Weapon Iron Man MK 49 suit
Status Alive (Prime timeline)
Deceased (MvSS timeline)
English Voice Gwyneth Paltrow
Japanese Voice Sayaka Kobayashi

Virginia "Pepper" Potts was once Tony Stark's secretary, and is now Ironheart Rescue of the Shin Avengers.

Personality[]

Having known Tony since before his start as Iron Man, Pepper constantly worried for his safety, sometimes to the point of putting Tony ahead of the people he was protecting at the time. Five years spent as a figurehead queen of sorts has desensitized her to the plight of the people suffering from her husband’s harsh rule and to his personal philosophy that he must do bad things to stop worse things from happening. This has causes Pepper to develop a form of Stockholm syndrome that she must struggle with throughout the Superhero Infinity War.

After seeing Shin selflessly risk his life to defy Tony, Pepper changes her tune somewhat and joins Shin under the hope that she can convince her husband to turn himself around. But while being a competent fighter and trying to be a valuable team member, Pepper is still not without her flaws; her still lingering fear of losing Tony forever, compounded with the backlash she faces from her husband’s critics, can compel her to make selfish or irrational decisions like lashing out at those who show even the most subtle signs of considering harming Lord Stark or even Morgan for being the daughter of Shin’s mortal enemy. She can also be arrogant or reckless in battle, for reasons ranging from her anxiousness to finish the mission and get back home to her daughter, still having traces of Tony’s negative influence, wanting to disprove Shin’s leadership, or worst of all “teaching” him the risks of getting the Tokuverse involved in their war.

For all her efforts to grow as a Shin Avenger and as a person, her innermost anxiety over the fate of her husband was the one problem she couldn’t overcome until it was too late. Refusing to sacrifice her husband(at his absolute worst) for Shin’s mental health and for the greater good, she turned on the whole Alliance, attacking them indiscriminately until Lord Stark is finally killed. This, along with her suicidal defeatism afterwards perfectly illustrates this decline in her mental health, and even though Shin managed to reassure he she hasn’t lost everything, Iron Majin ensured Pepper will never live to follow through on her renewed sense of purpose.

Story[]

In the five year gap between Lord Stark’s ascendancy and the beginning of Shin's rebellion, Pepper had resigned herself to living under the Tyrant of Steel's dictatorship as self-imposed punishment for failing to curb Tony Stark's descent into madness. But when Shin Seigi rescues her and the other Avengers, she takes the chance to help make things right and hopefully save her husband from himself.

Despite all the complications the Shin Avengers faced, including Pepper's temporary desertion[1], they all made it back from the Tokuverse with the Super Sentai, along with the Kamen Riders and Metal Heroes, to carry out the destruction of the Administration. In her last moments with her daughter Morgan, Pepper could not give an easy answer regarding Tony’s fate, but promised that he'll never be allowed to hurt anyone again. She fought valiantly with the Alliance through the Iron Babel to destroy Iron Maiden, the other Stark Administration generals, and decommission the Iron Legion forever before finally making it to the throne room.

Pepper tries once more to get through to Tony, enduring his attacks which severely damage her suit until an arm and the legs are left, but still keeps fighting despite her disadvantage. When the Avengers Sentai Alliance finally have Iron Majin and Lord Drakkon on the ropes, however, Tony refuses to turn himself in and kills Drakkon, provoking Shin to unleash all his pent-up anger on Stark. Pepper pleaded in vain for Shin to spare him even as the Rangers and Avengers had to hold her back, as to prevent Shin from harming or killing her by mistake. Raging at the Alliance, she furiously accuses them of conspiring to kill Tony from the beginning and attacks them until Natasha is forced to tase her.

When Shin was done killing Stark, Pepper despairs and prepares to take her life, and though the heroes stop her from doing that, she wouldn't stop being angry at Shin until he asks how Morgan is supposed to handle life without both her parents. But just when Pepper is about to finally move on, the True Iron Majin takes full hold over Tony's corpse and blasts her in the chest, killing her to the Alliance's complete shock and horror. The Devil God cruelly disparages Shin for his leniency with Pepper and her personal feelings as it abuses her corpse before his eyes, but ultimately her death is avenged by Mugen DaiZyuJin.

After Iron Majin was finally destroyed for good, Pepper is eulogized along with Wayne Keener by Shin as heroes for moving past their misplaced loyalties, with their names being engraved on a memorial wall. The MK. 49's remains are respectfully decommissioned and scrapped, marking the end of the Iron Man suits and Stark Industries.

Relationships[]

Tony Stark[]

Pepper is understandably heartbroken that Tony Stark became such a hardened dictator, but also tragically conflicted about the ”necessity” of his terrible actions in the long term. She wants to believe she can get through to him, despite Shin's warnings that if Stark goes too far, Pepper's desire to save him would complicate or even jeopardize the Super Sentai and Avengers' efforts to keep the Stark Administration from making the multiverse a living hell for all.

Pepper Potts

Her greatest struggle was not out in the open during the Battle of Starktopia 01; it was raging within her since the day her husband turned into the universe's greatest enemy. During the final battle, Lord Stark rips off her helmet and crushes it as a symbol of his contempt for Pepper’s efforts for independence and lack of respect for her own strength. It was far from easy for her to let go of Tony and truly acknowledge how others feel about him, but Pepper finally conquered the clinginess within her that made her take her loved ones for granted as Tony did. But she did so too late, just as Iron Majin blasted at her fatally, signifying that the man she loved despite his faults was finally truly gone.

Shin Seigi[]

Shin tries his best to sympathize with her grief over her role in Tony Stark's crimes against the common man and help overcome her mental illness, and he is very patient with Pepper in spite of her constant insubordination or lack of cooperation. But the more heinous and brazen Lord Stark's crimes become, the more Shin starts to doubt in her hopes for her husband to redeem himself, though still not thinking any less of her. He also has to teach Pepper that she cannot simply command the obedience of their younger teammates simply because she's an adult or because she has great power; she must earn their respect by trusting in their own strengths and taking their own advice when necessary.

Listening in on Shin's conversation with DaiZyuJin caused Pepper to harbor greater insecurity, and hearing how her leader pressed Ayaka to divorce Wayne led her to temporarily abandon the Shin Avengers and view them as the real villains, making the ludicrous accusation that Shin deliberately orchestrated the Superhero Infinity War to justify his boiling hate for her husband, and even furiously attacking and wishing death on her own leader. But even after making amends and rejoining the team, her anxiety about Tony’s fate had not been truly defeated, only suppressed, just as Tony himself had only temporarily suppressed his own monstrous fear until Wanda reawakened it[2].

Despite her tremendous heartbreak over the war's penultimate result of her husband's death, Shin was able to talk Pepper out of taking her own life, reminding her that Morgan needs her mother more than Pepper ever needed Tony. Shin always bore in mind how “teaching” Pepper to let go of Tony would make Shin the villain in Pepper’s perspective, but still wanted to help her conquer her dependency on Tony Stark to validate her existence and see that the people of Earth need their lives and freedom back far more than she wanted her husband back. His attacking Iron Majin for heartlessly kicking her dead body around further proves Shin’s legitimate care for Pepper and her feelings, even if he couldn’t even scratch the devil-god at first.

After she and her murderer died, Shin gave her eulogy personally and posthumously pardoned her after her mistakes fueled by her internal war with her conflicting emotions[3].

Peter Parker[]

Feeling guilty for letting her husband put the wall-crawler through so much grief, Pepper has to mentally restrain herself from rebuking Peter Parker, directly; though she has tried at times to insist that Shin must instill some measure of the "tough love" Tony Stark showed his former apprentice, in spite of Shin's firm belief that doing so will put him on the same dangerous path that Tony had taken. Peter would sometimes affably refer to Pepper as “Mrs Potts”, much to her chagrin due to her trauma, and Tony’s dislike of pop culture references rubbing off on her.

Peter would often have to respectfully remind Pepper that she is not his mother, bearing in mind that Shin knows he has no business acting as his father. He was just as distraught at her brief departure as Shin was, but the fact that he did not chase after her on his own or with Black Widow implied he felt she has to want to come back.

After the Tyrant of Steel had finally been destroyed, Peter helped Shin talk Pepper out of killing herself by reminding her that she proved that she is not worthless without Tony; that the Shin Avengers proved that Earth is far from defenseless without its disgraced former protector to “guide” humanity. Although he was visibly devastated at her death, Peter refused to agree with Iron Majin that Pepper died because of Shin, and helped make sure the evil devil-god would die for dishonoring her memory.

Morgan Stark[]

The tyranny of Iron Majin put Pepper in a grossly difficult position to explain her husband's horrific actions to her daughter.[4] She was just as desperate to convince Morgan as she was to convince herself that she is nothing without Tony Stark, even if it meant the world would suffer endlessly under Iron Majin's rule. Pepper also hated having to be away from her daughter, and was initially unsure about the Neo Revengers' ability to protect her.

When Pepper came back from the Tokuverse, Morgan, despite having finally opened her eyes to the damage Tony caused, sounded quite anxious when asking her mom what’s going to happen to her father, and the only response she could give her daughter was that Tony will finally be held responsible for his actions. It was only when Shin asked Pepper how he would have to explain her death to Morgan if she killed herself out of grief, did she finally find the strength to move on. Morgan does not blame Shin for the deaths of her parents, and goes on to live with his family as the last truly good thing the Starks created despite their now severely damaged reputation.

Iron Maiden[]

Pepper earned herself Iron Maiden's eternal hatred when she ended her subordination to Lord Stark by becoming a Shin Avenger. When Pepper ended the evil robot's life, Iron Maiden cruelly taunts Ironheart Rescue by insisting that Tony will never abandon his current path, even for her.

Super Sentai[]

While initially showing the least enthusiasm about bringing them together for the Shin Avengers’ cause, Pepper nonetheless accepted Super Sentai’s help in fighting her husband’s evil inventions. However, she did not have a lot of respect for those Rangers who were either not human(like seeing Beet J. Stag as more of a mere robot that can be rebuilt than a cherished friend with his own humanity), or appeared to value their loved ones over the abstractions she and Stark apparently must uphold(which is slightly hypocritical due to her selfish fear that Tony’s survival is her only hope for a normal life).

As soon as she temporarily turned on Shin, her slowly improving opinion on Super Sentai was also negatively affected until Red Mask persuaded Pepper to stop running from her problems. In fact, most if not all the Rangers actively tried to help Pepper overcome Tony Stark’s bad influence on her even when she wasn’t in the mood for their counsel or tried to shove them away. Gai Yuki is one of the Rangers who sympathizes with or relates to Pepper the most, and was clearly horrified at her death like the rest.

Although she briefly falls back into her hateful demeanor towards Super Sentai late in the final battle, to the point of attacking them and shattering Captain Marvelous and Shirogane’s helmet visors, they were able to keep Pepper from getting herself or anyone else killed as per Shin’s wishes, showing how much they cared for her.

Quotes[]

  • "Your father... has to do bad things... to stop worse things from happening..." - to Morgan[4]
  • ”After all the sacrifices I made for the team, why won’t you let me have this? Give me a break!”
  • ”NOT EVEN FOR YOU!”
  • ”He’s all I have left! I’m nothing without him!”
  • ”SHADDUP, (insert name here)!!” - to Peter, Groot or Shuri
  • ”Keep my husband’s name OUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!!!” - to Shin[1]
  • ”Keep my husband’s name OUT YOUR F***ING MOUTH!!!” - to Iron Maiden[3]
  • ”F*** you! You were against me all along! YOU’RE ALL AGAINST ME!!!”[3]
  • ”He… he’s gone. Tony is gone… You took him away!”[3]

Trivia[]

  • The name “Ironheart” actually originated as the moniker for Riri Williams in the comics, who joined the MCU in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
  • Her reluctance or outright refusal to adhere to the same Super Sentai-related tropes as the rest of the core Shin Avengers is one of the reasons they (except Shin) don’t announce their names individually during a role call.
  • The occasional in-team fighting aside, one of the main ideas of putting Pepper Potts on the Shin Avengers is to (at least try to) showcase that just because someone works for or with a bad person doesn’t necessarily make the former bad as well. Such a case of vice versa would be Dr. Strange being antagonistic towards the (Shin) Avengers’ morality despite working with the Alliance towards their lofty goal. Shin hoped the Sorcerer and/or Pepper’s new positions would serve to have them improve themselves as people, and while this strategy took some pitfalls, it ultimately worked.
  • In MvSS, Pepper represents the dangerous extreme of emotion, while Strange represented the dangerous extreme of logic and practicality. Shin is meant to display a healthy balance of both those qualities.
  • If the Shin Avengers count as a Sentai team, then Pepper’s death by the end of the war makes her analogous to Gai Yuki or Masato Jin in Jetman and Go-Busters' respective final episodes.
  • Pepper's arc in Marvel VS Toei Tokuverse depicts one of the story’s themes of ending a toxic relationship because the offender has deliberately violated a traditionally idealistic standard of heroism/friendship/familial ties, often under the excuse of being a victim of circumstance(or committed some other (emotionally) devastating act of betrayal). Shin also had a similar arc with his father, but Pepper's was more of an existential crisis(her own proverbial “Demon in a Bottle” storyline, in a manner if speaking), as she was seemingly putting Tony's survival and her love for him ahead of her teammates, their efforts to achieve justice for his victims, and possibly even the fate of the world. This leads some villains such as Iron Maiden and Agent Abrella to mock her as being a danger to everyone around her and even herself, like her husband was and still is.
    • The theme of her being hated for being of the Stark family that ultimately caused more harm than good culminates tragically with her death at the hand of the true Iron Majin. But GokaiWhite chose to avoid what is dubbed a "Hollywood death", by making her death happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and looked to notes by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase on how to "do it right".[5]
  • She’s the second character in MvSS to drop the f-bomb uncensored[3], after Lord Stark in his first interaction with Lord Drakkon.[6]
  • Her rage fueled punching at Captain Marvelous for trying to hold her down is visually similar to Star Lord doing likewise to Thanos in Infinity War.
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