i’ve been rewatching the mcu timeline and i reached iron man 3. as a ty simpkins fan, and a harley keener enthusiast, i adore this movie
however, watching it back, i honestly think they did the character of harley keener such a disservice by just up and leaving him in iron man 3. like yes he gets a cameo in endgame, and yes that is one of the coolest things ever, but i hate how he just never got explored and doesn’t seem to be on the list to get explored
yes maybe i am biased, but i loved harley when i saw iron man 3 when it first came out. i remember watching it with my dad, and saying how cool i thought it was that a kid was helping the tony stark. i remember hoping that he’d get brought up again in future projects
then, i forgot about him. until avengers endgame. it was 2019 and my love for his character just went through the roof when i realised he was there. i waited and waited to see how they’d take the now dead hero’s story forward, as well as my favourite niche/minor character in the universe
i fell out of the marvel fandom after the release of NWH in 2021, that being the last film i watched until late 2024. when i was rewatching the entire mcu again, i was once again pulled to harley’s character (and then was introduced to the existence of the parkner fandom, which oh my god). i love him so much!!!
when i looked into him when i got back into marvel, i learnt he’s mentioned in a what if…? episode and he’s a WEB recruit in the disney spiderman attraction, as well as in the web of spider-man comic (2021). so there is stuff there, he is a character that could be explored, there are ways to bring him forward
i’d give anything to have harley even be mentioned again, or have another cameo. of course at this point it would have to be through spider-man which is almost impossible with the way they’ve reset him
i wish he was explored more before. i wish we got to see him even just once more. i wish it wasn’t all just left to the viewers imagination
i know why they did it, and i also know that it probably was the best choice. and i also know that the fanfics and arts and everything else is only so creative because of the freedom we get with his character
i just wish we had more canon stuff with him. i want to see one of his phone calls with tony, i want to see how harley grew, i want to see his reaction to the blip, i want to see him meeting peter/spiderman for the first time, i want to see tony talking about him with pepper, i want to see harley meeting everyone at tony’s funeral, i want to see how he moved on. any of that would satisfy me
letting him be a more fleshed out character than a throwaway would be so incredible. because he is so important to mcu!tonys story and i’m tired of pretending like he’s not!













