Six months after he's revealed his identity to the world, Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (a.k.a Robert Downey Jr.) is more of a rock star than ever before, but he also finds himself the target of a number of different factions: the government wants to take away his armor, deeming it to be a dangerous weapon; Stark's main competitor Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) is trying to get his hands on Stark's Iron Man designs as well; a Russian physicist known as Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) seeks to get revenge on Stark for sins committed by his father; his best friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) is unhappy with Tony's partying ways; and Stark's shapely new paralegal Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) is causing friction between Tony and his beleaguered assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow)