I’d argue that the whole point of Iron Man 3 is that what makes Tony Stark special ISN’T his loaded bank account and his fancy gadgets, it’s his mind and ingenuity. He took over a heavily guarded military facility with supplies he got from a hardware store. Though to be fair the general public didn’t know he did that (but you’re wrong about the cave, the general public did know about that one)
This is genuinely moronic take. What Riri implies with this statement is that Tony would never have been able to follow the career path she is on. He would never have made it to MIT and gotten the grants she had to get nor have been as resourceful as she needed to be to build her suit.
Yes, he is a genius. Yes, he created the Iron Man suit however, if he was dirt, poor, he would never have been able to make the suit even if he was a genius. He needed his connections. He needed his money to buy the materials and supply himself. That is the difference and that is the whole point RiRi was trying to make
What they’re trying to say is that Iron Man in canon was a very surprising and inspirational figure with was shown in Iron Man 2. I am not discrediting Iron Heart, but what they were saying is that Iron Man probably inspired Iron Heart a bit and because of the stark grant it really helped her make her super suit.