The Kid From Avengers: Endgame Wants To Play Iron Lad

Iron Man 3 star Ty Simpkins, who briefly reprised his role as Harley Keener in Avengers: Endgame, would suit up as the armored successor of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) "without a doubt."

Asked by IGN if he hopes to one day pilot his own Iron Man suit, Simpkins said, "Yes, 100%. I would love that!"

In Marvel Comics lore, Avengers spinoff Young Avengers birthed Iron Lad, a red-and-silver-suited superhero who is dropped in the past through technology wielded by time-traveling supervillain Kang the Conquerer, an enemy of the Fantastic Four — and Iron Lad's future self, Nathaniel Richards, a descendant of Reed Richards hailing from the 31st century.

The teenaged Nate journeys to then-present day of the Marvel Universe and finds the Avengers disbanded. Hoping to thwart his evil future self, Nate assembles the Young Avengers, a team comprised of legacy characters with ties to Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Hawkeye.

Endgame furthered the possibilities of time-travel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Simpkins wants to stick around. "I'd do it, I'd do it," he said. "Without a doubt."

For his easily missed cameo as a mourner at Tony Stark's funeral, the 17-year-old Jurassic World star was sworn to utmost secrecy.

"It was so cool coming back. When they gave me the call that I was going to do it, I was freaking out and screaming in the car," Simpkins said.

"At first it wasn't confirmed that I was going to come back and I didn't want to mess it up. So my mom was asking 'What is it? What is it?' and I couldn't tell her!"

The tech-minded Harley formed a bond with Stark when the superhero was on the run and left with little resources following an attempt on his life by the "Mandarin" (Guy Pearce).

That short-lived connection is one Simpkins believes continued beyond 2013's Iron Man 3, which ended with the potato gun-wielding inventor discovering a garage-full of treasures gifted by Stark.

"I like to think that they [maintained contact] and that Tony was still taking care of him, because for Harley that bond was super close and he was his kind of his only father figure," Simpkins said. "So that's what I was thinking about in the funeral scene, about how sad Harley would have been."

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