Irina

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Irina
Real Name	Irina
Species	Cockatoo
Gender	Female
Date of Death	May 31, 2010
Status	Deceased
Appearances
Movies	Iron Man 2
Comics	The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week Iron Man 2 Adaptation
Actors/Actresses
Portrayed by	Sonny the Bird

"I want my bird."

―Ivan Vanko to Justin Hammer^[src]

Irina was the pet white cockatoo of Ivan Vanko.

History

Irina was a cockatoo owned by the Vankos. After Anton died, Ivan took Irina to his workroom where he began building his own Arc Reactor based on his father's specs and fed Irina with his vodka before finally finishing the Arc Reactor to power his harness. Vanko left to Monaco to kill Tony Stark, seemingly leaving his bird. After Vanko was freed from arrest by Justin Hammer after Stark had defeated him, Hammer wanted to work with Ivan and he agreed to as long as Hammer would give him his bird. Over the next few days, Ivan Vanko worked tirelessly inside Hammer Industries Headquarters on designing the newest suits for Hammer. As a reward, Hammer then brought in a bird, claiming it to be Vanko's own from Russia. However, after only examining the new bird for just a moment, Vanko noted that this was not his own bird but a new bird, which Hammer was forced to admit was the case before Vanko worked on the Hammer Drones.

However, Vanko betrayed Hammer on the work on the drones so Hammer returned to the Hammer Industries Headquarters where he confronted Vanko, who relaxed with Irina as Hammer named him the "Birdman." For betrayal, Hammer confiscated Irina from Ivan before heading to the Stark Expo to present the Hammer Drones. Vanko then killed the guards watching Vanko as Hammer held the presentation, and after getting through them Vanko got Irina back who sat on his shoulder and as he used the phone to talk to Tony Stark before leaving to kill him. Before he left, Vanko killed Irina by snapping her neck, with Black Widow finding her corpse while looking for Vanko.

Relationships

Enemies

• Hammer Industries
  • Justin Hammer - Captor
  • Troy McGatlin †
  • Hammer's Henchman #2 † - Subduer
• Ivan Vanko/Whiplash † - Owner and Killer

Behind the Scenes

• Sonny, the cockatoo who portrayed Irina, became Mickey Rourke's actual pet bird that director Jon Favreau gave him during the filming of Iron Man 2. Rourke had enjoyed being with his new friend and the bird had even impressed the main character's actor Robert Downey Jr. Favreau jokingly commented "I don't know why the bird is not on the movie poster".