Bambina Teresa “Bambi” Bliss

If we keep digging in Iron Man 2, we find another secondary character with more meaning that you’d think: Tony Stark‘s receptionist and later Pepper Potts‘ secretary and assistant, Bambi Arbogast, portrayed by Margy Moore. In the movie, she’s introduced only as the one who hires Natalie Rushman. She also has a voice cameo in Iron Man 3, with Moore replaced by Susie Pratt, and she announces Aldrich Killian to Pepper. In the comics, she’s not just an employee for Stark, but she’s also an old friend and confidante. Let’s take a look.

Born Bambina Teresa Bliss, but always called Bambi by everyone, she grew up in her family house in Long Island, New York, with her sister Uranus Bliss. In her youth, Bambi met Norman Arbogast, the man who would have become her husband, and she adopted his surname. Prompted by him and following a natural talent, Bambi obtained a master in Business Administration, and almost immediately found a job in the US Army services, working as a clerk to a mobile surgical hospital unit. From there, she moved to the US Department of Defense, where she worked for ten years. It was while working here that she started eyeing the private sector, and when she learnt that one of the Department’s biggest contractors, Tony Stark, was hiring a new personal assistant for Stark International, she decided to try. She went to Stark International’s building and waited there for Stark for her interview… but she ended up being involved in a battle between Iron Man and Whirlwind, storming the place. At this point, her experience in the military proved to be useful: not only she didn’t run in panic, but she even protected valuable items in the office from the two fighters’ blows and managed some incoming calls, maintaining a calm tone and asking to call back later to speak with Stark. She even managed to distract Whirlwind with the phone, allowing Iron Man to knock the villain out. When Tony Stark finally arrived (Bambi didn’t know, yet, that he and Iron Man were one and the same), he hired her without an interview.

In the following years, Bambi Arbogast proved to be an invaluable employee for Stark, and she slowly became also a friend. She learnt of his secret identity and helped him to keep the “Iron Man is my bodyguard” cover, and she also became good friends with other Stark’s friends and cooperators, such as Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan and Jim Rhodes. She had the chance to prove herself the way she did during her unorthodox interview again, such as when Blacklash attacked Stark International and set ablaze the main building: Bambi, alone, entered the building in the effort to save Stark’s personal papers from the fire, risking her life. When Stark’s jumbo jet crashed in the Atlantic Ocean during his trip back from Paris, Bambi was worried much more than a normal employee would for her boss, and immediately sent Rhodes to recover him using the company’s Jetcopter-One. Waiting for news of Tony wasn’t easy at all, especially considering that Bethany Cabe, the vixen who was Stark’s lover at the time, was constantly bothering her to have information about Tony. Used to emergencies, Bambi did her best to ignore the woman and continue with her job, examining dismissal notes, but Cabe eventually snapped and snatched the notice away from her hands. The tension between the two women would have soon escalated, if it wasn’t for Stark himself, who entered the office just a moment before the quarrel became something more serious: Rhodes had managed to save him, and Stark was ready to resume his life where he had left it. Bambi Arbogast would have kept working for and with him for years, in a long cooperation and friendship that would have seen her eventually become a business partner of her former boss.

Bambi Arbogast is a highly intelligent, incredibly resourceful woman, used to work under pressure and apparently unfazed by any emergency occurring around her while she works. She’s demonstrated to be a formidable worker, being it for the US Department of Defense, Stark International or the Heroes for Hire Corporation, and she never fails to prove herself over and over again, no matter the situation, the employer or her role: definitely a woman for all seasons.