12 years after “The Avengers,” Ezekiel Stane still has yet to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s easy to imagine an only slightly different “Iron Man 3” where he’s the villain, not Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), but that wasn’t the case.

However, there is a film which shows us what that alternate “Iron Man 3” I just proposed could have looked like: the 2013 anime film “Iron Man: Rise of Technovore.” Produced by studio Madhouse, this movie gives Iron Man and Ezekiel the silver screen clash they were denied in “The Avengers.”

The movie is not MCU canon (it’s loosely a follow-up to the 2010 “Marvel Anime: Iron Man” series, also produced by Madhouse), but it was made for MCU synergy. Iron Man and War Machine have their movie designs, while Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Hawkeye show up in supporting roles. The film’s original Japanese voiceover even features Tony, Fury, and Pepper played by the same actors who dubbed Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, and Gwyneth Paltrow for the Japanese releases of MCU movies: the late Keiji Fujiwara, Hideaki Tezuka, and Hiroe Oka respectively. (The “Rise of Technovore” English dub settled for Matthew Mercer, John Eric Bentley, and Kate Higgins.)