NEW YORK – Robert Downey Jr. is having too much fun to think about when he will hang up his Iron Man suit.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t on his mind... a little

“It’s like with a team if you’re going to hang up your jersey, you want to make sure the team is in good shape and they can still compete at a high level, because ultimately that’s what made the whole thing worth doing anyways,” he said in a recent interview with ABC.

The 52-year-old kicked off Marvel’s cinematic universe in 2008 playing the braggadocious superhero. Since then, he’s appeared in two sequels, the Incredible Hulk, two Avengers films (with two more on the way) and lends a hand in this week’s Spider-Man: Homecoming – which marks the first solo entry by the wall-crawler in the MCU.

“They had done these previous iterations of Spider-Man, and they really should do one of those boring breakdowns of all the miracles that had to happen for all of us to be sitting here today,” Downey said during a recent press day at a midtown Manhattan hotel. “This turned out so well. It all comes down to what [Marvel Studios boss] Kevin [Feige] said, ‘You have to see the movie and love it.’ And I saw the movie – I’m in it a little bit – and I honestly loved it.

“That’s what’s exciting. [These movies] are working.”

Back in 2007, when Marvel was casting the face to lead its superhero franchise, Downey was a bit of a gamble. He hadn’t toplined a film since 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and had several highly publicized drug arrests.

But moviegoers fell in love with his cocky interpretation of Tony Stark and the character became the thread that ties the MCU together.

After the new Spider-Man, played by British actor Tom Holland, was introduced in last year’s Captain America: Civil War, Downey’s Iron Man was added as a mentor for Peter Parker.

“Things are presented to me that are really well thought out by folks that have been doing this correctly for a long time and then I attempt to take credit for them in press conferences,” Downey jokes.

Since playing Iron Man, Downey – who has two Oscar nominations under his belt – has built another franchise around Sherlock Holmes (with Jude Law as his Watson) and dabbled in dramas (The Soloist, The Judge) and comedies (Due Date, Tropic Thunder).

But Downey, Iron Man and Marvel go hand-in-hand.

“I’ve been semi-retired since the first weekend Iron Man 1 opened,” Downey quips. “The great thing about life is good things happen – and I’ll speak for myself – and you get inflated. You think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve created everything that’s great in my life.’ And then things happen where you go, ‘OK, there’s evidence to the contrary’ and at this point you go back to thinking, ‘It’s nice to be on this call sheet.’”

In a separate interview, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige says that the character will be rebooted or retired – at some point.

“I do think Iron Man, like Spider-Man, like Batman, like Superman, like James Bond has existed long before most of us were around and will exist long after most of us are gone,” Feige says. “So it’s inevitable.”

After Homecoming, Downey will appear in next year’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s untitled Avengers 4.

Feige says that it’s the Spider-Man sequel that will signal in a new era for the MCU.

“This original 22-movie arc ends with the untitled Avengers in May of 2019 and then two months later it will be Peter and Spider-Man (on July 5, 2019) that usher us into the aftermath and how things proceed from there.”

But that’s still years away. Besides, the Iron Man duds still fit and the Marvel brass keeps coming up with new ways to surprise him.

“You know why this really works? Whatever the mood board was for [Spider-Man: Homecoming], with all those different tones, it was creatively inspired,” Downey says. “It’s really an inspired reinvention... That’s why I love movies. I’m a huge fan of movies and I always wonder: ‘How did they figure out how to entertain me this well?’”

Twitter: @markhdaniell

MDaniell@postmedia.com