10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Iron Man

6. The Jerkiness Of Civil War

At a time where Iron Man was set to become Marvel's greatest hero on the big screen, they were busy making him into their biggest villain in the comics. The epic Civil War crossover event was supposed to split the loyalties of fans down the middle, as superheroes and villains alike fought against each other, sparked by the government's implementation of a law that required all citizens with superpowers to disclose the nature of their abilities and their secret identities. The two camps - anti- and pro-registration - each had their own figureheads in the form of Captain America and Iron Man, respectively. Cap had been headed down a more radical path in his own comic for a while, having become disenchanted with SHIELD, but Tony Stark's sudden switch to being a total douche who happily hunts down his friends for the US government was completely out of nowhere. To compliment this out-of-character stance (and just in case you didn't get Civil War's subtle political message, in the wake of the Patriot Act), the series climaxed with Iron Man beating the stuffing out of Captain America, having him arrested, and then seeing him get assassinated on the way to trial. Since then Tony became head of SHIELD, then left, then Cap came back to life, they made up and never mentioned Civil War ever again.