15 Emotional Comic Book Moments That Made Us Shed A Tear
8. Tony Starks Confession
Marvel's Civil War event in the mid-2000s pitted long-time friends and Avengers teammates Iron Man and Captain America on opposite sides in a battle over the government-sanctioned Superhero Registration Act. By the end of the war, Cap and his team of registration act protesters surrender to Tony's pro-government forces in an effort to stave off the loss of more lives. Tony then looks the other way when the government parades Captain America around like a war criminal, which allows assailants (it turns out to be a combination of Crossbones, Doctor Faustus, Red Skull and a brainwashed Sharon Carter) to murder the Red, White and Blue Avenger.
The 2007 one-shot Civil War: The Confession by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev deals with the fallout from Cap's murder. In it, a very distraught Tony makes his confession to Cap's corpse. He tells his old friend that he knew this war was brewing for years and always anticipated that they would be on opposite sides of the battle. Tony was okay with the war destroying their friendship because they both ardently believed in their respective causes. But now that Captain America was dead, Tony concludes, it wasn't worth it.
Any person reading this story who has had a unresolved falling out with a best friend will likely identify with and be devastated by Tony's grief. Captain America and Iron Man are two of the biggest icons in comic books, but they are inextricably linked because of their relationship and camaraderie. They were both soldiers who, through avoidable circumstances, went from fighting on the same side to fighting each other.