10 Things I Hate About The Marvel Cinematic Universe
3. Tony Godd*mn Stark
The MCU’s version of Tony Stark is a godawful human being.
The defining characteristic of the original character is his intellect, and the perspective that it gives him on society and his role within it. Stark is a futurist, a genuine visionary capable of predicting the shape of things to come and of bringing it about. He’s arrogant and morally flexible, but all in service of the future of mankind, whether that means protecting it from destruction or shepherding it into the next century. Stark is a big picture guy, a paradigm shifter right up there with Nikola Tesla.
The MCU’s version of Stark, however, is not that guy. He’s defined by his inadequacies, an orphan child prodigy almost certainly suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Arrogant and careless, he’s just a spoilt little boy refusing to let anyone else play with his toys.
This narcissist with a drinking problem, unlike the one in the comics, never grew up… and everyone knows it. He’s a running joke. When Nick Fury wants to prevent the Abomination from being transferred from military prison to the Avengers project, S.H.I.E.L.D. sends Stark in to negotiate with the Army, knowing he’ll screw it up so spectacularly that Blonsky will never be released to them. The peacekeeping agency created by Stark’s father holds the son in complete contempt.
Having previously faced nothing but villains created or armed by his mistakes and/or his technology and weapons, the Avengers (2012) shows us Stark faced with his own raging insecurity. Captain America’s right, he is nothing without the suit. The other Avengers are heroes by choice or by destiny, whereas Stark is just cosplaying, hiding his neuroses behind bomb-proof metal and an expressionless face. He overcompensates for this by flying a nuke through a wormhole into outer space: a kid out to impress the big boys with a grandstanding stunt.
Iron Man 3 (2013) is a film about an perpetually arrested adolescent deciding to try to grow up, while Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) is about that perpetually arrested adolescent thinking he’s all grown-up, making big decisions without thinking them through and then watching the world deal with the consequences. There’s no character arc, no growth going on here: in Captain America: Civil War (2016) Stark is just overcompensating again, playing at being the poster boy for accountability.
The fact that it’s the unstable, unreliable, defiantly irresponsible Tony Stark that leads the push for superhuman regulation is laughable: he’s the one responsible for the appalling damage in Sokovia, which directly leads into the events of Civil War.
Marvel’s Tony Stark is a super-genius with decades of world-saving and overcoming personal crises under his belt. He’s kind of earned the right to be a douche occasionally. The MCU’s Tony Stark is a relative newbie, but has already quit several times, trapped between his fear of getting hurt and his lust for the limelight. His stated aim for the Ultron program was to “create an iron suit around the world” so that he, personally, wouldn’t have to do the scary stuff anymore. That’s just… so, so lame.
I love Robert Downey Jr. as much as the next guy (and the next guy is Mark Ruffalo). But the MCU’s Tony Stark is a towering waste of skin: an untrained, unaccountable neurotic flying an unlicensed stealth fighter around the world with technology he refuses to share, who’s still arrogant enough to fly the flag for responsible, regulated superheroes.