How Tony Stark became Marvel’s most authentic,… | Little White Lies

How Tony Stark became Marvel’s most authen­tic, relat­able hero

03 Mar 2019

Words by Millicent Thomas

Close-up view of a person wearing a futuristic sci-fi-style helmet with glowing orange and red lights.
Close-up view of a person wearing a futuristic sci-fi-style helmet with glowing orange and red lights.
Iron Man’s arc has con­tin­u­ous­ly evolved over his decade-long stint in the MCU.

I am Iron Man.” Four words that changed the super­hero film genre for good. With 2008’s Iron Man, direc­tor Jon Favreau and Mar­vel Stu­dios gave audi­ences some­thing they’d rarely seen before on the big screen: a super­hero who doesn’t hide their iden­ti­ty. For decades, the super­hero was a caped sil­hou­ette, stand­ing tall, god-like. But in recent years the Mar­vel Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse has offered char­ac­ters that both com­ple­ment and com­pli­cate that image.

Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, made his solo com­ic book out­ing in 1968’s The Invin­ci­ble Iron Man’. In con­trast to the char­ac­ter depict­ed in this series, the films show a com­plex, mul­ti-faceted Stark who is any­thing but invin­ci­ble. At a time when men­tal health is being dis­cussed more open­ly than ever before, with one in six young peo­ple like­ly to expe­ri­ence anx­i­ety and depres­sion at some point in life, imper­fect heroes couldn’t have come at a bet­ter time.

In Favreau’s Iron Man, after inher­it­ing Stark Indus­tries from his late father, our hero is brought face to face with the hor­ri­fy­ing glob­al impact of his company’s work. When he is kid­napped and forced to build a dev­as­tat­ing weapon, he is made to see the real­i­ties of how he made his liv­ing. It was while being held hostage that he designed his first Iron Man suit as a means of escape.

Stark’s anx­i­ety man­i­fests itself as a need to be in com­plete con­trol. He laments to Pep­per Potts (Gwyneth Pal­trow) in Iron Man 3, You expe­ri­ence things, and then they’re over, and you still can’t explain them.” As an engi­neer, he breaks prac­ti­cal prob­lems down into small­er ones that he can solve piece by piece. It’s much hard­er to do that with his mind. Stark can’t process a prob­lem he can’t fix with a few met­al pieces or wires, and he runs from this real­i­sa­tion his whole life.

In Iron Man 3, Stark has his first anx­i­ety attack. The film direct­ly fol­lows the events of The Avengers, dur­ing which Stark flies into a worm­hole in New York City to destroy it with a mis­sile. As he enters the worm­hole, J.A.R.V.I.S. sug­gests that he call Pep­per; Stark knows what this means and is ful­ly pre­pared to say goodbye.

This expe­ri­ence plagues him through­out the sub­se­quent films. He feels com­plete­ly unpre­pared, believ­ing that if he faces a threat on that scale again he will let every­one down. Colonel Rhodes (Don Chea­dle) informs Stark of a recent bomb­ing but, as he does so, the back­ground noise around Stark begins to build up, trig­ger­ing flash­backs to the attack on New York. He bolts out of the café and, out of breath, steps into his suit just as his knees buck­le under him. Fran­ti­cal­ly, Stark asks J.A.R.V.I.S, Check my heart. Is it the brain? Was I poi­soned?” When he’s told that he suf­fered a severe anx­i­ety attack, Stark is in dis­be­lief: Me?”

Stark’s per­sis­tent denial that a per­son such as him­self could deal with any form of men­tal ill­ness speaks to his desire to fix every­thing. Instead of sleep­ing or spend­ing time with Pep­per, he devotes him­self entire­ly to build­ing new suits, new weapons, new lines of defence. Back in the café, when Rhodes express­es his con­cern, Stark retorts, Ein­stein slept three hours a year, look what he did.” While those clos­est to him think he has built 10 or 15 suits in total, in his base­ment Tony is work­ing on a Mark 42. He’s no longer just anx­ious – he’s obsessive.

In Age of Ultron, when Scar­let Witch (Eliz­a­beth Olsen) shows Tony his dark­est fears, he sees the Avengers dead before his feet – and it’s his fault. In Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: Civ­il War, when brought face to face with the destruc­tion he and his team always leaves behind, Stark can’t live with the guilt and so he signs the Sokovia Accords, a piece of leg­is­la­tion requir­ing all super­heroes to reveal their secret iden­ti­ties and dis­close their pow­ers. Stark con­stant­ly fears the day he lets down those he loves, and he deals with it by retreat­ing from them to build them as much pro­tec­tion as he can.

Of course, one rich white man’s bat­tle with men­tal ill­ness isn’t going to res­onate with every­one. But it’s impor­tant that Stark is not por­trayed as a whol­ly good indi­vid­ual: he can be self­ish, arro­gant, an ego­ma­ni­ac. Some­times, he’s even framed as an antag­o­nist. The vil­lain­ous Ultron is lit­er­al­ly the prod­uct of Stark’s ego; blind­ed by progress he builds a sen­tient weapon that near­ly kills mil­lions and results direct­ly in the draft­ing of the Sokovia Accords. You could go as far as call­ing Tony Stark an anti-hero – that is what makes him such a com­pelling char­ac­ter. No mat­ter how priv­i­leged a per­son is, they can still be affect­ed by anx­i­ety, depres­sion and oth­er forms of men­tal illness.

Tony Stark is an authen­tic and com­pli­cat­ed hero, some­one who can seem­ing­ly build any­thing and is will­ing to stand up to the world’s great­est evils – often alone – but who is still vul­ner­a­ble, com­pul­sive and obses­sive, and who deals with the same inner demons we all must face. His arc has con­tin­u­ous­ly evolved dur­ing the decade-long expan­sion of the MCU; per­haps now he is final­ly com­ing to terms with the fact that he can’t save every­one. This sen­ti­ment echoes his own words way back in the Avengers. If we can’t pro­tect the world, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.”

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