The most racist retcon in all of Marvel Comics history.

[Maria Stark]

He looks like his adopted father, has some of his habits and is the same type of super genius.

...yeah, doesn't break suspension of disbelief at all

Furthermore, these two scenes, that emphasize the physical similarity between Tony and Morgan Stark, are a perfect example of why the adoption retcon makes no sense.

This one comes from Iron-Man # 286.



And this one comes from the 2009 War Machine series.



They show that, if Rhodey, who knows Tony better than anyone, could confuse the two, it’s because the family resemblance they share is huge. This is especially emphasized in the scene in the War Machine book, where Rhodey is talking to Morgan, showing that Tony and his cousin even have similarly sounding voices.

[U.N. Owen]

Oh, now I understand where the root of our disagreement is! It is a cultural problem.

In countries colonized by Spanish or Portuguese, the natives only had their first names changed when they were baptized in the Christian faith. their surnames were not changed, since they didn’t have them, and identified their family origin through patronymics. Only women were given a surname, when they officially married white colonists. This is because miscegenation between whites and natives was a political tactic, adopted by the colonizers, who realized that superior firepower and ruthlessness in combat only served them to a certain extent.

In other words, in countries colonized by people from the Iberian peninsula, a native could only have a Christian surname through family union. Therefore, if a person has Carbonell as a surname and was not born in Spain, or in Catalonia as some prefer, it is because that person has Iberian DNA. Hence, yes, Carbonell definitely indicates Maria’s ethnic origin.

You say this, but the easiest counterargument I could make is the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos, a Spanish decree where Filipino citizens took Spanish or Spanish transliterated Tagalog names. All of this was done for tax purposes of all thing. No, surnames cannot be used as an indicator of ethnicity if the waters are this muddy.


If I gave you a list of random people, I doubt you could tell their ethnicity as Spaniard, Latino, or Filipino based on name alone thanks to this decree:

Archbishop Reyes
Raphael Reyes
Pedro Reyes
Edward Diego Reyes
Renato Reyes

We are back to square one.

Now, about Maria being of Filipino origin, it can even be argued in favor of this, that Howard Stark gave her maiden name to an island in the Pacific, because the Philippines are located in that ocean. But, no. Joe Queseda, who is of Cuban origin, gave Maria the surname Carbonell. So, the most likely hypothesis, is that Quesada took that surname from his own community of origin.

This is honestly a more compelling argument that she's a latina woman than just going on names honestly.

[Ravin' Ray]

If I gave you a list of random people, I doubt you could tell their ethnicity as Spaniard, Latino, or Filipino based on name alone thanks to this decree:

Archbishop Reyes
Raphael Reyes
Pedro Reyes
Edward Diego Reyes
Renato Reyes

True. My maternal grandmother was a Reyes. Ernie Reyes Jr. is a Fil-Am actor and martial artist (Red Sonja, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

[Maria Stark]

You say this, but the easiest counterargument I could make is the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos, a Spanish decree where Filipino citizens took Spanish or Spanish transliterated Tagalog names. All of this was done for tax purposes of all thing. No, surnames cannot be used as an indicator of ethnicity if the waters are this muddy.


If I gave you a list of random people, I doubt you could tell their ethnicity as Spaniard, Latino, or Filipino based on name alone thanks to this decree:

Archbishop Reyes
Raphael Reyes
Pedro Reyes
Edward Diego Reyes
Renato Reyes

We are back to square one.

Well, I based what I wrote, on the thesis on this subject, written by a college professor who is a friend of my family. As he did a thorough research in Portugal and Spain, to write his thesis, including having access to private archives, I would say that he is an expert on the colonization process employed by the Iberian powers. So, I believe that going forward, we will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

This is honestly a more compelling argument that she's a latina woman than just going on names honestly.

Yes, and this was an interesting result of finding out that the surname Carbonell, was a retcon made by Joe Quesada. In fact, we can even make an interesting speculation about what motivated Quesada to choose that surname, or even bother to give Tony's mother a surname.

Because, “Santa Carbonell”, is not a name that conventionally would be given to a saint. The correct thing would be to choose the given name, so the name of the island should’ve been Santa Maria. Of course, I have no idea if Quesada was raised in a religious environment and would know how to identify this particular characteristic about the names of saints. But just for the sake of speculation, let's assume that he chose the surname instead of the given name, deliberately. Is Carbonell, the surname of someone who has a special meaning to him? Perhaps, Carbonell is Quesada's mother maiden name. and for that reason, he chose that surname for Tony's mother. I didn’t find this information on the internet, so unless someone here can clarify this point, I will have to say that this is something that may be improbable, but it’s also not impossible.

[MichaelC]

Furthermore, these two scenes, that emphasize the physical similarity between Tony and Morgan Stark, are a perfect example of why the adoption retcon makes no sense.

This one comes from Iron-Man # 286.



And this one comes from the 2009 War Machine series.



They show that, if Rhodey, who knows Tony better than anyone, could confuse the two, it’s because the family resemblance they share is huge. This is especially emphasized in the scene in the War Machine book, where Rhodey is talking to Morgan, showing that Tony and his cousin even have similarly sounding voices.

Perhaps Howard tampered with Tony's DNA to make him resemble himself. Perhaps Tony is Howard's Frankenstein as much as he is someone adopted.

[Iron Maiden]

On a side note I have to say I really like the MCU Howard Stark..... much, much more than the comics version.

[Tony Stark]

On a side note I have to say I really like the MCU Howard Stark..... much, much more than the comics version.

Me too. He such a world class ******* in the comics.

[Ravin' Ray]

In countries colonized by Spanish or Portuguese, the natives only had their first names changed when they were baptized in the Christian faith. their surnames were not changed, since they didn’t have them, and identified their family origin through patronymics. Only women were given a surname, when they officially married white colonists. This is because miscegenation between whites and natives was a political tactic, adopted by the colonizers, who realized that superior firepower and ruthlessness in combat only served them to a certain extent.

I can say that here in the Philippines, that wasn't the only case. Aside from what U.N. Owen mentioned, we have two and three syllable Chinese surnames that are conjugations of complete Chinese names (first names and surnames) many of which sound phonetically Castilian or have been Hispanicized. These names filtered into the mainstream Filipino population through intermarriage. It must be pointed out that the Spanish treated Chinese immigrants differently from the natives. Also, Spanish migration and integration here never reached the levels it did in the Americas, largely due to geography and the challenges of traveling all the way here. I have at least three other Spanish surnames in my family tree, which is due either to Spanish intermarriage or surname adoption in each case, but at any rate my Spanish bloodline is very diluted and I am mostly Asian.

[Maria Stark]

I can say that here in the Philippines, that wasn't the only case. Aside from what U.N. Owen mentioned, we have two and three syllable Chinese surnames that are conjugations of complete Chinese names (first names and surnames) many of which sound phonetically Castilian or have been Hispanicized. These names filtered into the mainstream Filipino population through intermarriage. It must be pointed out that the Spanish treated Chinese immigrants differently from the natives. Also, Spanish migration and integration here never reached the levels it did in the Americas, largely due to geography and the challenges of traveling all the way here. I have at least three other Spanish surnames in my family tree, which is due either to Spanish intermarriage or surname adoption in each case, but at any rate my Spanish bloodline is very diluted and I am mostly Asian.

Without a doubt, there were exceptions. But that's what they were. Exceptions and not the rule. And as you yourself wrote, in the Philippines the policy of miscegenation through intermarriage was also implemented and worked. To a lesser extent than in the Americas, yes, but certainly not because of geography. Conquering and maintaining control over 19,200,000 km² is not something I would call it easier, than doing the same thing in an area of 300,000 km². Considering the travel time to the Philippines, the colonization process may have even been delayed in relation to that of the Americas, but this has not changed the policy or its implementation.

[U.N. Owen]

It has seems we have reached an impasse.

Another major aspect of this discussion we've outright neglected is how we define race. Legally, Americans define anyone in Latin America as white despite native blood. That is unless you have black ancestry (see the One Drop Rule which was historically used). You can easily see the problem with trying to just trace the ancestry back to define race, especially in the one drop rule, since humans have a notoriously shallow gene pool.

If you want to try to say Iberian blood will help with that ... no it won't.