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  1. #136
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jewel Runner View Post
    If you're compare Tony making mistakes while trying to help people to criminals who murder and sell arms to criminals while knowing it's wrong as if it's the same thing you can stop right there because I'm not even gonna pretend to take you or anything you say even remotely serious.
    In other words, you didn't read my post. If you actually did, you would know I specifically distinguished Tony's killings from Toomes and Beck's murders with intent.

    Also, nice job dismissing an analysis done by the world's top public intellectual as "not even remotely serious".

  2. #137
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    And yet you're still equating it as the same thing.
    You can't just act like the only thing difference was intent because that's a bold faced lie.

  3. #138
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    Yeah, I think we're done here. I don't see a point in responding to your emotionally-charged posts in this thread any longer.

  4. #139
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    Wasn’t MCU Toomes literally just selling weapons? Outside of accidental killing one of his guys, he and his team didn’t really produce much murder and mayhem... it was made a point to NOT attract attention.

  5. #140
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Wasn’t MCU Toomes literally just selling weapons? Outside of accidental killing one of his guys, he and his team didn’t really produce much murder and mayhem... it was made a point to NOT attract attention.
    Correct. The first Shocker was the only person he killed, and even then, the film implies it was manslaughter.

  6. #141
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Wasn’t MCU Toomes literally just selling weapons? Outside of accidental killing one of his guys, he and his team didn’t really produce much murder and mayhem... it was made a point to NOT attract attention.
    That's another issue I have with the MCU Spider-Man movies...the stakes are way too low.

    You watch Raimi's movies, Green Goblin murders 22 people in the first movie alone, that's more than any other villain in any Spider-Man theatrical release that came after. Doctor Octopus kills some 10 people in that hospital scene after he wakes up in Spider-Man 2.

    Then you come to the MCU Spider-Man movies and there's just one death (a henchman via accident) over two movies. Where's the teeth to these movies?

  7. #142
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Wasn’t MCU Toomes literally just selling weapons? Outside of accidental killing one of his guys, he and his team didn’t really produce much murder and mayhem... it was made a point to NOT attract attention.
    Who knows what the people using those weapons for did with them though...
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    Correct. The first Shocker was the only person he killed, and even then, the film implies it was manslaughter.
    With how casually he did it, I would be surprised if he was the first person Toomes killed.
    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    That's another issue I have with the MCU Spider-Man movies...the stakes are way too low.

    You watch Raimi's movies, Green Goblin murders 22 people in the first movie alone, that's more than any other villain in any Spider-Man theatrical release that came after. Doctor Octopus kills some 10 people in that hospital scene after he wakes up in Spider-Man 2.

    Then you come to the MCU Spider-Man movies and there's just one death (a henchman via accident) over two movies. Where's the teeth to these movies?
    I mean, do we really need to escalate the threats that much? I don't think we need a lot of murder and death in a Spider-Man film just to sell the threat level.

    I don't think it made Vulture and Mysterio seem any less dangerous. Especially when they were very obviously trying to kill Spider-Man.

  8. #143
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    Oh god we're doing "not enough murders" argument now.

    And of course, the good ol' "stakes".

  9. #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    Correct. The first Shocker was the only person he killed, and even then, the film implies it was manslaughter.
    Heh, you could say that Toomes was doing the exact same thing as Tony Stark was for a bit. After the talks of the villains murdering people I had to go and think “who did Toomes or Beck murder intentionally?”

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    That's another issue I have with the MCU Spider-Man movies...the stakes are way too low.

    You watch Raimi's movies, Green Goblin murders 22 people in the first movie alone, that's more than any other villain in any Spider-Man theatrical release that came after. Doctor Octopus kills some 10 people in that hospital scene after he wakes up in Spider-Man 2.

    Then you come to the MCU Spider-Man movies and there's just one death (a henchman via accident) over two movies. Where's the teeth to these movies?
    I don’t know... I liked the fact that Vulture wasn’t a world ender... Granted it’s too late to tackle things that are small enough that the Avengers wouldn’t be needed, yet bigger than bank robbers (like super powered organized crime) now that Spider-Man has dealt with a world ender like Mysterio and the Stark drones.

    Hmm, the whole multiverse aspect that is rumored means that Spider-Man will actually have an enemy that actually dislikes the wall crawler and targets him specifically over Spider-Man simply being collateral damage in a vendetta against someone else.

  10. #145
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Agreed.



    Totally. I mean that's the thing why is Tony Stark's mistakes treated as a stumble to his personal redemption story while the stuff Vulture and Mysterio do is beyond the pale. Tony's responsible for more deaths, vastly so then these two by a big magnitude and yet their actions aren't treated as part of a larger tragic story of talented or capable being led astray. That's how Pepper Potts and Yinsen saw Tony in the first half of Iron Man after all.



    That's not what the original story's about though. In the original story, Vulture attacks Bestman and Spider-Man saves both but he and the police ensure that Bestman will get justice. The story ends up framing Vulture as a tragic victim.



    Again why does the movie not extend the same standards to the movie version of Iron Man? How much sympathy and spectatorship to a redemption story can you sustain when several movies keep making Iron Man into a villain-making machine. That's what Kaitou was driving at, the movie asks the audience to apply standards to Iron Man while asking us at the same time to apply different standards to other characters. That strikes me as dubious at best, dangerous at worst because it inculcates terrible morals and poor life lessons to its fans. I mean it's more objectivist than Ditko.

    If we go by the comics, you have Hank Pym. And the stories repeatedly insist that no amount of superheroism can excuse all the messed up stuff he is done and is responsible for, either in his marriage, or creating Ultron.
    Claiming that Tony is a villain-making machine requires a very biased reading of what actually happens in these movies. Of the films he appears in, he can only really be blamed for Ultron and even then Wanda is as much to blame for that as well. Toomes and Beck blaming their actions on Tony doesn't make them right and the only reason to take their claims at face value is if you are already biased towards Tony to begin with.

  11. #146
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frontier View Post
    With how casually he did it, I would be surprised if he was the first person Toomes killed.
    Possibly. Even then, I doubt he has a high body count.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Heh, you could say that Toomes was doing the exact same thing as Tony Stark was for a bit. After the talks of the villains murdering people I had to go and think “who did Toomes or Beck murder intentionally?”
    Exactly. Toomes even brings this up himself. He was literally doing exactly what Tony used to do but on a much lower scale - emphasis on "lower scale", meaning he has indirectly caused less death and harm than Tony has.

    Beck was more of a genuinely evil dude and probably committed more murder attempts, but even his body count (or attempted body count) wasn't exceptional.

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
    Claiming that Tony is a villain-making machine requires a very biased reading of what actually happens in these movies. Of the films he appears in, he can only really be blamed for Ultron and even then Wanda is as much to blame for that as well. Toomes and Beck blaming their actions on Tony doesn't make them right and the only reason to take their claims at face value is if you are already biased towards Tony to begin with.
    I can't speak for Jack, but I want to address this because I see it pop up everywhere: the notion that bringing up the bad things in Tony's ledger means that someone inherently dislikes or is biased towards Iron Man.

    This isn't true at all. I have no beef with Iron Man whatsoever. At worst I find him kinda boring, at best I like him and think he plays off the other Avengers great. I wouldn't want us to live in a world where he isn't liked or not an Avenger.

    However, he is an interesting character precisely because of those flaws people keep bringing up. He is not a character that can function in a pseudo-Uncle Ben role, which is what these films essentially turned him into. It is when he is placed under that kind of light that his flaws become problematic.

    This would simply not be a problem for other characters. As much as I don't like the idea of anyone being a pseudo-Uncle Ben, someone like Steve Rogers can absolutely function in that role and it wouldn't be as problematic.

    Short of The Punisher and other antiheroes, Tony Stark is literally one of the worst picks for a pseudo-Uncle Ben, and I'm far from being the first person to point this out. People like Andrew Garfield have pointed it out as well, and JMS spent the second half of his run partly showing how much Peter and Tony can clash.
    Last edited by Kaitou D. Kid; 03-01-2021 at 12:47 AM.

  12. #147
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    Toomes doesn't need to be slaughtering people by the dozens on screen every five minutes to show how dangerous he is. The movie establishes how dangerous those weapons are on the streets.

    Honestly, the people who complain about these movies lacking stakes would also accuse these films of being too graphic if Toomes and Beck's body counts were higher.

  13. #148
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    Exactly. Toomes even brings this up himself. He was literally doing exactly what Tony used to do but on a much lower scale - emphasis on "lower scale", meaning he has indirectly caused less death and harm than Tony has.
    See this is exactly my point, you can't act like it's the same thing, Tony only ever sold his weapons to the military, people largely fighting for the protection of their country, Vulture sold his weapons to criminals, knowing full well they'd be used against innocent people.
    Beck was more of a genuinely evil dude and probably committed more murder attempts, but even his body count (or attempted body count) wasn't exceptional.
    I fail to see how that changes what he's done, nor is it comparable to what Tony's done.

    I can't speak for Jack, but I want to address this because I see it pop up everywhere: the notion that bringing up the bad things in Tony's ledger means that someone inherently dislikes or is biased towards Iron Man.
    Well when they exaggerate the bad things he's done and equate them to the actions of actual criminals and murderers it's very suspicious.
    However, he is an interesting character precisely because of those flaws people keep bringing up. He is not a character that can function in a pseudo-Uncle Ben role, which is what these films essentially turned him into. It is when he is placed under that kind of light that his flaws become problematic.
    By this point you're just saying because Tony has flaws he can't be someone a person could look up to
    This would simply not be a problem for other characters. As much as I don't like the idea of anyone being a pseudo-Uncle Ben, someone like Steve Rogers can absolutely function in that role and it wouldn't be as problematic.

    Short of The Punisher and other antiheroes,.
    And that's where I stop because no.

  14. #149
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jewel Runner View Post
    See this is exactly my point, you can't act like it's the same thing, Tony only ever sold his weapons to the military, people largely fighting for the protection of their country, Vulture sold his weapons to criminals, knowing full well they'd be used against innocent people.
    The level of denial in this statement is astronomical.

    Firstly, anyone selling arms to the military or selling guns to shopowners across America, or selling guns across the counter are in fact selling weapons knowing fully well that they could and would be used against innocent people. There's always this thing in the military known as "collateral damage" and the NRA and other gunowners, who are doing things legally, know fully well that it's being sold to potential school shooters and so on.

    Michael Corleone had the last word to say on this.



    There's a legal difference between Tony and Toomes but there's no moral difference between arms-dealing for the military and selling weapons to criminals. The only issue is that Toomes isn't pretending that what he's doing isn't a crime which Tony did for most of his life until he landed in that cave.

    By this point you're just saying because Tony has flaws he can't be someone a person could look up to
    A flawed person can be someone people look up to, but not if those people and the ones around him are in denial of his flaws.

    If Peter had a moment where he went, "I did something bad once and hurt the person I loved most, and then I saw Iron Man and how he changed from a narcissist weapons manufacturer to a narcissist superhero, and I thought that could be me" then it would be fine, and would explain stuff. Instead the movies run on the idea that RDJ is somehow freakin' Superman. If you made it so that a flawed neurotic superhero like Spider-Man would look at Cap and Iron Man and go, a la Oliver Stone's Nixon, "When people see you (Cap) they see what they want to be, when peole see you (Stark) they see themselves" then it would be fine.

    Again there are people who like Tony who don't deny that he's flawed and has baggage...Rhodey and Hulk for example, and eventually Cap (it's weird that it's only after he beats up Tony at the end of Civil War that Cap actually starts liking him).

  15. #150
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Heh, you could say that Toomes was doing the exact same thing as Tony Stark was for a bit. After the talks of the villains murdering people I had to go and think “who did Toomes or Beck murder intentionally?”
    Does attempted murder count?

    I don’t know... I liked the fact that Vulture wasn’t a world ender... Granted it’s too late to tackle things that are small enough that the Avengers wouldn’t be needed, yet bigger than bank robbers (like super powered organized crime) now that Spider-Man has dealt with a world ender like Mysterio and the Stark drones.

    Hmm, the whole multiverse aspect that is rumored means that Spider-Man will actually have an enemy that actually dislikes the wall crawler and targets him specifically over Spider-Man simply being collateral damage in a vendetta against someone else.
    Spider-Man doesn't need to be fighting people trying to destroy New York every movie, although that's usually what happens. I did think they escalated things with Mysterio too much.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    Possibly. Even then, I doubt he has a high body count.
    Does he need a high one to be a bad guy?
    Exactly. Toomes even brings this up himself. He was literally doing exactly what Tony used to do but on a much lower scale - emphasis on "lower scale", meaning he has indirectly caused less death and harm than Tony has.

    Beck was more of a genuinely evil dude and probably committed more murder attempts, but even his body count (or attempted body count) wasn't exceptional.
    But he probably didn't feel as guilty about it as Tony did for what his weapons inadvertently caused.

    And, again, is a high body count the be all end all of a bad guy being a bad guy? Because, y'know, their body count would probably be way higher if Spider-Man hadn't stopped them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    There's a legal difference between Tony and Toomes but there's no moral difference between arms-dealing for the military and selling weapons to criminals. The only issue is that Toomes isn't pretending that what he's doing isn't a crime which Tony did for most of his life until he landed in that cave.
    That's the point though, Tony changed and realized he was wrong. Toomes didn't care.
    If Peter had a moment where he went, "I did something bad once and hurt the person I loved most, and then I saw Iron Man and how he changed from a narcissist weapons manufacturer to a narcissist superhero, and I thought that could be me" then it would be fine, and would explain stuff. Instead the movies run on the idea that RDJ is somehow freakin' Superman. If you made it so that a flawed neurotic superhero like Spider-Man would look at Cap and Iron Man and go, a la Oliver Stone's Nixon, "When people see you (Cap) they see what they want to be, when peole see you (Stark) they see themselves" then it would be fine.
    I think we should've seen Peter grow disillusioned with Tony to some extent, but not to the extent where we need to downplay how much of a hero Iron Man was.
    Again there are people who like Tony who don't deny that he's flawed and has baggage...Rhodey and Hulk for example, and eventually Cap (it's weird that it's only after he beats up Tony at the end of Civil War that Cap actually starts liking him).
    I think Cap likes Tony by the end of the first Avengers film, as testy as they get during AoU.

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