Tony Stark: The Invincible Iron Man Appreciation 2022

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Matt Fraction's run was amazing, starting with "The Five Nightmares", followed by "World's Most Wanted". Fraction wrote a GREAT Tony.

[Frontier]

Matt Fraction's run was amazing, starting with "The Five Nightmares", followed by "World's Most Wanted". Fraction wrote a GREAT Tony.

Very much agreed .

[Huntsman Spider]

That was a good series until they made it crossover with Fear Itself.. The Who is Palmer Addley arc that started it off had it off to a very good start.

Oh, yeah.

The majority might not agree, but I've always liked the run Kurt Busiek had during Heroes Return (T_T)

The Sentient Armor arc reminded me of the Venom symbiote being yandere (Japanese anime term for "love-crazed") for Spider-Man, but even worse. Granted, it ended similarly, with the Sentient Armor sacrificing itself out of genuine, if misguided, love for Tony, but at least the Sentient Armor wasn't revived as a villain, unlike the Venom symbiote after bonding with Eddie Brock. Unless there's an arc I missed somewhere . . .

Matt Fraction's run was amazing, starting with "The Five Nightmares", followed by "World's Most Wanted". Fraction wrote a GREAT Tony.

The Five Nightmares was a great arc, chiefly because it tested not only Tony's capacity to adapt his inventive genius to the modern world and all its dangers, but also his morals and his resolve by showing what someone with far less scruples than him could do with even scraps of his tech. Mass-produced Iron Men as a legion of disposable suicide bombers . . . would be and were indeed a very terrifying method of harnessing the Iron Man technology.

[K7P5V]

The Sentient Armor arc reminded me of the Venom symbiote being yandere (Japanese anime term for "love-crazed") for Spider-Man, but even worse. Granted, it ended similarly, with the Sentient Armor sacrificing itself out of genuine, if misguided, love for Tony, but at least the Sentient Armor wasn't revived as a villain, unlike the Venom symbiote after bonding with Eddie Brock. Unless there's an arc I missed somewhere . . .

I know, right?! Mask in the Iron Man from Joe Quesada is another personal favorite, even though not too many were quite receptive to it...

...and yeah, spoilers:

the Sentient Armor was reactivated by the Sons of Yinsen (and was inadvertently bonded to ULTRON):

end of spoilers

[Frontier]

Ah, the good 'ol sentient armor plot...

[Huntsman Spider]

I know, right?! Mask in the Iron Man from Joe Quesada is another personal favorite, even though not too many were quite receptive to it...

...and yeah, spoilers:

the Sentient Armor was reactivated by the Sons of Yinsen (and was inadvertently bonded to ULTRON):

end of spoilers

Thanks for the reminder.

[Digifiend]

I just unlocked a character called Magnesium Man in The Simpsons Tapped Out. He looks like a grey Iron Man and is a parody of Tony. He has a quest to upgrade his armour, and when he finishes it, it's revealed to be roller blades, which one of the other Vindicators (Avengers spoof) laughs at.

[Huntsman Spider]

I just unlocked a character called Magnesium Man in The Simpsons Tapped Out. He looks like a grey Iron Man and is a parody of Tony. He has a quest to upgrade his armour, and when he finishes it, it's revealed to be roller blades, which one of the other Vindicators (Avengers spoof) laughs at.

They laugh now, but who'll be the one laughing in the end when those rollerblades (help) save the world through greater energy efficiency?

[MichaelC]

According to rumours from ComicsByPerch, Nick Spencer is in talks with Marvel to return and apparently he'd like to do something with Tony.

What are those talks? Are they thinking of having him up after Duggan, maybe having Duggan just be a one or two issue palate-cleanser, or are we talking about a mini-series of some sort?

[Digifiend]

Just stick him on Avengers. That book will need a new writer soon as Aaron is leaving after the Avengers Assemble story.

[Tony Stark]

What are those talks? Are they thinking of having him up after Duggan, maybe having Duggan just be a one or two issue palate-cleanser, or are we talking about a mini-series of some sort?

I'm figuring a mini or something along that.

[MichaelC]

I'd like to see Stark deal with grief. His parents are dead, his mentors Yinsen and Sal Kenedy are dead, his fiancee Rumiko is dead, and he never deals with any of it. It makes him feel like such a sociopath that he is incapable of caring about anyone deeply enough to mourn. Marvel has made him incredibly shallow by making him immune to grief.

[Huntsman Spider]

I'd like to see Stark deal with grief. His parents are dead, his mentors Yinsin and Sal Kenedy are dead, his fiancee Rumiko is dead, and he never deals with any of it. It makes him feel like such a sociopath that he is incapable of caring about anyone deeply enough to mourn. Marvel has made him incredibly shallow by making him immune to grief.

That's a fair point. Giving Tony a few long moments to grapple with the losses he's experienced instead of just rocketing off to the next battle would be a good means to explore his character. Say what you will about how he expresses it, but the thing at Tony's core, when written well, is that he does genuinely care about the people and world around him, and he wants the best for both that he can possibly give.

[MichaelC]

That's a fair point. Giving Tony a few long moments to grapple with the losses he's experienced instead of just rocketing off to the next battle would be a good means to explore his character. Say what you will about how he expresses it, but the thing at Tony's core, when written well, is that he does genuinely care about the people and world around him, and he wants the best for both that he can possibly give.

The movies get this right: he grieves for the people he's lost, and that grief has lead to him having PTSD. Everything else is an expression of that grief-fueled PTSD. He abuses alcohol because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He creates the armor and tries to be a one man army because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He creates Ultron because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He signs the Sokovia Accords because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He perfects time-travel because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He sacrifices his life stopping Thanos because he has grief-fueled PTSD.

He has horribly painful PTSD because of his grief for the people he loved, and the anticipation of grieving for the people he currently loves. This core trait fuels everything else he does, be it good, bad, self-destructive, controlling, self-sacrificing or reckless.

The movies get this. The comics don't. The comics think he is alcoholism-incarnate and incredibly shallow and therefore immune to grief. The comics suck.

[Huntsman Spider]

The movies get this right: he grieves for the people he's lost, and that grief has lead to him having PTSD. Everything else is an expression of that grief-fueled PTSD. He abuses alcohol because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He creates the armor and tries to be a one man army because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He creates Ultron because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He signs the Sokovia Accords because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He perfects time-travel because he has grief-fueled PTSD. He sacrifices his life stopping Thanos because he has grief-fueled PTSD.

He has horribly painful PTSD because of his grief for the people he loved, and the anticipation of grieving for the people he currently loves. This core trait fuels everything else he does, be it good, bad, self-destructive, controlling, or reckless.

The movies get this. The comics don't. The comics think he is alcoholism-incarnate and incredibly shallow and therefore immune to grief. The comics suck.

It is kind of funny how adaptations sometimes get to the core of a character better than the actual comics do. Kind of reminds me of how Insomniac Games' Spider-Man has been almost universally praised and hailed as having a better fundamental understanding of who Spider-Man is than the actual comics have for a good while now. (I bring up Spider-Man because both he and Iron Man compensate for their grief and guilt and channel it into their heroics in ways that aren't always psychologically healthy for them.)