Confessions of a Tony Starkoholic

I'm very excited to present our very first guest writer here on TFS, empty_splendor (as seen on LJ, of course). I'll get out of the way now and let her do the talking.


Confessions of a Tony Starkoholic
by empty_splendor

I have been a reader of Iron Man comics ever since I knew how to read. My dad would take me to the comic book store when I was a kid, holding my little chubby hand and let me peruse the selection of books with brilliant colors and vibrant lettering, but he always found his way to getting me a copy of Iron Man’s latest adventure. From Iron Man, it took me to the adventures of the Avengers and Captain America, but my most steady purchase (especially now, what with this economy) was the one book.


Tony Stark had it all: rich, handsome, successful, restless genius and he knew how to charm the ladies. Oh yeah, and he’s a superhero. He was legit too, none of the “he came from space and has these powers” or “he was bit by a radioactive monkey” but a man who nearly lost his life and found himself faced with two choices: make a difference or choose to continue to live ignorantly. I think everyone knows which he chose because we have Iron Man. Comics called: Tony Stark: Guy Who Drinks a Lot and Does Nothing wouldn’t sell, would they? Okay well maybe.


The point is that I could see this man as a plausible entity. He was vulnerable in that sense in a way that no other hero was. Tony could use his powers for good or evil and the fact that he had chosen his own path to fight for the good guys makes him that much more interesting. Tony took all that power and money and made it a force for good in the universe. Of course, there’s the now clichéd slogan from Ben Parker that with great power comes great responsibility, and with Tony things have been no different. Sometimes he does well with this and other times the best intentions pave his road to hell.


Tony is always a guy that is faced with a decision. In all of his important milestone books he’s had a big choice to make that could alter not only his life but also the lives of his near and dear. First of all, there's his come to Jesus moment of becoming Iron Man that I mentioned before. Stark very easily could have said, “Well, fuck it… where’s the party? Pass the Doritos!” and gone on with his life as he knew it. The fact that he didn’t, the fact that he took this crippling disability and perfected an armored suit to fight super villains is something not everyone would have done. It was his choice to do so.


Secondly, there's his drinking, which was a large part of the books in the 70s and 80s. Tony is known for being an alcoholic party boy, a side that was played up in the 2008 live action film with Robert Downey Jr. He battled with the bottle for a long time, and even now well into the new millennium he still carries it as a scarlet letter on his chest. Again this is a point where he had a choice. He could have stayed drinking; he could have let alcoholism destroy his life. He didn’t. He got up after losing it all and knew that he was better than that. He got help from a lot of people, Captain America, Rhodey, Bethany Cabe and especially his sponsor Henry Hellrung. Tony knows very well what could have happened to him if he chose the other road, and he’s the first one to admit it.


Often however, Tony’s choices don’t play out as he expected. Tony is not infallible and no fan will tell you he is. That’s part of why I like him. The fact that Tony Stark makes monumental mistakes and isn’t perfect. The fact that Tony Stark is a human being with free will and thoughts of his own, and sometimes his opinions, no matter how much he stands for them, are just a bit off. Tony has a great way of believing in something so profoundly and so unabashedly that it blinds him to others' opinions and sometimes makes him a down right dick.


The fact that Tony Stark is prone to doing some really asshole things is what makes me love him. He has made some very questionable moves during his time, especially in recent years with the Super Hero Civil War and shooting Hulk into space, but the Iron Dickery has always been there. From dating Janet Van Dyne when she was fresh out of Hank Pym Wife-Beater (which bugs me that it marred his character forever because I love me some Hank Pym. Alas, that is another topic for another day…) to making his nearest and dearest believe he had died from irreparable nervous system damage (he was cryogenically frozen).


Which brings me to my final point and that is, if people are shocked and surprised and have been turned away by the latest turn of events in the Invincible Iron Man, then you’re a fair weather fan. Tony has a long history of doing ridiculous extremes that most of us would consider either stupid or sort of dick. His recent behavior is nothing but in character. Sure, it’s not ideal. Sure we’d all like to see Tony on top of the world but the fact is, he had too much power.


Stark is prone to replacing one addiction with another and if he had continued to climb, power would have been his new drug of choice. He needed a fall from grace. He needed to be brought back down and the only way to do that is to rip the floor out from beneath him. It’s just another test of his character, of Tony’s enduring strength in the face of adversity. He’s suffered before and he’s lost it all and every time he’s gotten it back and become a stronger man for it. Tony is a guy who will bet it all on a bluff and hope he gets out of the game with the pot. In the world post Secret Invasion, he’s stumbled out, bewildered and at the bottom. They’ve taken his business, his home, his money, his power, his name and all his clout. What makes this story interesting is watching him come back into his own.


In conclusion I have this to say. Fraction has said his venture into this yearlong arc for Iron Man is meant to be the disgrace and redemption of Tony Stark. He’s going to fall hard but we’re going to watch him rise again, and as he’s done many times before like a phoenix from the ashes (not Jean Grey) he will come out of it a better man than he was when he went in. None of this, the auto-lobotomy suicide machine, Iron Potts, loving and leaving Maria Hill are out of the realm of possibility for the Stark I’ve always known and loved. If you can’t take him as he is, then you’re not a fan. He will go there, whether anyone wants him to or not.


That is why he’s so interesting to read.

Please comment either here or here.

Partner in Crime

Hey there. Been a while, huh? Sorry I forgot to call. I got caught up in this Big Bang thing. You know how it is.

Anyway, I've been planning this one for a while, but I figured now was as good a time as any to post this...article? Ramblings? Hmm, well, whatever, I thought it was a good time to post. See, I want to talk about a character that I have a soft spot in my heart for, and apparently so does Tony. Yes, I'm talking about



I understand a lot of people don't like Maria. You're not supposed to like Maria. She was created to be hated. She's the unqualified replacement of Nick Fury. She's the villainous face of the government in Civil War. She gave Captain America the order to hunt down his friends and family. She mind-raped Peter Parker. And she's just a flat out bitch.

So why do I like her? Hell if I know. I've been thinking about for a while now, and I've come to the conclusion it's because she is a bitch that I like her so much. Now, you have characters like Carol Danvers who, Marvel Gods bless her soul, is a bitch. I love Carol (sometimes), I really do, but I dunno, there's something...fake about her? She tries to be nice, but we all know she's a bit of a bitch anyway. She's one of those strong female leads that often crosses the line of being endearing and annoying.

Maria, now she's just completely unapologetic about her bitchitude. She knows she's a bitch. She knows she's not Nick Fury. She knows she's pretty well hated in every way to be hated. She realizes all of this and simply trudges on, doing what she has to do to get the job done. She's a little like Tony in a way.

There are people out there that don't have a real opinion about her because she's been so underdeveloped for a long while now, with only really the Knaufs and Fraction exploring her character as anything other that "EVILLLL." Admittedly, I was one of those people until Director of SHIELD. We're starting to see this new part of her that actually cares about humanity...or at least Tony. In Haunted, she was the one that called Doc Samson when Tony was having an apparent schizophrenic fugue. She tried to talk Tony out of the whole auto-lobotomy suicide machine thing while Pepper just went with it (though Pepper's probably used to this sh*t from Tony by now). She's starting to become less bitch and more hardass.

As with all of this blog, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm defending a character I happen to like a lot.

Please comment either here or here

And now for something completely different...

*ahem* Yes, well, I've been meaning to kick off a section devoted to the fandom itself. Plus there was the fact that Chris's Invincible Super-Blog is having a small recap contest. Thought I might try my hand at it with a recap of Ulitmates 1 and 2:


Clicky clicky~

Ah yes, putting that new tablet through its paces I see.

Please comment here or here.

Tony loves Thor

Oh my. So, does this mean that Clor was originally going to be Tony's Kept Man, but the Skrull!Pym and Reed came along and messed up his happy, ale-ridden dream? Richaaaaarrrddssss!

from The Order #7

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Discussion: Religion

I stumbled across this site the other day (looking up Doc Samson of all people). It's an extremely detailed look at the religions of various superheroes, whether they're stated outright or simply implied (Samson's Jewish, by the way, if anyone cares). I had been meaning to post a discussion of what people think Tony's religion might be, and I figured this was as good an excuse as any to actually do it.

On the site, it seems that the majority of the fandom holds that Tony is atheist, while the maintainers of the site themselves hold that he's a “futurist; technologist; mostly secular.” So let's go from there.

I'll admit, I'm not a very smart person, so I'm not sure on the actual use of the word “futurist.” The Oxford English Dictionary (which my school evidently pays for me to use for the analysis of comic books rather than research papers) defines a futurist as someone who either: “believes that the Scripture prophecies, esp. those in the Book of Revelation, are still to be fulfilled in the future” or “one who has regard to or studies the future; a believer in human progress.” Hmm...I'm assuming Tony's more likely to lean towards the second one when defining himself. Oh, and there's something about an Italian art movement, but I think I can probably toss that one out when we're talking about Stark (unless he's trying to learn up for Steve's inevitable return). I feel like I'm missing on some philosophical side of this however, so if someone would be kind enough to fill me in, I'd love you forever :D I love learning <3

Anyway, I'd agree that Tony is mostly secular. I would not, however, call him an atheist. And here, in my humble opinion, is why:

1. His father. Now, Howard Stark comes off as a skeptic to me, the kind of guy who needs proof before he decides anything for certain. He's shown telling tiny Tony that if God exists, He'll have left a message for them in the numbers. It seems to me that Tony would have a similar approach to life in general, not only because he's scientific-minded, but also because he would probably do anything he could to gain approval from his ever disapproving father (something I've touched on before), including trying to figure out how π = God. Also of note: As far as I know, we're never given any hint of what religion Maria Stark followed. While I think we can say Howard influenced Tony's professional life, I think it could be argued that Maria probably had more of an influence on his personal life.
   


2. He's seen praying and makes reference to prayer on a number of occasions. He's seen praying at Rumiko's casket and before he (we assume) pulled the plug on Happy. He makes reference to praying that everything would work out okay for Bruce Banner when they shot him up into space (though he knew Hulky had landed on the wrong planet). He could all be going through the motions, and I think he certain does do that when it comes to things like social events (the Stark reputation anyone?), but I don't think he would bother faking it with something like this.
   


3. Alcoholics Anonymous. A major part of AA is giving yourself up to a Higher Power and believing that only this Power can restore a your sanity. Now, with that said, there are of course secular AA groups out there, and really, that Higher Power can be whatever you really want it to be, not necessarily God, so long as it's motivation enough to get you clean, so this point is a bit weaker than the others. But, Tony is shown going to AA meetings with Carol Danvers and we've meet his sponsor (Henry Hellrung, for anyone that missed that).


4. He's lived and worked with Thor and Ares. Now, I'm not saying that makes him a believer – after all, didn't he keep a hair of Thor's to DNA test if he was actually a god (which would later lead to Clone-Thor)? I'm just saying, living and employing a god would at the very least make you open to the idea.


5. Tony has been to Hell. Liek srsly yo. Even met his dad there. Mind you, Tony's seen a lot of weird things in his life, but I'm pretty sure that might have traumatized him just a little bit. Fear of God kind of traumatize? Hard to say.

As said, the majority of fans quoted on the site believe that he's atheist, basing this off of the Infinity Crusade limited series during which he tells the Goddess that he puts his faith in science. To me, this means he prefers to have something material to hold onto, but doesn't mean he doesn't believe in something greater (otherwise, why would be bother praying?) Plus there's the fact that this 'Goddess' had just kidnapped a bunch of his friends so they would go make holy war. He was probably not the most open person at the time.

So, I know it's a bit risky to do any sort of religious discussion, but I'm interested in seeing what you all think.

Please comment here or here

You really CAN blame Tony for everything in Secret Invasion

Needless to say, spoilers for Secret Invasion #8




Poor Jan, she never saw it comin'. No one escapes the Stark Curse! No one. Also: Peter is such a dork.

Found at scans_daily

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...Read more

Laissez-faire: Chicks Dig Giant Robots

In possibly one of the most epic crossovers ever, we find the Avengers teaming up with the Autobots to save the world. Or, more importantly, we find Dr. Doom teaming up with the Decepticons, which I find incredibly awesome.

The whole crossover is great, but for our interests here on TFS, I think it's important to point out that Tony, in fact, has a giant robot in the ready just for this kind of occasion.



Tony's a futurist, after all. He's prepared for everything, even Unicron.

It's interesting to note that this series is apparently 616-canon as well. This probably explains Tony's giant transforming satellite robot he gave Rhodey for their anniversary -- er alien invasion plan.

Please comment here or here

Tell me I'm frozen but what can I doooo...?

*cough* Please excuse my horrible singing.

Hooray! I've decided to start to new "column" on this blog -- Random comic panels that I like! Because every once in a while I come across a panel I want to post but have to real reason to, so now I do.


From vol. 1 #86

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Thought projector

From an issue of Captain America, we are given yet another example of Tony's Evil Genius: A device that can project a person's thoughts. Awesome.

Found on scans_daily, yet sadly I cannot find the post :(

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