The MCU might star more superheroes than you can shake an Infinity Gauntlet at, but it's
really the story of Tony Stark. But how close is the MCU's Tony to the comic book Tony?
Here are the things about Iron Man that just didn't make it to the MCU.
One of the most surprising things about the cinematic version of Iron Man is that the
MCU never adapted "Demon in a Bottle," the story that's pretty much defined Tony Stark
as a character since it was originally published in 1979. If you know one thing about the comics
version of Iron Man beyond "rich guy," "wears armor" and "has a mustache," it's this story,
but in case you're not familiar with it, here's the short version. As the name implies, this
is the one where Tony deals with his alcoholism and its consequences, even being kicked out
of the Avengers before he's finally forced to confront it and go into recovery.
In the years since, Tony's struggles with addiction and his occasional relapses have
been an intrinsic part of his ongoing story, and despite its age, "Demon in a Bottle" itself
has been praised as one of the best comics to ever mix superheroic action with important
real-life issues. Tony has even been a central figure in helping other characters deal with
their own similar issues — most notably Carol Danvers, who's also portrayed as recovering
alcoholic.
Of course, while it's not explored with the depth and consistency that we see in the comics,
Tony's drinking problem is pretty heavily alluded to in Iron Man 2. It comes to a head
in the scene where he gets drunk and winds up tearing up his own living room in a super-powered
fistfight with War Machine.
"I don't know what to do."
"You gotta be kidding me."
That's it, though, and the fact that such a humanizing, relatable, and important aspect
of his character is only mentioned briefly is surprising, especially when you consider
that other issues like PTSD are central to the plots of Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of
Ultron, and even Captain America: Civil War. It's a pretty big deal, and making three Iron
Man movies and another five or six where he's a central character without getting into it
is almost like making a Superman movie where nobody ever mentions he can fly.
The defining moment of the first Iron Man movie — which ends up being one of the definitive
moments of the entire MCU — comes in its very last line, when Tony Stark ditches S.H.I.E.L.D.'s
script and publicly reveals that he's the one who's been wearing the armor.
"The truth is... I am Iron Man."
Not only does this help distinguish the Iron Man movies from films about Superman and Batman,
where the duality of the heroic and civilian identities is often a pretty big theme, it
works really well from a character standpoint. Tony's entire arc in that movie is wanting
redemption for his past as an arms dealer, and owning up to both what he's done and what
he's doing to make up for it fits right in with his character, especially since he's
arrogant enough to want the credit for it. Also, as has been pointed out countless times
over the years, the classic method for keeping Iron Man's identity secret by claiming that
he's actually Tony Stark's bodyguard just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It does, however, mean that the MCU loses out on some of the stories that were built
around Tony trying to keep his secret intact. After all, for years, the Tony of the comics
stuck to the whole bodyguard lie. But why? Well, the official company line was that Iron
Man was a test pilot who preferred to remain anonymous as to not attract the attention
of Tony Stark's enemies. This reasoning falls apart when you consider that Tony Stark's
enemies were going to try to kill both Tony Stark and Iron Man anyway, but it did lead
to some pretty wild stories.
"Armor Wars" in particular is a story in which Tony goes after anyone that he suspects of
using his technology, leading him to put a serious beatdown on S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and
Stingray, a part-time Avenger, and then avoiding any consequences by inventing "Randall Pierce,"
a completely fictional identity for Iron Man's pilot that he created through falsified documents,
and then faking "Randall's" death. Then he "hired" a "new guy" to do the job who just
happened to sound like, act like, and remember everything that the "previous" guy did. This
would've been pretty complicated to handle in the movies, but c'mon. Aren't you at least
a little sad about not getting to see Robert Downey Jr. wearing a fake mustache over his
real mustache and trying to put on a voice to fool Nick Fury?
The Tony Stark of the MCU is a bit of a control freak. It's the throughline of his character
from the original Iron Man all the way through to Endgame, as he makes one attempt after
another to build a metaphorical, and sometimes literal, suit of armor around the world while
events spiral into a cosmic level far beyond his control. The comics version of Tony is
the same way — maybe even moreso.
In fact, he's so hellbent on controlling the world that after the Marvel Universe gets
its first big taste of the danger and conflict that exists beyond our planetary borders,
he created a secret cabal in order to do just that. After the Kree-Skrull War, a big piece
of Marvel Comics history, he gathers up a group of like-minded individuals to secretly
guide the universe. The result is the Illuminati, a "team" of sorts that includes Tony, Reed
Richards, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt of the Inhumans, and Namor. They also offer T'Challa,
the Black Panther, membership in their secret club, but he refuses, knowing that this will
only lead to bad things down the road.
And does it ever! While they do reap the benefits of sharing information with each other, the
members of the Illuminati also make some pretty dubious decisions, including more than one
attempt to gather up the Infinity Stones for themselves. The most notable error, though,
is an attempt to "solve" the problem of having the Hulk around by just blasting him off into
space and hoping it will work out for the best. Naturally, this leads to the Hulk returning,
stronger and madder than ever, and beating the living crap out of the Illuminati for
about six issues. Pretty weird that the smartest people in the world didn't see that one coming,
isn't it?
We all know him as a high-tech weapons designer, but in the comics, Tony Stark's career isn't
limited to the technological innovations of the private sector. He also occasionally works
for the government — and not just as a defense contractor providing Uncle Sam with their
gigantic Helicarriers and super-science guns. After leading the pro-registration side of
the comic book version of Civil War, Tony serves as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., replacing
Nick Fury after the super spy goes underground to pursue his own agenda.
Tony's tenure in that job isn't particularly long, and it ends when S.H.I.E.L.D. itself
is replaced with a new organization called H.A.M.M.E.R., an acronym that doesn't actually
stand for anything. Tony's spot as director goes to Norman Osborn. Yes, the guy who very
publicly tries to kill Spider-Man while dressed up as a D&D monster.
"Finish it! Finish it!"
"From evil!"
Yeah, that guy. He gets the job because he shot an alien with a laser gun on TV. Listen,
it's a long story. Comics are weird.
While we do get a couple of full-scale alien invasions in the films, there's a pretty obvious
reason why Marvel studios decided to leave that one out of the movies. Of course, Tony
has another government job that probably would've fit in better. At one point in the comics,
Tony takes the job of secretary of defense as something of a compromise after the military
tries to claim ownership of the earliest Iron Man armor, as it was produced while Tony was
still under contract as a weapons manufacturer. Considering that Iron Man 2 — released around
the same time — actually opens with Tony making a smartass remark about how he'd consider
taking that same job…
"I'm not a joiner but I'll consider Secretary of Defense, if you ask nice. If we can amend
the hours a little bit."
...this one feels like it came a lot closer to happening than the others.
Tony Stark has starred in quite a few comics since his debut in 1963. So obviously, a lot
of specific stories never had a chance of making it onto film, even if they would've
made for an interesting movie. For example, there's the time Tony's armor came to life
and fell in love with him and then crucified him on a desert island and then destroyed
itself by tearing out its own heart. When you sum it up that quickly, this story sounds
pretty weird, but ... well, actually, yeah, it's a weird one.
It all gets started when Tony begins experimenting with what he calls the Safe Armor. The main
feature of this one, aside from achieving new heights of name irony, is an onboard A.I.
that can take over if Tony is incapacitated. In the most ill-fated decision the Marvel
Universe has seen since Spider-Man decided not to stop that burglar, he bases this AI
on a robot created by Ultron. You remember Ultron, right? The creepy genocidal robot
that hates humans? You might not be the genius technologist that Tony Stark is, but you can
probably see the problem with the design.
Rather than hatred, the AI's negative emotions take the form of a twisted obsession and,
once its "affections" are rebuked, a Single White Female-style desire to replace Tony.
To that end, the armor kidnaps Tony and strings him up on a St. Andrew's cross while he manufactures
his own synthetic skin. Naturally, this results in a big fight that ends when Flesh Tony has
a heart attack, leaving Armor Tony to suddenly switch gears and tear out its own "heart"
and shove it onto Flesh Tony's chest, using it to keep his heart beating steadily, much
as the original armor had. A pretty weird story to bring to film, but hey, Venom showed
us that sometimes the best superhero stories involve an actor playing two roles, one of
which is a weird homicidal monster.
What's the weirdest Iron Man story of all time? That's easy. It's Teen Tony.
If you don't know, Teen Tony is the result of a truly bonkers series of events. Back
in 1996, a dozen years before he found himself as the star of everyone's new favorite superhero
franchise, very few people actually cared about Iron Man. In fact, he was so unpopular
that in order to inject some new life into his title, a story called "The Crossing" revealed
that Tony Stark had been a secret bad guy all along, having been manipulated by Immortus,
a time-traveling supervillain. He was shown to have secretly committed some truly heinous
acts, including killing three people in Avengers Mansion, including one of the Avengers, and
attempting to frame Hawkeye for it.
Once this was all discovered, the Avengers took a pretty heroic leap of logic and decided
that the only way to defeat an evil Tony Stark was to get a good Tony Stark. The problem
was that they needed one who was completely free of Immortus' influence, so they bopped
over to a parallel timeline and picked up a teenage version of Tony, bringing him back
to the regular Marvel Universe and sending him off to fight a version of himself that
was older, more experienced, and absolutely willing to kill anyone who stood in his way.
Shockingly, this did not go well for Teen Tony. Adult Tony tore his teenage self's heart
out, only to immediately feel remorse, give Teen Tony armor to keep him alive, and then
offing himself to stop the bad guys.
This whole thing took 25 issues, and it ended with Teen Tony taking over the title for a
year before the entire Avengers line was rebooted and then rebooted again a year later. Odds
are pretty good that this will absolutely never make it to film, but hey, if they need
to introduce a new actor as Iron Man, they have a blueprint ready for it.
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