As I tweeted a few days ago, I now have a private Tony Stark playlist on my YouTube account. I've always liked the character, but watching the entire MCU in the span of two weeks (give or take) has pushed some sort of magical button -- a button, quite frankly, that hasn't been pressed since the heady days of Babylon 5 and DS9. I am excited. I am obsessed. Like the 90's sci-fi just mentioned, the MCU isn't perfect. But as I look at it in its entirety, I can now appreciate its several phenomenal achievements -- including Tony, the launch character of the whole shebang.
So here it is: my first "things I love about Tony" post. (I suspect there will be more posts of this nature because there is much for me to process.) Spoilers ahead!
The first thing I need to mention? Tony is funny. Consistently funny. There's a reason YouTube is filled with compilations of the guy cracking wise; even as his story deepens, you can still count on Tony to break up the tension with some gallows humor. One memorable illustration of this is the "have you ever tried shawarma?" moment at the end of The Avengers. I'm about to cover a lot of deep stuff in the paragraphs below, but we should never forget that that scene defines the character too. Besides, it's not as if the humor isn't deep in itself. It is, in fact, Tony's principal coping mechanism. It's how he overcomes. Shit, I almost died! Where's my cheeseburger?
The second thing I love about Tony is his self-awareness. He doesn't have a perfect understanding of his own psyche, mind you, but at the very least, he knows he's a handful, and his appreciation for people who willingly subject themselves to his mercurial personality is 100% genuine -- even if he screws up trying to show it. This is the quality that makes the strawberry scene in Iron Man 2 so irrepressibly endearing. He gives Pepper the one thing in the world she's allergic too, but his heart is absolutely in the right place: he knows he hasn't given Pep her due and sincerely wants to make it up to her.
Which brings up the third thing I love about Tony: he has interesting relationships with other characters. The romantic relationship with Pepper is one such relationship, obviously, but I also adore Tony's adversarial interactions with Steve and his paternal connection to Peter. Tony and Steve in particular probably deserves a post of its own given how fraught that relationship is. Let's just say for now that Steve is basically the big brother who's the straight A student, the homecoming king, and the football star, and Tony is the little brother tortured by the fact that he can't live up to his older sibling's standards no matter how hard he tries. ("Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth.") Watching Tony chafe whenever he bumps up against Steve's moral certitude is endlessly fascinating.
The fourth thing I love about Tony is something I've already mentioned: the fact that he's vulnerable. He stumbles into the superhero life out of necessity with no training or superhuman physical skills, and on almost every measure (notice I said "almost"), he's not naturally suited for the role (unlike, say, Steve, who exudes the heroic ethos from minute one). He's rolled high on intelligence and charisma, but he's also "a piping hot mess" -- temperamentally unsteady and often led by his emotional impulses instead of his brains. The devastating final battle between Tony, Steve and Bucky at the end of Civil War is a good example: several times, Steve tries to reason with Tony ("Hydra was controlling his mind!" "This won't change anything!" etc.), but Tony just cannot process what Steve is saying and forces Steve to break his reactor to subdue him. Ow, my heart!
But here's the thing: that emotional intensity - that inability to stop - is also Tony's chief strength when it's focused properly. Thanos respects Tony in part because he recognizes Tony as a fellow visionary -- but also because he sees Tony's grit. And that brings me to the final - and most important - thing I love about Tony: he's insanely courageous. He's naked (hopefully, you understand what I mean here) when he taunts Loki in The Avengers; that is an incredibly gutsy play. He pushes through PTSD to prevail in Iron Man 3. And even though Thanos embodies the very thing that terrifies Tony to his very core, when the opportunity to confront and conquer that fear finally arises, Tony doesn't hesitate -- even though it means his death.
This may be overreading it, but I think there's something symbolic in the fact that Tony's suit is powered by a reactor on his chest.
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