Tony Stark's politics

[Data Soong]

In Iron Man 2, in the Congressional hearing with Hydra Senator Larry Sanders, Tony throws a double peace sign and shouts, "It's working, we're safe, I'm your nuclear deterrent. You're welcome!"

Then in Avengers, Fury tells them that weapons powered by the tesseract were meant to protect against aliens.

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony scoffs, "because THAT always calms things down doesn't it?"

So what shifted him here? or is it just a Favreau conflicting with super liberal WHeedon?

 

[urbandefault]

Tony Stark says a lot of stuff.

Stark is a smartass. He's doing what a smartass does.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Tony Stark says a lot of stuff.

Stark is a smartass. He's doing what a smartass does.

Yup.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Because it's always the "liberal's" fault.

 

[urbandefault]

In Iron Man 2, in the Congressional hearing with Hydra Senator Larry Sanders, Tony throws a double peace sign and shouts, "It's working, we're safe, I'm your nuclear deterrent. You're welcome!"

Then in Avengers, Fury tells them that weapons powered by the tesseract were meant to protect against aliens.

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony scoffs, "because THAT always calms things down doesn't it?"

So what shifted him here? or is it just a Favreau conflicting with super liberal WHeedon?

Because it's always the "liberal's" fault.

Yeah, cuz ... whut?

In IM2, Stark was trying to keep the government from taking his property. I don't blame him a bit. The fact that the Senator was a putz and Hammer was an idiot just made it easier for him to be "him."

In Avengers, the stakes were much higher. He commented on a real world situation as many in this audience might have. But he was still able to keep his sense of humor and be a smartass about it.

Nothing out of character that I can see.

 

[Hound of UIster]

So what shifted him here? or is it just a Favreau conflicting with super liberal WHeedon?

Different writers/directors, the consequence of a shared universe.

 

[Reverend]

I think it's clear that Tony only trusts nuclear deterrents when he's the one with the big red button. In other words he's not liberal or conservative; he's Starkist.
I suspect that attitude may change after AoU...which may or may not pave the way to Civil War.

 

[Gaith]

In IM2, Stark was trying to keep the government from taking his property. I don't blame him a bit.

Actually, you and we all should: the arc reactor was designed and built on the DoD's dime, and as such, the in-universe US government absolutely has a right to it. Stark has no right to do what he does, but we cheer for him anyway because we're illogical lovers of cocky badasses.

is it just a Favreau conflicting with super liberal WHeedon?

Yeah, the collective freak-out over SHIELD developing weapons in A1 always bugged me, and I blame Whedon for it. Cap himself was only made a super-soldier in response to the Nazis already having one, and the very mission they were in the middle of showed that the threat from aliens is very real, so his and Tony's outrage is a definite "huh?" moment. After all, wasn't Cap himself desperate to join the Army and fight - his words - for freedom, when there were lots of important jobs (such as volunteering for extreme medical testing) to be done at home? Yes, yes, he was. (Banner's outrage I could buy, given his experience with the military and scientist background.)

 

[The Old Mixer]

Politics aside, I see a consistent pattern of behavior on Tony's part.

In Iron Man, following his experience in Afghanistan, he pulls Stark Industries out of weapons manufacturing because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In IM2, he's fighting to keep the secrets of his armor to himself because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In The Avengers, he's exposing the fact that he and the other Avengers are being used to cover SHIELD's ass because they were developing extremely powerful weapons that were in the process of falling into the wrong hands.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'd say they're different contexts. In IM2 he's saying he's a "nuclear deterrent" in sort of a jovial way. He's one man but he's powerful enough to prevent the spread of war. Largely, he's being a smart-ass.

In "Avengers" the stakes are very much harder and he's using the term "nuclear deterrent" pretty much in the strictest sense. In the "this is the bullshit that caused the cold-war and brought the entire world into an arms-race that nearly destroyed civilization as we know because weapons of mass-destruction can really fuck is over!" He's being serious as this situation is desperate and he feels that what SHIELD is doing is going to cause more problems in the long-run. The very reason why he got out of making weapons in the first place.

One's a joke, one's a serious commentary on the situation they are in.

And, well, for what it's worth, Fury does call Stark out on this apparent hypocrisy.

 

[Nerys Myk]

A character's politics can often change with creative teams. The best example would Green Arrow.

 

[Trekker4747]

A character's politics can often change with creative teams. The best example would Green Arrow.

Yeah, but that's a "meta" answer. We can do that for virtually any question we have when it comes to a show or movie series. And I don't get why people don't understand stuff like this.

When questions like this are asked they're not looking for answers like "it's a TV show/movie, the writers changed their minds/are inconsistent." What people are looking for are in-universe answers. That means we have to think and try and come up with one or find one that makes sense.

Yes. Things change with different writers and different directors.

Now, let's try and have it make sense in-universe as there's certainly explanations that there could be without stretching too far or conflicting.

Tony's politics changed or he was using the term in different situations and under different circumstances/contexts.

 

[Gaith]

Politics aside, I see a consistent pattern of behavior on Tony's part.

In Iron Man, following his experience in Afghanistan, he pulls Stark Industries out of weapons manufacturing because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In IM2, he's fighting to keep the secrets of his armor to himself because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In The Avengers, he's exposing the fact that he and the other Avengers are being used to cover SHIELD's ass because they were developing extremely powerful weapons that were in the process of falling into the wrong hands.

True, his anti-weapons-development stance is pretty rigid after his ordeal in Afghanistan, so long as he/we don't consider the Stark suits themselves weapons (even if they happen to fire rockets and bullets), or if he/we argue that only he has the moral experience necessary to make/wield weapons. His distrust of the US government/military/SHIELD is also consistent.

What doesn't make as much sense is why he doesn't consider the alien threat worthy of extraordinary and new defensive technologies. In fairness to him, at that point in the movie/franchise, humans were only aware of the New Mexico incident and the easy apprehension of Loki in Germany, so we could call Cap and Tony (and Banner) more ignorant than us viewers who've seen Thor 1, and observe that during the Battle of New York, when the crap is hitting the fan and Tony's "handed" a nuke, he doesn't hesitate to use it against the Chitauri, nor do the others decry him for doing so.

So, there we have it, I guess: the in-universe explanation is that Tony ignorantly figured, and foolishly believed himself to have the right perspective on the issue, that the alien threat wasn't a big deal, until the attack on NYC proves otherwise. (An attack, to the MCU's credit, that gave him a nasty case of PTSD and caused him to get so paranoid as to build a lot of new weap- er, suits.) Ditto for Cap: despite being way out of the loop on cosmic discoveries, he thought he knew enough to mouth off at Fury. Maybe the fact that he subsequently joined SHIELD as a low-level operative for a while was him apologizing for that, too.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

So, there we have it, I guess: the in-universe explanation is that Tony ignorantly figured, and foolishly believed himself to have the right perspective on the issue, that the alien threat wasn't a big deal, until the attack on NYC proves otherwise. (An attack, to the MCU's credit, that gave him a nasty case of PTSD and caused him to get so paranoid as to build a lot of new weap- er, suits.) Ditto for Cap: despite being way out of the loop on cosmic discoveries, he thought he knew enough to mouth off at Fury. Maybe the fact that he subsequently joined SHIELD as a low-level operative for a while was him apologizing for that, too.

Of course then both were proven right when it was revealed that SHIELD was compromised by HYDRA and likely would have used those weapons in the plan to commit a terrorist attack that would have killed millions.

 

[Corran Horn]

I'd say they're different contexts. In IM2 he's saying he's a "nuclear deterrent" in sort of a jovial way. He's one man but he's powerful enough to prevent the spread of war. Largely, he's being a smart-ass.

Hell, you might say what happened in IM2 informed his later comments in Avengers. Once somebody else got the 'nukes' (HammerTech) they turned around and basically went nuts with it. Almost the whole point of showing Tony's comments before Congress were to later show how wrong he could be proven to be, right?

 

[Marsden]

Politics aside, I see a consistent pattern of behavior on Tony's part.

In Iron Man, following his experience in Afghanistan, he pulls Stark Industries out of weapons manufacturing because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In IM2, he's fighting to keep the secrets of his armor to himself because he doesn't want to be responsible for giving the world extremely powerful weapons that might fall into the wrong hands.

In The Avengers, he's exposing the fact that he and the other Avengers are being used to cover SHIELD's ass because they were developing extremely powerful weapons that were in the process of falling into the wrong hands.

+1!

True, his anti-weapons-development stance is pretty rigid after his ordeal in Afghanistan, so long as he/we don't consider the Stark suits themselves weapons (even if they happen to fire rockets and bullets), or if he/we argue that only he has the moral experience necessary to make/wield weapons. His distrust of the US government/military/SHIELD is also consistent.

What doesn't make as much sense is why he doesn't consider the alien threat worthy of extraordinary and new defensive technologies. In fairness to him, at that point in the movie/franchise, humans were only aware of the New Mexico incident and the easy apprehension of Loki in Germany, so we could call Cap and Tony (and Banner) more ignorant than us viewers who've seen Thor 1, and observe that during the Battle of New York, when the crap is hitting the fan and Tony's "handed" a nuke, he doesn't hesitate to use it against the Chitauri, nor do the others decry him for doing so.

So, there we have it, I guess: the in-universe explanation is that Tony ignorantly figured, and foolishly believed himself to have the right perspective on the issue, that the alien threat wasn't a big deal, until the attack on NYC proves otherwise. (An attack, to the MCU's credit, that gave him a nasty case of PTSD and caused him to get so paranoid as to build a lot of new weap- er, suits.) Ditto for Cap: despite being way out of the loop on cosmic discoveries, he thought he knew enough to mouth off at Fury. Maybe the fact that he subsequently joined SHIELD as a low-level operative for a while was him apologizing for that, too.

Also +1.

I'll just add, in the case of the tessaract, Cap was prejudiced against any use of it from what he saw it do in HYDRA's hands. Even without HYDRA turning out to be still around and infiltrating SHIELD, I doubt he'd like people having all kinds of weapons that just destroy. I mean, Cap himself is a weapon, but he knows not to kill the innocent with the guilty, a big boom doesn't. He doesn't want that kind of power in Fury's hands, he's pretty clear about not really trusting Fury in all of his interations over the course of the 3 films.

 

[the G-man]

Most of Tony's politics/actions to date in the movie universe can be explained if we assume he's a libertarian.

 

[FPAlpha]

In IM2, Stark was trying to keep the government from taking his property. I don't blame him a bit.

Actually, you and we all should: the arc reactor was designed and built on the DoD's dime, and as such, the in-universe US government absolutely has a right to it. Stark has no right to do what he does, but we cheer for him anyway because we're illogical lovers of cocky badasses.

I honestly can't remember it being outright stated that the government has paid or commissioned the arc reactor.

In IM1 he only stated how military funding gets technology going which then trickles down to general usage.

In IM2 we learn that Howard Stark co-developed the Arc technology with a russian scientist.. once again no government involvement.

Can you point me to the scene where it's actually stated that the Arc Reactor was funded by the government?

Running under the assumption that it's not explictly stated that the government paid for the arc technology and at least owns the design and patents the whole argument implodes.

The same applies for the Iron Man armor itself.. just because it's decades ahead of cutting edge military tech doesn't mean the government has any rights to it. People are allowed to build weapons themselves up to a certain degree, i.e. until they venture into military grade quality and usage such as howitzers, tanks or combat aircraft (at least in Germany you are not allowed to do that but even in gun-free US you can't own every functional weapon the government may have.

It get's a little fuzzy on the legality because Stark is putting some weapons in them such as missiles and the repulsors in his hands can also be considered weapons but i believe the underlying technology of the suit itself is what the government is after and not just the possibility to slap on some stuff as they did with Warmachine.

Speaking of Warmachine Stark could easily sue the government for the Warmachine suit because Rhodes stole it basically (and the government is not even hiding this in IM2 when they present him).

Stark designed the suit by himself without being paid by anybody, he didn't use any government ressources in fabricating it and he broke no laws in creating it (in reality he might get into trouble flying that thing in dense urban areas but then again it's a comic book and not a law student exercise in "Spot the legal troubles!").

So unless you are willing to show me the line where he says that arc reactor tech is government property the government has little if any claim on the suit.. at least in the movies.

In reality the government would just smile, declare it a national threat, confiscate it and demand you turn over all plans for it and there is little Stark could do without risking his entire company.

 

[Gaith]

Of course then both were proven right when it was revealed that SHIELD was compromised by HYDRA and likely would have used those weapons in the plan to commit a terrorist attack that would have killed millions.

A fair point, but then, Tony's mocking of the Mutually Assured Destruction theory as an effective deterrent in terms of Tesseract-based weaponry was pretty clearly aimed at outside, not internal, threats.

I honestly can't remember it being outright stated that the government has paid or commissioned the arc reactor.

In IM1 he only stated how military funding gets technology going which then trickles down to general usage.

Prior to his imprisonment in Afghanistan, Stark Industries made weapons, and not Second Amendment-style small arms, but military-grade weapons, and as the linked Cracked article notes, the original arc reactor was developed during this time:

​

Also, to quote the same article, "the original armor prototype he threw together in the cave was built out of parts from missiles he created under another defense department contract." And, to quote an article it links to, "it’s probably no mistake that the Stark Industries logo looks a lot like the Lockheed Martin logo. So Stark Industries presumably makes most of its money selling entirely mundane weapons to the government instead of, say, Lockheed Martin or Boeing."

In short: it may not have been explicitly stated by characters in a two-hour movie that Stark Industries made nearly all of its money from government contracts before the Afghanistan incident, but it's abundantly obvious that that's exactly what happened (remember the whole Jericho missile demonstration for the Army brass?), and to assume anything else is to take on the burden of proof for your alternative theories. (Not to mention the fact that Justin Hammer is explicitly selling weapons to the military in IM2 after Tony took Stark Industries out of that picture. Do the math...)

 

[FPAlpha]

Your argument is pure conjencture.. just because it was developed during a time when Stark Industries was also a weapons contractor doesn't mean that Arc technology also falls under these terms.

The Arc reactor is not a weapon though it could be easily used by the military as a power source however it was never stated that the military paid for it.

The Jericho and all the other weapons.. sure. These have only one purpose and if a company would develop such advanced military grade weapons and try to sell them to the world then the government would quickly step in and slap you on the fingers.

That's not the case here as you say yourself so the argument with the arc reactor falls flat on its nose as there is no evidence of it.

The suit.. well, i guess in reality whole squads of lawyers would battle for years to determine the legality of such a suit, especially because Stark did weaponize it (even if i assume all of it is custom designed for the suit such as these miniature missiles he fires off in Avengers from his shoulders.. that's some serious firepower a civilian should not have).

Him building the MK1 out of spare parts of a Jericho doesn't give the government also any claim. If the terrorists got him a Toyota to use as a parts source would that mean that Toyota would have a claim to the suit? It's the design that Tony owns, i.e. the patents (if he indeed filed them which i doubt because it would allow the government instant access (legal or not) to the tech and such a tech savvy person like Stark would surely not trust government IT security to keep the patents safe).

As to Stark Industries itself one can only assume that they do other stuff too besides developing and producing weapons or else Stark would have buried the company instantly after he returned from Afghanistan and shut down the weapons division. They talk about it being a sizeable drop of stocks for Stark Industries after the announcement but it doesn't sound like he shut down the whole company.

So no.. the government would not have claim to the suit as they didn't commission its tech and didn't pay a cent for it. Just because they pay Stark Industires for the weapons they produce doesn't mean they can tell the company how to use the money they've earned with weapons.

At best they could demand that Stark de-weaponizes the suit but that's about it.

This whole thing is still full off unrealistic events but then we are talking about comicbook superheroes and you need to dispense with realism or 90% of them would not work.