I Am Iron ManLists about Marvel's billionaire businessman, playboy, and scientist who wears a homemade powered exoskeleton to fight evildoers and protect the universe.
Updated November 12, 2019 7.7K votes 1.3K voters 213.7K views
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Vote up the moments when Tony Stark crossed the line separating earnest hero from self-centered control freak.
Tony Stark: Marvel's bastion of charm, wit, and intelligence. Also? Kind of a jerk sometimes. So much so that it's not tough to come up with examples of times when Iron Man's influence and personality left him looking like a bit of a jerk.
It has always been a trait of Iron Man that he is of extreme intelligence and his playboy-persona is just as potent. However, this has often put him at odds with the other heroes in the Marvel U. Just look at some of his most famous story lines: Superior Iron Man, Civil War, and Armor Wars. Not only are these some of the most popular Iron Man stories, but also opportunities for Tony to be truly unpleasant. This list gathers examples of when all those sarcastic one liners just left him with fewer allies and a whole lot of mistakes.
So plug in your arc reactor and mind your manners! There is a lot to learn from Tony Stark: science, business, charm. However, there is just as much to learn from his mistakes! Don't forget to tip and remember Pepper's birthday!
Ggetting your friend killed is never too admirable.
Although Tony was not directly involved in Captain America's death (don't worry- he gets better), it was his decision to bring the defeated Cap out in public and put him on display at the end of Civil War. As you may know, Rogers gets more than a face full of rotten tomatoes when Crossbones shoots him in the back of the neck. If Tony had just kept his prisoner under lock and key before his hearing, then Captain America would have lived. Instead, ol' Shell Head wanted to flaunt his victory.
Tony didn't just become a supporter of the Superhuman Registration Act, he became the main component in rounding up the other heroes that didn't agree with him in Civil War.
The uncool move in this case (one of many) was Tony imprisoning his old allies. Obviously he knew their commitment to do-gooding and has seen their mettle tested in battle. But no, Stark had a point to prove. Although he considered himself on the correct side of the issue, there is something really jerky about throwing your friends in jail.
After Marvel's AXIS event flipped the personality traits of the heroes into less-than-heroes, the corrupted Tony Stark invented a way to keep his greedier traits intact.
Thus, the Superior Iron Man was born! Tony used a version of his Extremis technology and developed it into an app that would make people feel amazing and look good doing it.
However, after a trial period, he pulled the plug and started charging $100 a day for it. The the public experienced serious withdrawals and at the same time made Stark insanely rich.
Even after Ultron, Thanos, and Apocalypse, it was Civil War that split the Marvel Universe in half.
After a massive explosion that killed hundreds of people in Stamford, CT, the United States government (including S.H.I.E.L.D.) extended the Mutant Registration Act into the Superhuman Registration Act. The database would collect all the identities of people in the Marvel Universe that have powers and force them to act on behalf of the government. Captain America led the heroes that opposed the act and, in a selfish move, Tony Stark supported it. He even had Hank Pym and Reed Richards on his side, which is a good sign that you are on the "not-thinking-clearly" side of the issue.
This issue erupted in a massive Civil War that split the heroes of Marvel; the start of a conflict that ended with Captain America's death.
For the uninformed, the Illuminati are a who's who of pillars in the Marvel Universe who are known for their extreme personality flaws and their inability to make a good decision.
So, almost like it's a requirement, you need to be kind of a dick to be in this group in the first place. Add to that to the fact that Stark brought to them the proposal to ship the Hulk off into outer space. The idea makes sense, whenever Banner gets all "Hulk Smash," people die- but we are talking about some of the biggest brains in the Marvel Universe here. Perhaps this think tank could have worked on a cure or an even better plan for when Hulks attack? Nope, they went with the first idea Tony had and and sent him to a gladiator planet.
After deciding that the Avengers just weren't cutting it anymore after Operation: Galactic Storm, Tony Stark created Force Works.
Since Stark wanted to kill the Supreme Intelligence in Operation: Galactic Storm, he has a falling out with Captain America and the Avengers for their soft half-measures. Force Works was intended to stop criminals before they can even act- and if that doesn't sound like Orwell's 1984, nothing does.
Not only was Force Works the place were the butthead Avengers worked, but it was also plagued by that '90s mentality that everything had to be gritty and at least slightly evil.
