Posted on 05/03/2008 10:26:18 AM PDT by Dan Evans
At first sight, Iron Man, which hits theatres today, appears to be just another superhero movie.
His gimmick? He's a modern day Sir Lancelot in high-tech armour that brings him enormous powers, ideal for slaying the villainous dragons of the comic-book universe.
But there's much more depth to the Iron Man character than first meets the eye. In fact, he may be the superhero best fitted for the post 9/11 era -- a politically contentious hero for politically contentious times.
In a new book, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, by Andy Mangels, comic artist Jorge Lucas is quoted describing Iron Man as "the first political superhero." Various voices on the Internet commenting on the movie's arrival have even gone so far as to dub him a right- wing superhero. There's no doubt Iron Man's resume does tend to tip heavily on the conservative side.
Co-created in 1962 by comic book visionary Stan Lee, Iron Man's alter ego is Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist, inventor and weapons manufacturer who first dons his armour when he runs into a jam in South Vietnam, facing a threat from "Red terrorists." This was written, pointedly, while the U.S. was at war in Vietnam.
Throughout the Cold War era, Iron Man would be one of Marvel's great Red-bashers, taking on such Communist super villains as The Mandarin, Crimson Dynamo, The Red Ghost and Titanium Man.
"It seemed like the logical thing to do in those days," says Lee in Mangels' book. "The Communists were the bad guys."
Lee was savvy enough to know that this concept became troublesome as a strong counter culture rose up in the '60s, with many American youth embracing the peace movement and bemoaning the principles of the Cold War.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
Hmmm...doesn't sound like a conservative or right-wing hero to me. Ann Coulter wouldn't want her superheroes to be government employees.
Maybe a newcon hero?
Like most comic book characters, Iron Man’s politics (if shown at all) tend to shift depending on the whim of the writers.
When the character first appeared on the scene, as written by Stan Lee, there was no doubt he was what would today be considered a conservative-at least insofar as he was a Kennedyesque cold warrior, fighting the “reds” and working with the James Bondian spy group “SHIELD.”
In the 70s, however, as younger writers took over the book Tony was shown as a someone who renounced his earlier “cold war” ways. He was more of a traditional superhero, fighting criminals, and his company specifically gave up military contracts.
Later, in the Reagan 80s, he was a bit closer to his original style again. Stark was again manufacturing weapons and fighting Soviets and the like.
I haven’t followed the character much since the late 80s but, from what I understand, he’s a conservative-again-but Marvel’s liberal writers use that fact to portray him as a jerk who wants to take away our civil liberties.
Truth, Justice, And Longer Lines At The DMV!
I saw Iron Man the other day at a preview event and loved it. There is a bit of anti-corporation, corruption of the weapons companies thing that bothered me a bit, but I put that aside and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the story.
Tony Stark was also an alcoholic in the late 70’s and early 80’s, that was unusual for the comics of the period.
Maybe that's why they hired Robert Downey Jr. to play the lead.
I know what you mean. Seems we have to do a awful lot of "putting aside" when we go to the movies these days.
The Tony Stark character is very deep, one reason being that while he rejects much of the arms industry as being mercenary and corrupt, at the same time his character is based on new and better technology bringing about the good. He sees the saving grace of technology.
For this reason, he can never be a Luddite industrialist. The problem is bad people, not technology. Technology can redeem us.
One of the better story lines that was turned into a graphic novel was “The Armor Wars”, in which many of the secrets of his armor are stolen and sold around the world. So he appears to go renegade, taking down superhero and villain alike, to neutralize his stolen technology.
In that the good guys are just as willing to steal and use his inventions, this puts him in the scientist’s paradox: “What if I invent somebody that *everybody* wants to misuse?” In which the good guys are willing to break the rules just as much as the bad guys.
His top scientist even invents an Internet tapeworm designed to track down and destroy any information about his technology in other people’s computers.
In doing this, he ends up harming a lot of people, and even killing some. He even has to fake his own death.
But there is a strange consistency in his life at the same time. Even his iron suit itself is not particularly special—it is just iron. It’s secret is in how it is made. It is perfect down to the molecule, without fault. And this lends to the steel its super-steel ability.
Like a superconductor that is ordinary until just the right conditions exist, then becomes extraordinary.
The problem with the armor is not the technology, it is Tony Stark himself. He is the flaw in the armor. He has a defective heart, literally, and the armor is a perfect prosthesis. It not only makes him superhuman, it makes him able to do ordinary, normal things that other people can do, without risking heart failure.
When his heart was finally repaired was not ironically when his alcoholism again asserted itself. Even with a good heart, Tony Stark is still the flaw in the armor.
Technology can be good or bad. But people are weak.
This is a plot line that has been mined more than the western hero chasing the bad guy that shot his father. In the Watchmen1986 or so, several characters became government agents, others retired, and a couple became vigilantes. The same plot device was used in the Dark Knight series, where Batman was forced into retirement, Superman began working for the government, and Superman tore Green Arrow's right arm off when he refused to quit the business. Pixar picked up the plot device for The Incredibles a few years ago. I don't follow comics that much, but it's almost the standard tableau of comic series now, just as the secret identity was the accepted tableau during the 1950's/early sixties.
Supposedly, the director has said he is setting this up for the sequels. He's also said that this is one of the reasons they hired Downey.
The “superheroes being forced to retire or work for the government” trope was also used recently in DC’s “New Frontier,” set during the McCarthy era.
The funny thing is that, whenever DC does this, it always divides the heroes as follows: Superman as government “stooge,” Batman as outlaw/vigilante.
I always thought this was the easy, cliched, way to do it. If anything, I think an equally compelling case could be made for the opposite.
Batman is really Bruce Wayne, a wealthy member of Gotham society. His parents were the elite of the community. In both his playboy ID and his Batman persona he tends to pal around with the police. Who’s the say he wouldn’t sign on for government-sanctioned crime fighting?
Conversely, Superman is an outsider. His Kryptonian father was treated as a heretic for predicting that planet’s demise. His adoptive parents hid his powers, in part, because they feared the government would take Clark away from them. He grew up on a farm and later became a journalist. Why wouldn’t he be the one with a healthy mistrust of the government?
Marvel’s story arcs are incomprehensible now, basically there books are mini left wing propaganda pieces that have no coherence since Stan “the man” Lee was fired.
Basically addled minded liberalism has killed off a fine American past time..
Tony Stark was an interesting character, I am glad the film is doing well.
Getting into the psychology of the characters, though, Batman's defining moment was the murder of his parents. The police never caught the murderer, and Batman became who he was specifically for the purpose of being a vigilante. In the fifties, few people questioned a police commissioner having a direct line to a guy who's name he didn't know, who would go out and break and enter, beat up and arrest people. We were a society that accepted authority and their decisions far more easily. As society changed, the character was transformed with Gordon being seen as a right wing nut, and Batman becoming a criminal. The reality of people like Bernard Goetz forced us to recognize that the vigilante character simply was not acceptable to authority.
Superman, OTOH, has an almost insane willingness to submit to people who are weaker, slower and less intelligent than him. Most toddlers would, at some point in time, kill their parents if they were capable of it. Not intentionally, but during a tantrum, the kind most toddlers have when you have to pick them up to keep them away from danger.
The Superman character would have to be almost inhumanly compliant to submit to parental authority before learning self-control, particularly when the only way to discipline him would be to back over him with the Buick a few times. The development of the Superman character followed the lines of submitting to authority willingly, even when the authority had no enforcement capability over him.
All good points. I’m simply noting that, at least once, if DC is going to keep doing the “Superman and Batman on opposites sides of the government” story every few years, they ought to try varying it.
I've also noticed that many of the modern comic artists draw very well, but cannot illustrate a story line. They make a lot of terrific stand alone illustrations, but there's no story flow. The modern story lines are also deeply nihilistic. While Frank Miller's Sin City was brilliant, it's simply too dark for me to read. This is true of most comic story lines now. The characters are dark and lost.
Heh. But this is the same Neal Adams who published "Ms Mystic," a comic book that only came out, on average, every three years WITH a "to be continued" storyline.
Yeah, nobody’s ever accused comic book people of having a consistent thought process. I always liked Adams’ art, but he’s probably one of the most liberal of the artists. In the Ms. Mystic series she avenges the death of a bald eagle. The series always reminded me of Captain Planet, except with good illustration and a hot chick for the hero.
I've never noticed an overt political slant to Busiek's work.
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