Iron Man: The Man Under The Suit

Today, Iron man is the new favorite superhero of many.

Is that because he’s relatable? Or because he’s a fantastical character?

One thing I always noticed about Iron man’s origin is that he never learned martial arts or any hand-to-hand combat. In addition to that, he’s someone whose superpower is his level of intellect, which is very high.

Tony Stark is always seen attending seminars or roaming freely without security. It could mean that since he’s under the protection of the US government, he can’t be touched or harmed.

Again, the origin story of Iron man always shows him escaping from America’s current hated community or group.

The story remains the same, just the enemies change.

In comics, Tony Stark escapes Wong-Chu, a communist extremist. In movies, he escapes a middle-eastern Muslim terrorist called Raza.

He escapes the enemies with the help of another character called Yo-Hinsen, who sacrifices himself and helps him build a mind-blowing suit.

Tony Stark returns home, and wages war against crime and world threat and go on to become a member of the Avengers.

Now let’s learn Tony Stark as a man.

Tony Stark in the first two movies was a psychologically troubled character.

We see Howard Stark; his father left behind an infinite financial resource. However, Tony always felt deficient emotional support from his father. A relatable and common problem again.

Tony Stark is extremely intelligent, yet lonely.

In Iron man movie, he changes his company policies and even fights an internal enemy, Obadiah Stane.

He announces that he’s Iron man and becomes America’s favorite superhero.

However, the problem persists in the sequel too. He still feels the emptiness in his life and the absence of validation and love from his father.

He was the unloved child or at least that’s what he thought.

The darker and deeper pain was so great that to escape that, Tony developed a form of narcissism. The narcissism in Tony Stark actually worked as a cushion for the feeling of being a rejected child.

Tony Stark’s narcissism was a self-imposed wall between his feelings and himself. He rejected the need of being loved by people he loves.

The narcissistic behavior of Tony Stark was very frequent in the first two movies.

Somewhere his announcement that he’s Iron man was more for his own ego than for world peace.

He stopped caring for the negative public perception and did what he wanted to do.

In Iron man 2, Tony realizes that his blood is being intoxicated. His self-esteem plummets low with the rising intoxication level.

He doesn’t say that to anyone. Instead, he accepted his fate and started to cushion his fears with parties.

Here we see how Tony was alone deep inside. He somewhere didn’t even have the will to live and it had a great deal to do with the relationship he and his father had.

The inner turmoil becomes more visible as he distances himself from people subconsciously and parties to hide his pain.

Tony almost forces Pepper to become his company’s CEO and pushes his friend, Lt. Col. James Rhodes to partner with Justin Hammer.

Things change when Tony discovers an archived video where his father talks to him. That’s when he knows that his father loved him.

It was then when we see Tony Stark transforming.

He casts out his narcissistic attitude, and repair the interpersonal ruptures with Rhodes and Pepper.

He goes on to defeat Ivan Vanko and Hammer.

Iron man evolved as a character since then and now can be considered as a rational being.

From a self-loathing and arrogant person, he has become a responsible team member of the Avengers.

Also Read – How Super is Superman?