Tony Stark has a complicated relationship with...Morality

There is this great article I found on Tumblr exploring Morality through Iron Man in comics. It's really interesting exploring philosophy through fictional characters. The article even compares Iron Man's view of morality with Captain America.  They are friends and teammates but their worldviews sometimes conflict and makes you question your own worldview or at least think about what your worldview is. Here is a passage from the article.

The poster boy for deontology in the Marvel universe (and arguably one of the many icons for deontology and conventional morality in our own universe) is Captain America. As I said, most of the time there doesn’t have to be a conflict between the two schools of thought. The Crimson Dynamo is attacking New York? Stop him. Apartment building on fire? Rescue the inhabitants. The hard cases arise in situations like… Oh I dunno, you predict America’s ruin at the hands of a burgeoning super-hero population, unless you can regulate them in some way. Or perhaps universe after universe is cascading into one another, threatening your planet, your dimension, and even the entire multiverse. 

Whatever the case may be, Tony will do what he has to do to achieve the outcome that’s most beneficial. Captain America will do the right thing. Tony has to destroy a world to save the universe? He probably will, because the universe is something worth defending. Captain America on the other hand, well, destroy a world? How can you even consider that? It’s just plain wrong. It’s Cap’s view that tends to be the more conventional one as well, for the most part. He’s considered a paragon of virtue for a reason. Superman is much the same as a DC equivalent. These are both heroes who are for the most part, deontological in their reasoning.

The article makes some valid points. I think that somethings are truly wrong and good consequences is not enough to justify doing something wrong in the first place. Sometimes choices are tough. The article does not discuss the World War Hulk storyline, but in it the Hulk return to take vengeance on  Iron Man and some other heroes who tried to exile the Hulk into space.






At one point, Iron Man said "Sometimes, you have to play god",  I think that this sums up Iron Man's character and the article sums it up well.  He is willing to do whatever he has to do, even bad things he will feel guilty about later, in order to get the best results as he sees them.  Although I like reading about Iron Man it's not the king of Morality that I think that should be lived out - although there people who think this way.

Tony Stark has a complicated relationship with...

The Gospel According to Iron Man

I've always been a fan of Iron Man. I mean can you really get better? I mean his powers are almost on par with Superman and he made it himself. I've been reading the comic books for a while. I got thinking about what kind of spiritual messages the character brings. I got to thinking about it because of a tweet from the director of the Iron Man movies, Jon Favreau.

The first 21st century superhero is a hedonistic, narcissistic, even nihilistic, adrenaline junkie, billionaire entrepreneur do-gooder. If Peter Parker's life lesson is that "with great power comes great responsibility," Tony Stark's is that with great power comes a shit-ton of fun.
You can't get any more Gen Y than that.

I got to thinking: How close is it to the character that Jesus wants us to have? I mean I've got to admit that the movies do a great job of portraying Iron Man as this way. From the first movie, the way Tony Stark decides to use his powers to help others if guilt over how his technology has been used. He feels responsible. He stops building weapons. You might argue that Iron Man may be more about ego. Being responsible for the harm because of his technologies forces Tony to choose to be a hero. This is explored in the comics. It was well done in the the Extermis storyline, now being told as a Motion Comic. Tony actually says that being Iron Man means he can pretend to be more than a man who makes land mines. It freed him of his past as a weapons dealer so he can be more. As far as responsibility, Spider-man does what he does because He feels like he must not ignore the needs of the others. It's also out of guilt but not the same of Iron Man. I think that there is more about fun in Iron Man than Spider-man. I mean being Spider-man is more of a burden for Peter Parker than being Iron Man is for Tony Stark.

I think that Jesus expects us to look at our gifts and resources as being in His service to help others not feed our own ego.

As for the Theology by which Tony lives his life, despite the info at the link at the end of the post, I do remember a point in which Iron Man and Spider-man had a conversation about the things that science cannot answer. When I find that story I'll probably will post on it. 

I think that neither character expresses a Biblical worldview but  Spider-man's is closest to God's. We can't just ignore the miracles and other spiritual matters.

As for the burden of responsibility, in my opinion, the burden comes from accountability. Being held to a standard is where it gets difficult.

The religion of Iron Man (Tony Stark)