I want to be done with Can't-Write-Well and his Iron Man hell-comic, but I'm just too invested. I'm sorry. I can't stand the idea that some zoomer who's never read any of the classic Iron Man stories will walk away from this one thinking it's captured Tony's essence.

So: Issue #18 of said hell-comic came out this week, and it's half a decent commentary on Tony's motivations and half an absolute smear job.

What does Can't-Write-Well get right? Well, Tony does in fact feel pretty worthless, does worry that he's accomplishing nothing, and would focus, laser-like, on every mistake he's ever made and ignore the far more numerous times he's been noble, heroic, and humble. And yes: he does very much want to be the paragon. As a lonely, sensitive boarding school kid, he nourished his soul on Malory. Of course he'd want to be an honorable, selfless knight!

Here's the problem though: if Tony's that much of a perfectionist - if he truly longs to be a saint - his actions in these "Books of Korvac" make no damn sense at all. And Can't-Write-Well, possibly recognizing his mistake on some level, tries to write around that by supposing Tony is Dr. Jekyll. In other words, the theory advanced is that Tony made Iron Man so he could shove all the "bad stuff" in his personality onto Tony Stark while pursuing good as the Golden Avenger. And -- that's not what Jekyll & Hyde is about, nor does it correctly describe the Tony Stark/Iron Man relationship.

Regarding the former: Dr. Jekyll doesn't unleash Hyde because he wants to be rid of his shadow. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. He frees Hyde to indulge in that shadow without consequences. I went back and read the novella again just to be sure I remembered it correctly, and yes: throughout Jekyll's confession at the end, there are references to the enjoyment and renewed youth he initially felt as Hyde pursued his every hidden vice. It's only when circumstances make clear that Hyde cannot be controlled or fully segregated from the Jekyll identity that the latter regrets toying with his special potion. The message here is that the dark side of one's nature - one's concupiscence, if you will - will eventually overtake you if you allow it any latitude. That's the way I understand Stevenson's work, at any rate.

Now what's interesting about this story is that it can be applied to Tony -- but only when he's drinking. To me, Jekyll & Hyde is a very, very apt metaphor for addiction. And I bet you dollars to donuts I'm not the only one who's made that observation. Those first drinks - or those first doses - do liberate you. Otherwise, why start the cursed cycle? But as time goes on, the impact of the drink or the drug starts intruding on your formerly ordinary life, and the trauma of that drives you to seek further release. 

But Tony doesn't build Iron Man in Tales #39 to satiate - or escape, as Can't-Write-Well claims - his id. As I've emphasized many times before, Tony builds Iron Man simply to survive a mortal injury. Granted, later on, he discovers it's a great comfort to disappear into the Iron Man identity -- but what he's escaping in those scenes is not some evil that's inherent in his true personality but something that's been imposed from the outside. In reality, "Tony Stark, confident billionaire playboy" is the put-on! It's a façade he learned to don to escape his father's accusations that he's a coward and a fancy boy, and it persists because childhood programming is hard to change. 

No: Iron Man is not a cover for the intrinsically depraved Tony Stark, nor does it enable the same (assuming such a thing as an intrinsically depraved Tony Stark exists anywhere but in Calvinist theology and Tony's own mind, which -- well, we'll get to that). On the contrary, Iron Man allows Tony to be his true, heroic, and compassionate self. And that's why he's addicted to the armor. It's not because of the fame. It's not because of the butt pats or the parades or the theoretical statues in Central Park. It's because the armor protects him from a world he believes will judge him for being gentle, kind, and moral. (Thanks, Howard, you asshole.)

Does Tony have flaws? Certainly! But they are not the flaws implied on the page I've captured below the cut.

I mean, he does like the ladies. But that's not automatically bad. It is past time for him to settle down with a wife and kids, but enjoying the company of the distaff sex is pretty effing natural for a dude. And this is not a "boys will be boys" dodge; Tony doesn't do anything women don't freely consent to. Furthermore, he doesn't holler at or otherwise mistreat other people unless he's extremely stressed out or drunk. If this is the first time you've stopped by this obsessive, autistic little blog, please look through my archives. The real Tony Stark, though human like the rest of us, richly deserves a place as one of the nicest, most generous people in the 616. And I'm talking about his actions as Tony Stark, mind you -- not as Iron Man. He's literally taken bullets for his employees -- when he's not forgiving their questionable pasts, throwing them lavish appreciation parties, listening to their grievances (when they arise), and/or giving them raises. He also shares his wealth with both the mundane and the superhero community, is wonderful with children, and quickly lends a sympathetic ear to anyone who is troubled -- something, by the way, that he often refuses to accept when it's offered to him.

So what are Tony's actual faults? Chief among these is, I'd say, an inability to properly modulate his trust. He swings between extremes, either failing to trust people he should or trusting too much when he shouldn't. Or, to put it another way, he seems to have difficulty accurately assessing character. When he's intimacy-starved - say, after a difficult break-up - he'll immediately embrace the next person who shows any interest (real or feigned) in his well-being. This is what happens with Indres in Denny O'Neil's run, to take one infamous example. But at other times - especially when he's struggling with a difficult and/or embarrassing personal problem - he'll remain mum even around people he's known and loved for years. Demon in a Bottle and Armor Wars feature excellent examples of this second tendency. 

Tony gets betrayed a lot by people who don't have his back. And yes, he also pisses his genuine friends off sometimes -- not because he's trying to push them away or because he considers them mere obstacles to achieving his objectives, but because it's been drilled into his head (by his father, once again) that he will be mocked if he ever shows his underbelly -- or because he just wants to protect his friends from uglier realities he, as a pragmatist, can see and (very, very reluctantly) accept. Tony's a "just war" guy who's friends with idealists whom he admires and feels inadequate beside. That makes him noticeably self-conscious when he's grappling with making a greyer call. (The other day, I remarked in a Twitter DM that Tony would absolutely pull the lever if he were faced with the trolley dilemma -- but then he would spend the next dozen years or so hating himself utterly for it.)

Tony is also weighed down by a hubris of a sort. But it's not mere ego, and it's not a conviction that he can make the world better if only certain impediments - such as others' objections - were removed. Instead, it's an outsized sense of responsibility. If something goes wrong in his general vicinity, Tony genuinely believes it's his fault no matter the true level of his culpability. It's like he thinks he can control every variable, or foresee every potential outcome. And obviously, he really can't.

With all of that in mind, let's look at this page:

Okay, from top to bottom, here's what the art is referencing:

1. Tony stunning Stingray during Armor Wars.
2. Tony leading the charge to kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence at the end of Operation Galactic Storm.
3. Captain America's (apparent) death at the end of Civil War.
4. And on the bottom right, Iron Man #182.

Let's leave aside that these are not even sequenced correctly. (#182 happened before the others.) Let's instead discuss the context for the first three of these events --

1.) Stingray: Prior to this scene, Tony discovers that villains have seized hold of his tech. He holds himself personally responsible for this development in part because of the hubris previously discussed and in part because he probably believes his drunken hobo year enabled the theft (which is a more reasonable fear, let's be frank). He thus decides that all remnants of said tech must be destroyed so it can never be misused. 

So why go after Stingray, a friendly? Because Tony has good reason not to trust the US government either. In fact, Nick Fury, at the behest of the US military, once tried to buy SI out from under Tony so the company could be redirected to weapons development. Additionally, the means by which Tony intends to disable his tech in this arc are deliberately designed to be nonlethal. The only target who dies during Armor Wars does so accidentally and not because Tony sets out to kill him.

2.) The Supreme Intelligence commits genocide prior to Tony's act of vigilante justice. Here are the key pages (from Avengers #347):

Reader, you tell me: if you learned that a certain alien creature was personally responsible for the destruction of greater than 90% of a intergalactic civilization, would you be able to restrain yourself? Or would you, like Tony and half of the other Avengers here, conclude that such a calculating monster deserves a dose of repulsor rays right between its hideous eyes? And be honest. Even if you don't believe in the death penalty as a general rule, I know you're unlikely to be that high-minded about the matter because - I'm pretty sure - I have a decent understanding of human nature.

3.) And as for Civil War, my eternal weight: Tony doesn't "kill" Steve. He actually doesn't want to kill anyone at any point during this mishandled and unwise event. Please check out my Civil War tag for more detailed discussions covering Tony's reasons for siding with the government -- or better yet, read the 2004 Iron Man volume (in particular, issues #1-14, though the issues from #15 onward are also valuable for capturing the aftermath) and Christos Gage's Casualties of War.

The above page from Can't-Write-Well's comic utterly obscures all of this pertinent information and leaves a more naïve reader with the impression that Tony's been a killer all along. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tony is a consequentialist, yes, but a tortured one with an indisputable moral compass. You have to invert him with a literal magic-spell-gone-wrong before he'll even consider toying with entire populations simply for his own glory and profit. (See the Axis event and Superior Iron Man. Or better yet, don't. I hate those with a fiery passion because they are routinely misunderstood as emblematic of Tony's fundamental villainy instead of evidence of the opposite.)  True: Tony himself would definitely see the moments depicted as indelible stains on his soul, so the fact that they're brought up at all is a pretty damned accurate reflection of Tony's internal narrative. But you cannot use them to justify the choice to have Tony fly into a rage and kill all his friends because they "got in his way".  

There are other problems with this comic (why, for instance, has Tony's broken neck been mended but not his morphine addiction?), but I think I'll spare you before this gets too long. Suffice it to say that Can't-Write-Well is still breaking my favorite character and I wish he would stop.