Tony Stark’s history as a Cartoon Villain

In The Comics, That Is

Hey everybody! I’m back again with a deep dive into some comic book characters! This time, we’re going with Mr. Anthony Edward Stark, but his friends call him Tony. His enemies, allies and everything in between call him… Iron Man. And before we get into it, no we aren’t talking the MCU version. Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man can Rest In Peace as far as this conversation is concerned.

Nope… we’re talking the original guy. The one and only comic iteration of him that’s been rocking the world since the 60s. So… why are we bringing hip up today? Well, simply put… he’s had a colorful history. While Tony Stark has often been the greatest hero the world has ever known, he’s also been quite the opposite. Remember the last post where we talked about Reed Richards? Well… Tony’s worse. Like a lot worse. Like at his most evil, he might as well be a mustache twirling villain tying damsels to trains worse.

Now, you might think I’m exaggerating, so let’s correct that shall we? Let’s start with Civil War. And again, not the movie. In the comics, it was still Captain America vs. Tony Stark, but things were a lot more… heavy when things took off. In terms of comparison, to give you just a taste of how bad this got compared to the movies, let’s talk Spider-Men. In the movies, Tony Recruited Peter for what amounted to a small scrap at an airport.

It was a short fight, and Tony really only brought him as a method of defusing the situation if it broke out into a fight between him and Captain America. That was, for all intents and purposes, about it. After that point, Tony keeps Peter firmly out of harm’s way. Now let’s talk comics. In the comics, Tony’s desire to get superheroes involved with the government is so great that he talks Peter, someone who has probably the most reason to have a secret identity considering the amount of people in the world who want him dead, including the Kingpin who is one of the most dangerous men alive (more on that later), into revealing his identity to the press.