Tony Stark has the all time being an ass award because of Civil War. He’s practically a villain in that story.
But it’s not just Civil War. Armor Wars, even back in the 60s vs Titanium Man… this has all happened before. Hell, even Rhodey in the suit was Tony being a dick to the Avengers.
I don’t think Rhodey’s joining the Avengers as Iron Man counts as Stark dickishness. At the time, Tony was busy pickling his liver and was not remotely involved in the Avengers decision-making. I recall the sequence as being something like this:
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Rhodey puts on the suit in an emergency, telling no one for standard comic-book reasons (that make sense, actually) but not seeking out the Avengers and asking to join up. Presumably, the suit automatically makes his voice sound like Iron Man’s (who also presumably doesn’t sound like Stark in the first place.)
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Beyonder snatches up the World’s Finest, including Rhodey, for the Secret Wars. Not knowing ANY of these people from Adam except by rep, Rhodey keeps his lip shut. Monica Rambeau notices that he’s acting odd, but, oddly, neither Cap, Thor, Wasp, or Hawkeye seem to realize anything unusual. Cap I can kind of explain away because he was really busy leading an unruly team, and he had the world’s top tech guy on his side anyway, so he never really had occasion to call on Shellhead for technical expertise. As for the other three–I got nothing.
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After the SW, Rhodey goes back with the Avengers for no particular reason. He immediately gets tapped by the Vision for the West Coast Avengers. It’s in LA, where’s he’s based anyway, and Stark isn’t paying him jack at this point, and he’s got to eat, and there’s two hot chicks running around bare-legged, so he says yeah.
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Toward the end of the Wackos first case, he fesses up and stays an Avenger till Tony dries out.
Can’t see any Stark assholery there.
[SIZE=1]What’s frightening is that I got all that from memory. God, I’m a nerd.
Can’t quite agree. What exposes Registration as an imperialist power grab came a lot earlier than that: it’s Luke Cage.
As the story began, Luke was already de facto registered. No mask; heck, he wears street clothes. No secret identity. More skilled than most. He was in the freaking phone book, and married with a kid, and before the New Avengers pertty much semi-retired. The only reason to want him to register is to force him to do the government’s bidding, to recruit him into Stark’s super-army–to make him a slave with a per diem account.
If I recall correctly, the whole registration thing came about because some family wanted to sue some superhero for killing their kid as collateral damage. If you hold superheroes accountable for collateral damage, you’ve just handed the city to the supervillains. If Spiderman won’t fight the Green Goblin out of fear of litigation, then who will stop him? The police?
I was thinking more about the time when they were playing ‘Rhodey’s in the suit… well, actually Tony, but he’s not telling anyone.’ ‘Wait, now he’s saying it’s a third guy.’ Like… what, issue 40ish Whackoes?
Soooo, he’s out fighting drug dealers, a bullet bounces off his skin and kills some 21 year-old college student or unwed mother, and then what? He accidentally kills someone trying to rescue them from a fire, because he has not the training to do it right? Hell, technically he’s an escaped convict with underworld connections and superpowers; why shouldn’t the government know where he is at all times? They should know where all powered people are and what they can do. There’s a high price for what they do: with great power comes great accountability.
Damn, I really didn’t want to start up another Civil War debate. Tony really was painted in the worst possible light (vs. Saint Cap) and there are some good reasons for superhuman registration. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Church wedding, or JP?
Was the union ever consummated?
I didn’t participate in previous CW debates, so they don’t count.
I didn’t say registration was a bad idea; it’s entirely rational. I’m just saying that there’s a difference between registration and trying to raise a superhuman army, and that’s what Stark’s doing.
I miss having a Tony Stark I could like. Next they’ll be turning Dick Grayson into a pedophile.
Actually, Luke’s conviction was annulled by the end of his series, before it became Power Man and Iron Fist. And actually, he was bonded, as he was a private detective Hero for Hire.
Seriously, for all intents and purposes, before the law, he was as registered as it was possible for someone to be.
MBH: Tony became a metal physical duplicate of Janet Van Dyne. I was hoping Pym would punch her out.
Personally, I just saw that whole thing as more of an example of jackassed Martinetism than anything else, or even just putting on a serious front/making an example for the press.
Again, personally, if I’d been in on the Cage operation, I’d probably either ignored him, like you say, or simply “declared” him to be registered and then ignored him for the time being, at least until the heat died down.
Heck, at the time, I thought the more clever thing to do instead of having a SWAT team ready at his door at midnight on the Registration Day deadline would have been to just to send some Casper Milquetoast guy with a clipboard to politely knock on his door—so he’d get flattened when Luke busted through to escape without a second look, expecting armed opposition. Y’know, to make the anti-reg guys look like the assholes, while my side was just trying to follow the law. Kind of the Machiavellian Gandhi approach. 
You know Hank’s reconciled with her over that so many times by this point it’s starting to make her look like a shrew when the next writer takes over and that’s the only thing about their relationship they can remember. He wasn’t in his right mind and it was one slap not systematic abuse. Her reaction of the time of leaving him and having all of his friends get pretty angry with him was well done but having them locked into a cycle of making up and then having her flip out off panel again and break Hank down over it is terrible. It’s gotten to the point where the situation viewed as a whole makes Janet seem like the abusive one in the relationship.
And I’d still love it if Hank slapped Tony-Janet-Ultron.
Actually, a supervillian, Nitro, blew up a Connecticut town, including a school. People wanted to hold the New Warriors (?) responsible because they didn’t stop the bad guys without collateral damage. Why Speedball was in bigger trouble than Nitro, I still haven’t figured out.
The Warriors WERE partially responsible for the devastation. They idiotically escalated the situation for a stupid reason–i.e., they were shooting a reality TV show. Ignoring possible civilian casualities is only permitted in Manhattan.
I missed how they escalated the situation (or maybe I didn’t buy the reasoning when it was presented and forgot what the reasoning was). I don’t see shooting a reality series alone as a reason for them to be responsible, but I’m not a Marvel universe lawyer.
Oh course you’re not, you’re D_Odds. Everyone knows the only two lawyers in the Marvel universe are Daredevil and She-Hulk. 
She’s been disbarred. And Damage Control(?!?) apparently had stuffed Nitro full of supersteroids and drugs. I didn’t read that issue, and it makes no sense to me.
So it wasn’t really the Warrior’s fault, he was… literally… unstable.