Iron Man surprised me today

Cafe Society
#1

So I’m at the local bookstore today, walking past the comics (which I haven’t been into for a while) and I decide to look at a few, one of them Iron Man Extremis. As I’m flipping through the pages, admiring the artwork, the creativity, the thought pops into my mind that however nasty the bad guy is, Iron Man is not going to kill him, and then on the next page Iron Man blows the bad guy’s head clean off his shoulders.

This was different, and interesting. Batman would never do such a thing, ever, and here Tony goes and takes the guy out fast and clean like we always wanted them to. So when did Iron Man start killing people? Is this the way he rolls now? Or is it exclusive to the marvel knights category?

#2

I think it’s a question of how far the hero is pushed. And the writer.

#3

I don’t follow the comic, but in the first movie, he straight up kills dudes left and right.

Actually, it’s kind of funny. When the first X-Men movie came out, and kicked off the current wave of superhero films, they went to some lengths to avoid having the X-Men kill anyone. In the second X-Men film, Wolverine stabs a bunch of dudes - but I recall an interview with the director, where he insisted that he’d just wounded them, not actually killed anyone. When the first Iron Man movie comes out, Iron Man is hosing down terrorists with napalm by the end of Act I.

Odd how standards have changed for these films in a relatively short period.

#4

A LOT of action movies are like that these days it seems. Drones have replaced jets so there’s no guilt over shooting them down. Even Inception had to include the line about how they’re not killing anyone, just manifestations of a subconscious.

#5

That’s stupid (what the director said). When the soldiers broke into the compound Wolverine stabbed one of them, with both claws, through the fucking chest up against a wall. How can one just be wounded from that? :confused:

#6

There’s one notable scene where terrorists have taken civilians hostage, and Iron Man is apparently frozen in indecision, but then we switch to Tony’s HUD view, and he’s not frozen, he’s busy painting crosshairs on the heads of all the terrorists. And then a little doohickey pops up from his shoulder and shoots them all, leaving the hostages untouched.

#7

Huh, Iron Man’s a comic now? Cool.

#8

Tangentially related thread

When did DC & Marvel start acknowledging civilian deaths due to superhuman fights?

#9

And after that, he takes the leader of the terrorists and throws him to the mob of villagers he’d just been terrorizing, with the pretty clear implication that they’re going to tear him apart with their bare hands.

#10

Well, that’s the thing about Tony Stark - he’s a weapons manufacturer. He thinks in terms of killing people.

#11

Mortally wounded is still “only” wounded.

#12

Not when you’re mortally wounded TO DEATH!

#13

How right you are. When I was in the US Army and trained with an M-16 we were told it was designed to mortally wound. So if hit you’d die, but your buddy would think he could get you to a medic in time, drag you away, thus taking TWO people out of a fight.

#14

Superheroes have been killing people for decades.

Not *every *superhero mind you – there’s quite a few that refuse to kill under any circumstances – but others have killed a bad guy to save innocents, or accidentally killed a supervillain, or kill baddies who get in their way (this last is the philosophy Wolverine subscribes to). There’s even been a couple of cases of ‘suicide by superhero’.

Tony Stark hasn’t personally killed as many people as Wolverine or the Punisher, but he’s killed a few. If you don’t count the deaths directly or indirectly caused by his weapons dealing over the years, his body count comprises at least:

Malin (Extremis)
Titanium Man II (Armor Wars)
An unknown number of mooks (in Tony’s origin story)
M.O.D.O.G (Invincible Iron Man)

There were also Marilla and Rita DeMara during The Crossing storyline, which I don’t count because Tony was brainwashed at the time. When his armor became sentient it killed Blacklash while Tony was trapped inside the armor. You could argue by creating Clor (the clone Thor), he indirectly murdered poor Bill Foster.

#15

Yeah, it was not a convincing argument. I don’t think the director intended it to be, either. I got the impression that it was the official line for the moral guardians out there, with the understanding that the actual fans would recognize bullshit for what it was.

#16

It’s only a flesh wound…

#17

Iron Man didn’t kill any people. Just some assorted nameless foreigners. Not really people. People have names. He never kills anyone with a name.

#18

It’s all okay until he loses his mind. Then he’d start killing the people he once saved.

(Or he loses his sight, which would probably end up with the same result - if he can’t see, he might well kill indiscriminately.)

#19

Tony Stark, as a former SHIELD director and US Secretary of Defense, certainly has the Marvel U. equivalent of a license to kill. He has to explain it in detail to the authorities, but there’s an assumption that he knows the legal and moral issues involved.

#20

Has Captain America killed anyone yet?