# Wait, wait a sec, so you are telling me that Tony Stark is a young genius in the 1940's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 10, 2013, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301 "2013-04-10T06:47:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/1 "2013-04-10T06:47:06Z")
Watching **Captain America** , and it doesn’t make sense. Is it his dad or something? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/2 "2013-04-10T06:49:45Z")
Yes, it’s his Dad, [Howard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_Industries). ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/3 "2013-04-10T06:53:39Z")
In the 2011 movie _Captain America: The First Avenger_ one of the major supporting characters is Howard Stark, Tony Iron Man Stark’s father who is introduced via a Tony Stark bio-film in the opening scene award ceremony exposition dump in the first Iron Man movie. Tony’s daddy issues are further explored in the second Iron Man movie (in which we see Howard Stark again in archival footage from the Stark Expo film strips from the 70s). Is that what you’re asking about? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/4 "2013-04-10T06:57:37Z")
You say you’re watching _Captain America_. Are you watching it with the sound turned down? You clearly know that that Iron Man Stark is named Tony because you refer to him as such in your post. Howard Stark is repeatedly referred to as Howard Stark in _Captain America_. They have different first names. I’m not saying that characters with different first names are _never_ the same character, but they’re _usually_ not the same character. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/5 "2013-04-10T07:11:51Z")
I do not remember any of that from Marvel canon. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/6 "2013-04-10T07:14:57Z")
He’s even alluded to in _The Avengers_. After Tony meets Captain America he says “_That’s_ the guy my father never shut up about?” ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/7 "2013-04-10T07:29:05Z")
Well, watching further in the movie, canon has pretty much gone off the rails… Still very entertaining! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/8 "2013-04-10T07:38:09Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > Well, watching further in the movie, canon has pretty much gone off the rails… > > Still very entertaining! [Which canon?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Marvel_Comics)#Known_alternate_universes) ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/9 "2013-04-10T07:41:10Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > [Which canon?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Marvel_Comics)#Known_alternate_universes) Which one is the canon often used for wedding processions? ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/10 "2013-04-10T08:16:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > [Which canon?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Marvel_Comics)#Known_alternate_universes) Wow. You have to be kidding. They never had all that crap when I was reading comics back in the early 70’s! ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/11 "2013-04-10T09:15:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > [Which canon?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Marvel_Comics)#Known_alternate_universes) Is that for real? Who keeps track of that? And, seriously? > [@](#): > > Earth-215476 - Sesame Street Heroes - Home reality of a superheroic version of Sesame Street 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/12 "2013-04-10T09:55:24Z")
This comic has been brought to you by the letters “W”, “T” and “F”. ---
**Author:** ![JLRogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@JLRogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JLRogers)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/13 "2013-04-10T10:10:32Z")
Comic books have ridiculous plots, characters, and settings. News at 11. :rolleyes: Not that they’re “bad” in some objective sense, but comic book fans routinely accept conceits just as ludicrous as “SuperMuppets.” ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/14 "2013-04-10T11:26:04Z")
Howard Stark was pretty much relegated to flashback sequences in Iron Man for the occasional Freudian angst (Tony has daddy issues). Johnathan Hickman expanded the character’s back story about five years ago in S.H.I.E.L.D. partnering him up with Reed Richards’ dad as a pair of genius secret agents during WWII. This, I imagine, is the backstory borrowed for the Avengers/Catain America/Iron Man film franchise. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/15 "2013-04-10T15:18:36Z")
Well, think for a second about the inherent problems with plotting a comic book for 50+ years. Either your hero ages with the world around him, in which case Cap is now in his 90s, or he doesn’t, in which case you have this eternally youthful guy in 2012 who looks no older than he did in WWII. Or you don’t advance the setting of the book and just keep telling stories from the 1950s. All of those have some serious problems. The solution most take is to reboot the series every so often to update the origin to a more modern times. But if you do that, it would be boring as hell to retell the exact same story (just substituting Korea/Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan for Germany) each time, so you change things up to keep it interesting, while staying true to the essence of the character. A perfect solution? No, but show me a better one, keeping in mind than Jack Kirby and Stan Lee don’t have any better ideas either. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/16 "2013-04-10T22:09:26Z")
You forgot a fourth possibility: Have the characters be replaced by a new generation, like they’ve done with the Flashes and the Green Lanterns (and like they were sort of doing with Batman, before they undid it). ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/17 "2013-04-10T23:58:23Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > Well, think for a second about the inherent problems with plotting a comic book for 50+ years. Either your hero ages with the world around him, in which case Cap is now in his 90s, or he doesn’t, in which case you have this eternally youthful guy in 2012 who looks no older than he did in WWII. Or you don’t advance the setting of the book and just keep telling stories from the 1950s. All of those have some serious problems. Though in this case, Captain America has super healing which could make him ageless a la Wolverine. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/18 "2013-04-11T00:00:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Earth-215476 - Sesame Street Heroes - Home reality of a superheroic version of Sesame Street Eh, just google ‘Get Fuzzy Muppets’. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/19 "2013-04-11T00:49:51Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > I do not remember any of that from Marvel canon. That’s because the movies are an adaptation of about 80 years worth storytelling. They’re going to pick, choose, update, and adapt the source material. See also: Stark injured in Afghanistan instead of Vietnam and Nick Fury is African-American. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301/20 "2013-04-12T23:36:06Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Though in this case, Captain America has super healing which could make him ageless a la Wolverine. He also spent decades frozen in a block of ice instead of aging. It’s just, where it was once only a couple decades, now it’s much longer, due to “marvel time” being loose and WW2 being a fixed point. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-wait-a-sec-so-you-are-telling-me-that-tony-stark-is-a-young-genius-in-the-1940s/655301.md?page=2)