I am no way insulting Iron Man. I am the biggest Iron Man fan out there and love the movies. I though Iron Man 3 was the best Comicbookmovie of the year. With that said, I just have noticed one problem with Tony Stark in the newer movies.

TONY STARK IS NOT AS SMART AS HE WAS IN IRON MAN 1!

A major part of Tony's character is his intellect. He is a genius. In Iron Man 1, in that cave, when he built the suit, I literally had a nerdgasm. That was so amazing. It showed him as a genius. It also showed that no one could match his intellect. Obadiah could not recreate the arc reactor in a lab with a group of scientists. I also liked the fact that Stark struggled. He is a billionaire genius and he struggled. He struggled to build the suit. Even the smartest man is still human. All though he overcame it and built the suit, it was shown that he gave it all that he had. His full effort. He also did other stuff like the building of Mark 2 and the Jericho presentation. Now future movies fail to capture this magic in Iron Man 1.

Iron Man 2: Tony Stark builds an element almost effortlessly. Uses his dad's blueprints and tears up his apartment. No big deal. Yet, because he did it effortlessly it does not make it seem like a hard task. Or anything that is impossible. It definitely does not recreate the suit scene in Iron Man 1.

Avengers: I have actually no real problems with Avengers. I mean its a team movie so I don't expect it to take out 20 minutes to show Tony doing something smart. Especially since it has to establish the Avengers themselves. Either way it shows Tony becoming an expert at the cosmic cube in a night, which is realistic for him. Not that big of a feat. I don't have a problem with that. It shows his new suit which is cool and I don't expect them to show how he built it. He also worked with Bruce Banner and hacked Shield. I really enjoyed that. So this movie gets a pass.

Iron Man 3: Kevin Feige said, "We had pillars: we want it to be a Tony Stark-centric story, we want to blow up his life and see how he deals with a nemesis without his suits working- get him back metaphorically to the cave with box of scraps, like the first movie." LIAR! I was expecting some awesome montage where Tony pulls an all-nighter by building all forty suits. With all his equipment gone, he has to, by himself, using only his mind, build all forty suits in a single night. That's what I wanted. Instead I got Tony working with some little kid and then going to Home Depot and putting together some garbage. I mean a taser glove and some smoke bombs? Really. I mean you can but a taser and smoke bombs. You don't need to build those. Then all forty suits were built in the end and he really did not have to think. Or they did not show him think. He also did not behave in the smartest fashion. Curing Pepper of the extremis was not shown either. Then blowing up all your suits. What a whip! Hopefully he hid one. I mean I just feel he is getting stupider each movie. He is at least on Peter Parker level on Iron Man 3. No where near Tony Stark level in Iron Man 1.

Avengers 2: Now we all know that Tony will be creating Ultron. Its pretty obvious. Will this be good or bad. I don't know. I have faith and Whedon, so lets see. I imagine it takes off from Iron Man 3. Tony retires and builds Ultron to take his place. Uses AI. Shield improves the robot and it goes evil. Turns out that Hank Pym is the one that improved it. Anyways, Tony does not know about shield's upgrades. So he feels guilty and does a redemption by building a suit and saving the day. If done right, Tony can look smart depending on how he builds a suit with no Jarvis or AI.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree? What are some of your problems with Tony Stark?

@swordbrothers: yep this is because IM3 sucked. It was inconsistent with the previous films in that Tony Stark was uncharacteristically stupid. It's a shame because he's supposed to be the brains behind the Avengers.

@extremis

Thanks my thoughts exactly. I didn't even mind the twist as much.

To be fair, if Cap's initial perception of Stark holds, coupled with him getting over his PTSD, it might leave Stark feeling he can do anything and handle everything that comes with it. Same sort of mindset Pym appears to have been running around with for some time... if the time-travelling part of Age of Ultron is to have any credit;

"I am the smartest guy in the room, so I can do anything I like and ignore them if anyone thinks it's a bad idea." (Like he repeatedly tried to get Banner to turn into Hulk on the Helicarrier, despite getting warned against it.)

I see your point,and I like the way this is worded btw,but just pointing out that Spiderman isn't dumb :P

Your post kind of contradicts itself. You say Stark is the smartest in Iron Man. But then you admit that creating a new element in Iron Man 2 was "impossible" Just because you dont like how they did it, doesnt discredit it. He is clearly smarter in Iron Man 2.

As far as the 3rd, I think he showed a decent amount of intelligence. He made the 40 suits, he made the mark 42 suit, etc. Sure, its not as impressive as the first movie, but what do you expect? After creating the suit, he spends time honing and perfecting it. It makes sense. He cant progress by leaps and bounds EVERY time he makes something. That would seem unrealistic.

Thank you all for your opinions. They are very useful as I like to see it from others' points of view. :)

@outside_85: Yeah, well he is cocky. But that is part of his character. I forgot about his PTSD so thanks for the reminder. Yeah, that was important. Either way, I understand what you're saying.

@cameron83: Thanks bro. I wrote it during the middle of the night because the thought kept bothering me. I know Spider Man isn't dumb. He is rated as gifted by Marvel officially, which is a 4 out of 7. The movie Peter seems to be the same. Where as Tony is a 6 out of 7, which is super-genius. So he is on a whole other level. Not to disrespect Spiderman by any means, because he is still smart. So thanks :)

@redlantern23: Yeah, I know I am not that good of a writer. This is probably the longest thing I've wrote outside-of-school. I should have explained it better. I'll explain it better below.

As for Iron Man 2: He self sustained the arc reactor by creating a new element (rumored vibranium). Creating an artificial element is a very long and hard task. A single person to make such a thing, even in a lab, is crazy. But as you said he had the blueprints so he was able to accomplish this. The problem I have is that he was given the blueprints. In Iron Man 1 he had no blueprints. He had to create them, he was the creator. That is much more impressive then following some blueprints. I would have much preferred if Tony were to have developed the configuration for the element for himself rather than just follow some instructions. So in my opinion its not as smart if you follow blueprints that someone else wrote. Feel free to disagree with me. :)

As for Iron Man 3: This movie was not as big as it should have been considering it followed Avengers. Yes, all that charging a suit would be impressive if he did not fight off an alien invasion with the Hulk and Thor before. I mean charging a suit is pretty boring to watch and no where near as amazing as building one. I get the stranded part, but he's Tony Stark. I'm sure he could have got money from somewhere. Even without money, I think it could have been made better. I mean, Tony Stark, Creator of Iron Man, introduces his newest weapon, a taser! Really, definitely a step down from building a suit and an element. Definitely dumber. 40 suits in one night seems impossible and unrealistic. But it's a movie. I doubt anyone is going to complain that its unrealistic that he built that many suits in one day, after all it is a movie. A movie with extremis and all this unrealistic procedures. Just imagine him, doing like a factory line up with the suits, building different heads, arms, etc., and some dramatic music in the background. I think it would look pretty awesome. The forty suits built in the first place is actually one of my complaints. Why not use them earlier on. That is not that smart either. And I thought he always controlled the suit with his mind since Iron Man 1. In this movie he just got the mark 42 to deploy from various places. But still that suit broke apart like every fifteen minutes and was very unreliable. All those suits actually broke apart. So it is not that impressive. The scenes with Pepper and Tony were like one minute tops. Blowing up the suits is pretty dumb, actually very dumb. I mean, I guess its noble in some way. But I mean, it is a form of protection all. I mean what if there is another attack suddenly after and unexpected. The city needs to be saved and he is nearby. What is Tony going to say, "I blew up all my suits for my relationship." He could just by Pepper a flower or blow up like half his suits. Or save just one. All of them is just unsafe and naive. Feel free to disagree. :)

Also, Stark can get dumber. He, after all, is a fictional character. If a writer writes him as an idiot then he is an idiot. If he is written as a genius, he is a genius. But basically my PROBLEM with Tony Stark: Movie after movie, he pulls a less amazing feat. The threats get bigger and the feats get smaller. I mean, the writers should write him doing better stuff. Not just basic tech. And I understand that his technology has improved, but they never show how he improved it or his struggle. And I would much rather sport the Mark 3 armor over the Mark 42 in a fight. His newest armors lack durability and power. Thanks for all of your feedback.

This is how I would rank his intelligence:

Iron Man 1 - 9/10

Iron Man 2 - 8/10

Avengers - 8/10

Iron Man 3 - 7/10

@swordbrothers: Avengers 10/10* :p

he's smart, yet still can be a d*ck.

Tony made loads of armors between Avengers and Iron Man 3, he was controlling every armor in the final battle. I thikn that shows his intellect!

Building forty Iron Man suits in one night without his high tech lab would be an impossible task even for a genius, it took him like a week just to build the first one in the cave so wanting him to build forty in one night was way too high an expectation on your part. Even considering this is based in a world with Super powers Tony doesn't have any and in order to build forty complex machines like Iron Man armor without any equipment would take a month at the quickest regardless of intellect. It would be foolish to even consider he could do it in one night.

Great post I agree

Interesting thoughts.