The PROBLEM with Tony Stark!

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?

Iron Man 1: He had time, and all of his own resources at his disposal, and was able to make a great suit to escape. He was under strain because of the fact he wasn't working at his leisure, and he had no experience building suits. He was trapped in a cave by terrorists building something that could blow up in his face or could get him killed had he been caught. So despite all that, he managed to build the suit and get out of there. Pretty smart.

Iron Man 2: Can't remember it very well, but he made his arc reactor self-sustaining, which is a pretty incredible feat. It didn't seem like a "hard task" because it didn't have to be one. He did it in a far more comfortable environment than in IM1 and he had blueprints to do so.

Avengers: They're not going to spend time showing Tony build stuff, but he was shown to be smart. As smart as he's been since Iron man 1.

Iron Man 3: He was stranded, away from any of his own equipment, in an unfamiliar environment. He also managed to repair and charge his suit using the minimal resources available to him, which is impressive. He also didn't have any access to his own tech, so managing to build instant KO tasers and the like from common materials is actually very impressive. He wouldn't of bought them because he was stranded and didn't have any money. It was a showcase of what he can do when he has to work with minimal resources, unlike Iron Man 1 and 2 where he has his own tech, but perhaps other challenges.

There is no way possible he could build 40 suits in one night. He had no resources or time to do so. That's an unrealistic expectation. The fact he had over 40 suits built in the first place is a showcase of his work ethic as well as his intelligence. Also, in this movie, Tony created the implants that allowed him to control his suit with his mind. That's definitely a show of intelligence.

They did briefly show Pepper being cured, as well as Tony having the shrapnel removed from his chest.

He blew up his suits for Pepper and their relationship. Pretty noble thing to do, not a showing of him being dumb.

Yeah, all in all I completely disagree that Tony became dumber and dumber each movie. He was thrown into different situations each time while tackling his relationship, fame, alcoholism and Super Villains.

Iron Man 1: He had time, and all of his own resources at his disposal, and was able to make a great suit to escape. He was under strain because of the fact he wasn't working at his leisure, and he had no experience building suits. He was trapped in a cave by terrorists building something that could blow up in his face or could get him killed had he been caught. So despite all that, he managed to build the suit and get out of there. Pretty smart.

Iron Man 2: Can't remember it very well, but he made his arc reactor self-sustaining, which is a pretty incredible feat. It didn't seem like a "hard task" because it didn't have to be one. He did it in a far more comfortable environment than in IM1 and he had blueprints to do so.

Avengers: They're not going to spend time showing Tony build stuff, but he was shown to be smart. As smart as he's been since Iron man 1.

Iron Man 3: He was stranded, away from any of his own equipment, in an unfamiliar environment. He also managed to repair and charge his suit using the minimal resources available to him, which is impressive. He also didn't have any access to his own tech, so managing to build instant KO tasers and the like from common materials is actually very impressive. He wouldn't of bought them because he was stranded and didn't have any money. It was a showcase of what he can do when he has to work with minimal resources, unlike Iron Man 1 and 2 where he has his own tech, but perhaps other challenges.

There is no way possible he could build 40 suits in one night. He had no resources or time to do so. That's an unrealistic expectation. The fact he had over 40 suits built in the first place is a showcase of his work ethic as well as his intelligence. Also, in this movie, Tony created the implants that allowed him to control his suit with his mind. That's definitely a show of intelligence.

They did briefly show Pepper being cured, as well as Tony having the shrapnel removed from his chest.

He blew up his suits for Pepper and their relationship. Pretty noble thing to do, not a showing of him being dumb.

Yeah, all in all I completely disagree that Tony became dumber and dumber each movie. He was thrown into different situations each time while tackling his relationship, fame, alcoholism and Super Villains.

QFT

@i_like_swords

Thanks for your opinion. Very helpful as I like to see it from other's points of view.

I agree about Iron Man 1 and Avengers.

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. :)

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: I still stand by everything I said, but another thing to note is that Stark cannot actually get dumber, even if you think it looks like he is. He can pull his various feats from each of the movies. Just because he doesn't pull out an equally high end feat every movie doesn't necessarily mean he is getting dumber, it just means he doesn't need to, or he isn't in a situation that allows it. It's not like he's lost the capability to do something just because he doesn't keep doing it over and over again.

Actually, the fact that his technology has done nothing but improve since Iron Man 1 goes to show he is becoming more intelligent, otherwise how could his suits improve?

@i_like_swords

Well, 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 you basically stated 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. 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 your feedback though. :)