By Steve Baxi — Iron Man is perhaps one of the most disliked people in the Marvel Universe. In the 20 years following Civil War, the character has functioned as one-part Marvel Universe Villain and one-part Robert Downey Jr. knock off. The rampant unlikability of Tony Stark is, of course, part of the character’s DNA. According to Stan Lee, he originally created Iron Man as a challenge to see if he could make readers like the most unlikable character possible. What would it take to create sympathy for a billionaire, playboy, arms manufacturer?

That challenge persisted and for the early decades of Iron Man’s history, a lot of the reasons to hate Tony were internal to his books. For example, his business practices, his family history, or his alcoholism. Iron Man comics were largely about Tony making mistakes through his own personal flaws and having to fix them by overcoming those flaws.

However, Civil War marked a turning point where his mistakes were largely made external to his books. It's one thing to say, “I’ll write Tony Stark as a relapsed alcoholic.” It’s another to say “Tony profoundly screwed up in this event comic, someone write his side of it.” Invincible Iron Man attempted to address this head on by rebooting Tony’s mind, literally externalizing choices made outside the main Iron Man title, and allowing Tony to both have emotional distance and a fresh perspective on himself. Unfortunately, this attempt to dial back the path Tony was on didn’t last, as we continued the trend of piling negative actions onto Tony as an easy target.

From Invincible Iron Man to All-New Iron Man to Superior Iron Man to Infamous Iron Man to International Iron Man, and on and on and on, every title tried to go back-to-basics with Tony, trying its best to dust off where Marvel had left him, at times trying to capture the Robert Downey Jr. charisma, to give this character a chance not to be perfect, but at least control his own fate. 

At the same time, the last 20 years have been dominated by tech billionaires and online startups led by charismatic psychopaths. The relationship between modern Iron Man and these new businessmen is something Marvel has leaned heavily into. For example, Elon Musk and Robert Downey, Jr. met to discuss the role of Tony Stark, and Musk even cameoed in Iron Man 2 (2010). The rise of algorithmic social media technology has transformed the public landscape faster than arguably any other technology in recent memory, creating consequences we’ve yet to completely understand. Putting Tony Stark in the same conversation as Musk (Tesla), Zuckerberg (Facebook), Dorsey (Twitter), or Kalanick (Uber) recreates Stan Lee’s original challenge, where instead of a weapons dealer during Vietnam, we have a tech billionaire for the Post-Truth era. However, unlike classic Iron Man, very few superhero comics (or people) have ever problematized tech firms and their solutionist ideology.

All of these modern challenges lead us into Iron Man (2020) by Christopher Cantwell and CAFU. Underneath this glossy, sci-fi adventure about Iron Man, Hellcat, cosmic gods and evil robots, is an intimate story that asks the same question every Iron Man writer has been faced with up to this point: how does the world see Tony Stark? Is Tony a bad person? And does Tony need to care what the world thinks of him? Cantwell’s run recontextualizes these questions to be about ego, how ego connects to issues of depression, do certain problems actually need to be fixed, and why anyone really needs to care what others think of them.

Iron Man (2020) and Ego

Ego is a difficult concept to think about, in part because you can never be completely absent a “you” that has to do the thinking in the first place. Colloquially we limit ego to mean narcissism, selfishness, a superiority complex, or any number of exaggerated vices that we can accuse others of. However, ego often emerges in small moments, at times where we need validation for something we don’t fully recognize as selfish or narcissistic. Ego is a perception of yourself, it emerges when we start to develop conditioned habits or patterns of thought anchored in assumptions inherent to us. In other words, ego is when we start to draw implications or expectations from negative thought patterns that insert our own insecurities into the present moment rather than letting the moment be whatever it is. Maybe you’re frustrated by being stuck in traffic, maybe you’re annoyed by how others react to your social media posts, or maybe you feel like what you once did for yourself has become about how others perceive you. A history of thinking poorly about yourself transforms into a pattern of thinking poorly about the rest of the world.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll notice I really enjoy cooking. A couple years ago, I decided to take up cooking as a weekend hobby where I could make dinner for my friends as an excuse to learn more creative foods, find unique ways to present dishes, and feel closer to my family who had a strong food culture. At some point, the cooking became less about me, what I wanted to make, what I wanted to learn, and instead became about the expectations I was projected onto others: “How does this taste? Do they like this flavor? Was this dish better than that other dish? What do you want me to make for you?” At that point, the hobby wasn’t something I did for me, it wasn’t me having the ideas or thoughts. Rather, it was the thoughts having me, entrapped by insecurities that seek validation in how other people perceive me. I became stuck in a negative thought pattern that didn’t entertain the evidence in front of me, but instead repeated negative assumptions that corrupted the present moment. How people enjoy the food became a representation of how they enjoy me.

So I stopped cooking for a while. And when I picked it back up, it returned to the original reason for doing it, because it was fun for me. And that’s all that should have mattered. This is ego. It's not narcissism. It's not dominating superiority. It's not an overzealous sense of self. It's small, fragile, and entirely governed by my thoughts rather than what might really be around me. Ego is when I ask myself who I am and I want someone else to answer.

Cantwell’s run on Iron Man is about the perception of Tony Stark. The negative idea of Tony that general audiences and the Marvel Universe at large have is impossible not to wrestle with, but Cantwell’s thesis is: who cares? From Tony’s perspective, what does the validation of the world at large get him? What does it matter what the world thinks of him? And how is his need to be a hero, to be seen as humble and benevolent, anything except ego talking?

Tony’s ego is driving him, even when he claims to be on a back-to-basics approach. Every move he makes, from posting on social media, to deleting social media, to moving into a New York Brownstone, draws on a desire for validation from others. In a speech that could easily come from a villain, Tony lays bare his own biggest problem, he wants to know what other people want:

"What do you people want from me? Do you want me to save you? Do you need some kind of daemon? Do you need an effigy? Or both? What is it? Do you want me to leave you alone? Do you need to feel better than me? Or are you just too proud to say thank you? Do you want me to say thank you? For letting me be Iron Man? Thank you for letting me help you? The truth is… if I ever thank you for anything… it'll just be me being polite. Am I even one of you? Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I don't have to play by your rules, you know. I could just do what I want. I could just let you go. See if you could make it on your own. Don't you see how strong I am? Don't you know what I'm capable of?"

Iron Man (2020) #3 by Christopher Cantwell

Dramatic, ominous delivery aside, I think there is a fundamental tension here that Tony himself is yet to realize. He’s asking what others want from him while simultaneously avoiding what he wants, as if he’s sacrificing something. He could just do whatever he wants, but instead of asking himself why he doesn’t, he treats his own self-denial as self-sacrifice.

The difference between these two concepts isn’t always easy to discern, either. Tony is struggling with how to take responsibility for who he is, what he does, and what he wants, without at the same time becoming self-sacrificing, self-sabotaging, or self-denying. Tony sounds like a villain, like he’s full of resentment, because he’s denying what he wants and pretending like it's noble. He’s hurting himself and wondering why he always feels so hurt.

There’s An App For That

Tony’s ultimate struggle has always been ego, it's always been in his spectacularly self-destructive ability to read his own fears and insecurities into everything else. And this is an interesting side-effect to Iron Man being a technological hero. Any piece of technology is always mediated by someone or something. I hold a fork, and it becomes a tool for eating spaghetti. A child holds a fork and it might become a toy. However, this is not a one-way street. If you hold a hammer long enough everything starts to look like a nail. Tony in his Iron Suit is driven in the same way; technology impacts how he sees the world and his own tech billionaire persona is representative of someone who wants to solve all manner of perceived problems through technology. Tony reads problems into existing social relationships, and solves them with technology even if the problems don’t actually exist. And this is done so without attention to the biases and perspective of the person creating the solution. If you spend enough time in an Iron Man suit, you’re going to think every problem can be solved as Iron Man. And that’s exactly what Tony does.

Once Tony becomes a cosmic being, his way of solving all the problems on Earth is just to make everyone as smart as he is, to make everyone into Tony Stark. This of course goes as poorly as you’d expect, but it's a powerful metaphor for Tony’s entire problem: that everything he wants to fix is just a projection of his own insecurity, his own engagement of the world through an armored shell, that doesn’t allow things to merely exist as they are. Everything needs to validate him, and if it doesn’t surely he’s done something wrong that only he can solve. 

The series’ main villain, Korvac, is essentially Tony taken to his furthest extreme. He’s a technological being that thinks he can flatten all complexity away, all as an expression of his own ego.

Unsurprisingly, Korvac’s rants sound much like Tony: We’re lucky to have him, he sees our flaws for us, he doesn’t have to play by our rules. Tony’s greatest fear in combating Korvac is less his grand plan to control the universe, and more so the possibility that he isn’t capable of understanding Korvac’s logic, that maybe Tony isn’t as smart, as righteous, as all seeing as he thinks he is. That insecurity forces Tony to overcompensate, and that takes the form of using his technology in a deeply compromising way.

Early in the series, Korvac breaks Tony’s neck but the suit, along with a constant supply of painkillers, keeps Tony stable so that he can eventually get surgery. Rather than take the opportunity to call for help and bow out, he upgrades the raw power output of his armor to keep on Korvac’s trail long past the point of physical exhaustion. Tony removes any and all human safety measures and allows the Iron Man suit to answer his problems for him, he buries himself away in a shell rather than face his own weakness in this moment. He gets so deep into the inhuman aspects of technology, that he ultimately does exactly what Korvac wanted: he remakes the world based on his image of right, and with respect to his own ego.

Negative Thought Patterns

Ego is formed by repeated thought patterns, and sometimes self-awareness is the key to addressing those patterns. The trouble is that if you’re already insecure, self-awareness can look and feel a lot like lack of progress. “Am I getting worse? Why am I still like this? What am I doing wrong?” There is of course a world of difference between seeing your thought patterns, and merely being thought patterns. Repeating our mistakes is a natural part of being human, you never solve all your insecurities or problems. However, while on the path to addressing them, we develop the ability to see it happen sooner rather than later. And while it is functionally different to be aware of your mistakes rather than merely making them over again, that knowledge can feel discouraging. It can manifest as perhaps an instant moment of regret, “why did I just say that?” or it could be a more complicated self-examination, “how did I get back to the same problem?” But once again, we see our ego here as we try to put ourselves above our own human limitations, “why am I still dealing with this?” 

Once Tony accesses the Power Cosmic, he sees his own history and is disappointed with the picture it paints of him: Daddy issues, the need for attention, validation only in exchange for exceptional progress. No matter how old he gets, no matter how many times he sees the same pattern, this is still exactly where he ends up. Funny enough, this isn’t even the first time Tony has made this exact same mistake of accessing cosmic power and using it poorly, which is just more fuel to his rage. Tony can’t forgive himself for being human, he can’t solve his problems permanently, yet he throws away any minor progress he makes because it's not enough progress. And here is where I think Patsy Walker, Hellcat, becomes the perfect guide for Tony’s journey.

Patsy committed suicide previously, and while this series largely functions as an emotional journey for Tony, Patsy verbalizes the issues at stake for him through her own experiences. The difference between her and Tony comes down to the fact that she doesn't feel the need to seek validation from others the way Tony does, and she tries to impart that sense of peace on Tony. Not because she’s above these problems, but because it puts into perspective what she truly needs to function as her own person.

The way Patsy describes her suicidality is perhaps one of the most emotionally resonant aspects of this run. As someone who deals with similar issues, there is absolutely truth to this “dark self” that speaks to you about your worst fears, who always feels like a back seat driver in your day to day life. For me, externalizing this voice often comes in the form of music.

My favorite kind of music is metalcore. As someone doesn’t actually listen to a lot of music, there’s something about the paradoxical chaos of the sound that keeps me engaged. On the one hand, you have clean vocals that mirror something more like pop punk. On the other, you have screaming and breakdowns which ultimately harmonize with the clean vocals, as if by artistic magic. Bands often use that dissonance to their advantage, like for example Ice Nine Kills with their song “Me, Myself, and Hyde,” a song about The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The clean vocals are from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll:

“I'm waging war on myself, a captive casualty
Traded a merciful heart for a murderer's brain.”

The screaming is from the perspective of Hyde in the chorus:

“I'M THE HELL THAT IS YOUR FUTURE, I'LL INCINERATE YOUR PAST
I'M THE DEVIL ON YOUR SHOULDER BUT I'LL ALWAYS BE YOUR BETTER HALF.”

Like a comic is paradoxically words and images that co-constitutive something harmonious, a metalcore song is two opposing styles mixing to create something engaging, even pleasurable. Songs like this often feel like they echo the negative voices in my own head.

This tension between the voice in your head, and who you actually are is representative of the flaw Patsy actually shares with Tony. She has an inability to forgive herself. However, unlike Tony, her challenges have compounded enough that when she faces the same trauma again, she’s able to come out stronger. She learns to make peace with the fear of her own mind.

The harmony between the person she has become and the voice in her head finally forms when she learns to forgive herself. Instead of externalizing the negativity into a persona that has form, she embraces it as just another part of herself. Tony, however, ends up exactly where Patsy was. Tony views himself as Jekyll and Hyde, chasing a perfection that gets further and further away, dividing himself rather than unifying through self-forgiveness and acceptance. 

“Jekyll, he’s a good person. I mean.. He’s fine. Smart. Dutiful. But… flawed. Like anyone, I guess. Everyone. But he starts to wonder if he should rid himself of these vices. His lesser qualities. Because the truth is.. He actually can’t stand them. Deep down.. He hates them. Hates these weaker parts of himself. So he concocts a unique and special method. Something that will allow him to be the paragon he’s always wanted to be. He can be perfect now. No distractions. No errors. But of course, the bad stuff about him… the ugly, selfish stuff.. It’s still there. But now it’s relegated to a separate self. A self he doesn’t really think about. Or even care about anymore. It doesn’t really matter who this self hurts in the process. Because now he gets to be a saint. Just like he’s always secretly wanted. But the thing is… he’s not. He’s still just some person. Misguided. He continues to do bad things. His flaws remain. And people get hurt. His grand transformation process. It starts to lose its effectiveness, its potency. He tries drinking more of the potion to make it work. It doesn’t. The flaws become abscesses. But he keeps reaching… even as perfect slips further and further away. He goes for broke. But it just gets worse. Rinse and repeat. I’m stuck, Patsy.”

Iron Man (2020) #18 by Christopher Cantwell

What’s so striking about this to me, and why I use the music metaphor, the story about cooking, and all the personal details throughout this is that Tony is doing what we all do: he’s taking a story and using it as a way to verbalize his own problems. Jekyll and Hyde for Tony, is what Iron Man is to me. And writing this comic for Christopher Cantwell, might be what writing this essay is for me. A story we like to read, a genre we enjoy, a style of music we consume a lot of are all just another way of saying a thought pattern, an idea in our minds that we repeat over and over again to ourselves. It's a loop that helps frame how we experience the rest of the world. It's an armor we put on to help us identify what is a problem, and how we might solve it, even if it doesn’t always need solving. The difference between us and the fiction is that we actually have the ability to escape the loop, if we choose to.

Breaking the Cycle

The nature of comics is that things always circle back to exactly where they were. Every Iron Man run effectively ends in a brand new status quo where Tony has exercised his demons. And then a new run starts and returns exactly to where he was before. The Dennis O’Neil run relapsed him into alcoholism, took away his wealth, and left him homeless until he fought his way back. And every run since then has done, more or less, exactly the same thing. I’m sure people out there can often be frustrated by that, wondering why things always relapse. And yet, we never stop reading the same stories over and over again. We all think in patterns of thought, in loops or repeating cycles. The difference is simply how those patterns adjust with the times, and how we can train ourselves to create different loops, different thoughts instead of the same old assumptions.

Tony at this moment is stuck at an extremely crucial step, which is that he’s able to identify his feelings rather than letting them control him. However, instead of making the choices he now has the power to, he relapses into old learned habits. His addiction returns in the form of morphine that’s been keeping him conscious throughout the story, and now that the cosmic adventure is over, he’s left with nothing but the consequences of his choices. The difference is that he has a chance to change how he moves forward, he can break the cycle, and he can become unstuck. But only if he chooses to see himself as having that power. The tragedy is that even with the powers of God, Tony becomes powerless against his own mind. And as a person reading this story, again and again seeing my mistakes in Tony, the self-awareness does at some point have to give way to actual change. But he isn’t powerless, and neither am I.

No one ever fixes all their problems. Being a healthy person just means taking the bad habits we’ve developed and working to retool them. It's an ongoing project, and we slide back and forth all the time. No one lives in balance, but being self-aware enough to try helps. Certainly there are solvable problems in Tony’s orbit. He can fix his mistakes in a real material way. But the question is what is he learning? When the negative thoughts come back, when that insecurity hits again, what is in place to help him through it? 

There is a limit to identifying with fiction because the characters repeat and relearn the same lessons over and over, and we, the audience, have to figure out what we’re going to do about our world and our own problems. Holding a mirror up, whether that’s in the form of a comic book or writing about a comic book, only goes so far. What’s actually next for us? There are certainly some lessons we can draw from the story in front of us. Tony was never alone on his journey, he had help and friends to say exactly what he needed to hear. As much as he may be straining those bonds, they do exist and they are worth depending on. More than that, Tony has identifiable reasons for his drinking, for his addiction, for his insecurity. Everything has a root cause, and that alone gives him a direction to go in. If we choose to learn anything from this Iron Man run, it should be clear that we are not defined by our mistakes, we don’t need other people to validate who we are, and, perhaps most importantly, responsibility for our actions is not the same thing as self-sacrifice. Patsy learns to forgive herself, Tony learns that he doesn’t need others to forgive him. And in the end, we could all use both of those lessons in our own lives.

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Steve Baxi has a Masters in Ethics and Applied Philosophy, with focuses in 20th Century Aesthetics and Politics. Steve creates video essays and operates a subscription based blog where he writes on pop culture through a philosophy lens. He tweets through @SteveSBaxi.