When I see Pepper in the Iron Man suit, I think of her as being Iron Man.

But then, I have to stop and think about what that means in the MCU.

I have a very comic-based perspective, and in the comics, Tony and Iron Man are not one and the same.  Eddie March was Iron Man.  James Rhodes was Iron Man.  Clay Wilson was Iron Man.  And they aren’t the only ones to have worn the armor!  They are merely the ones who took the name and the mission.  Though Iron Man is very much an expression of Tony’s psyche, how Tony sees and interacts with the world and a way to address Tony’s needs, other people can and have assumed that name.

Tony spent a long time distancing himself from Iron Man.  He maintained a secret identity for years, and he compartmentalized the different parts of his life to a very heavy degree.  In the MCU, we don’t have the secret identity.  We don’t see the compartmentalization.  To MCU Tony, he’s the exact same person in and out of the armor.

For most of comic Tony’s existence, he was a different person.  He needed that alternate identity to surrender to.  When he needed to relinquish the armor to someone else, he relinquished the identity as well.  The other people who took on the name Iron Man made it their own.  They were different Iron Men with different styles and different motivations, but they were all legitimately Iron Man.  Tony often felt they were more legitimately Iron Man than he had been!  Eddie March valued what it was to be Iron Man more than Tony did.  Rhodey was just plain better at it.

When I see Pepper in Tony’s suit in IM 3, I think of her as being Iron Man.  When Rhodey wore the Mk II in IM 2, I don’t see that as War Machine or a pro to-War Machine; that’s Rhodey as Iron Man.

But…now that I’ve really thought about it, that doesn’t fit at all.  Because Tony and Iron Man are one and the same in MCU.  Iron Man is just an outfit that Tony puts on, and he continues to be himself.

So, who are Rhodey and Pepper when they don Tony’s suits?  What do we call them?  That’s not War Machine and that’s not Rescue. I guess they are just..themselves.  That’s Rhodey.  And that’s Pepper.  And no one changes anything about themselves when they put the armor on.  They are just themselves, doing what needs to be done.

Remember when Bethany Cabe was supportive?  When the idea of being ~strong for Tony~ like Beth had been was daunting to the other people in Tony’s life?

Thanks, Fraction!

Marvel Age #31 features a 2-page article about Iron Man #200 by Len Kaminski.

Here are some of the proposed armor sketches by a variety of artists, before the design of the armor we now to be the Silver Centurion was created.

A quote from artist Mark Bright about the necessity of a brand new armor design.  He goes on for a bit longer, but I felt this was the more interesting part regarding Tony’s relationship with the armor.  The rest was just about building a better model going hand-in-hand with designing a better model.

And finally, Mark tells us about how the issue will test Tony and Rhodey’s relationship, and settle the identity of Iron Man once and for all.  (That latter part, I personally disagree with, rather than Iron Man being Tony the end, they did try to be dual Iron Men for a few issues.)

I — I didn’t want this, Whitney — any of it!  All I wanted was to be with you!

In dealing with the portrayal of women in Iron Man, there are two distinct, but obviously related points we need to discuss:

How Tony, as an individual, relates to women and How women are used to advance the plot by an author.  These are pretty difficult things to discuss because how Tony relates to women is part of the plot, so in trying to talk about it, it is really hard to keep them separate and the whole post gets ramble-y and hard to follow.

How Tony, as an individual, relates to women is something that has changed considerably over time.  Fraction and Gillen have consistently written Tony has having borderline anonymous sexual encounters with people he doesn’t care to have in his life long term.  (With the exception of Tony’s trysts with Maria and Pepper while brain damaged.)  Tony speaks about this as something he has been doing for a long time.  In team books, where Tony’s personal life is not a focus, any reference to his social life is off-handedly treated the same way.  He’s screwing some woman who does not matter.

The way the text devalues is women is self-aware.  The writers are purposefully writing Tony as someone who has problematic relationships with women.  He treats them like they are things.  He treats them like they are disposable.  We as readers recognise that there is something off in Tony’s mind.  He’s not okay, somehow, and his treatment of women is a symptom of that.

Okay.  Fine.  The text is aware.  The author is critiquing something.  Gillen’s Iron Man #4, with it’s 13 identical demon women was a very unsubtle attack on the way comics as a medium (and Tony as an individual) views women as interchangeable.  The issue ends with the admission that treating people as things is wrong, wow, brilliant message.

This is a far cry from the Tony Stark of the 70’s-90’s.  For most of his history, Tony has pursued serious relationships almost exclusively.  When on a social date with someone he did not care to continue seeing, Tony did not take the evening all the way to sex and then depart in the morning.  If he didn’t want to keep seeing her, he made that clear.  Tony wanted to be loved.  Tony wanted to get married.  Tony wanted to have children.  He pursued women with those goals in mind.  He was not looking for someone to have a roll in the hay with, he was looking for someone to spend his life with.

This is not to say that Tony necessarily treated the women well.  He was manipulative.  He lied long-term.  Both versions of Tony are someone who does not know how to appropriately deal with other people.  But the difference in Tony’s goals meant a difference in his relationships with women and in the way the text portrayed women.  The relationships were important.  The characters were significant.  They were not treated as objects or things to be replaced or disposed of.  

Being pursued as a long-term partner, the women were intelligent, (largely) confidant, driven and (largely) successful.  Tony dated a variety of women, but they all stood as his equals.  They had back stories and goals and even when the text or Tony did not agree with their choices, the text did not demean them.  The women in Tony’s life were worthy of and allotted respect, from the gun-toting bodyguard to the pregnant alcoholic who abused welfare.  There was no value judgement placed upon them.  We were not expected to think that one woman inherently had more worth than another.      

Compare to today.  Pepper Potts, and Pepper Potts alone, is given respect.  (And even that is problematic — I’ve written a lot about the issues with the Rescue storyline.)  The women Tony romances are dismissed and made fun of.  Women known for being successful in a given field fail in that field, almost universally.  Tony speaks openly about his history of mostly anonymous sexual encounters, effectively erasing easily a dozen serious relationships and the respect given to those women as individuals during their time in the book.  

Science Bros after dark

“This is your fault,” Tony chirps, mood entirely too cheerful.

“My fault?”  Pepper drawls, torn between disapproval at the notion and laughing at its absurdity.  She ends up snorting.

“You said,” he reminds her, “And I quote ‘I don’t think you could tie your shoes without me.’”

Pepper wrinkles her nose.  ”When did I say that..?”

“That night.  We danced, I left you there?  Ring a bell?”

Haltingly, she asks, “Did you…memorize our entire conversation?”

“It was an illuminating conversation,” he answers lightly.  ”And here we are.  You skip town.  I break my arms.”

She can’t met Tony’s playful tone; being on the other side of the country when the call came that Iron Man had been on the losing end of a fight is something she won’t forgive herself for.  That Tony himself had sent her to the stockholders’ meeting in New York in his stead didn’t change anything.

Pepper finishes tying two smart bows on Tony’s sneakers.  ”All set.”

“You also forgot to wear deodorant that night,” he reminds her.  ”Nothing to be ashamed of, we all forget sometime.”

She purses her lips.  ”Thank you.” 

Okay, guys, we need to acknowledge that Tony Stark is active in fandom.  

His primary fandom is King Arthur.  He loves the Arthurian legend SO MUCH, that he built a Gawain droid for an Arthurian theme park.  (I am not sure if he owns the theme park itself, or just creates characters for it.)

When his Gawain droid malfunctioned, Tony invested a lot of otherworldly superhero’ing time into figuring out what happened.

Well, basically his Gawain robot turned into the real Gawain.

So now that Tony’s fancreation is canon, does that make him an Ascended Fanboy or is it a case of Inmates Running the Asylum?

A New Year’s Eve themed Iron Man fanfic written this time last year features Tony and Pepper navigate the changes in their relationship and also changing perspectives on if New Year’s Resolutions are a load of hooey or not.

New Year’s Eve seems like the ideal Old Tony holiday — all about drinking and parties and forgetting about yesterday.  It is decidedly less awesome when your perspectives about everything have changed and you have no idea how to change your behavior to match new found ideals.