“I never got to say goodbye to my father. There's questions I would've asked him. I would've asked him how he felt about what his company did, if he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch of man we remember from the newsreels. I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability.” If Spider-man is the superhero equivalent of the 21st century American political and social personality – its Freudian ego – then it is Iron Man who embodies the American hopes and fears regarding capitalism in the new millennia. The fundamental conflict in Jon Favreau’s 2008 Iron Man is not between Tony Stark and terrorists; nor is it between Tony Stark and his ruthless business partner, Obadiah Stane. The true conflict within this story is between Tony Stark, the American who discovers his conscience, and the business practices which create wealth through exploitation and war profiteering.
In the opening scenes of the film, we see Tony Stark before he becomes Iron Man. While his company, Stark Industries, has created weapons which provide battlefield superiority for American troops and has made Stark himself one of the wealthiest men alive, Tony personally lives a life removed from the consequences of his own actions (again, we see the seductiveness of isolationism, especially isolationism of the individual). He spends his time drinking, womanizing, and gambling; he is the stereotypical decadent American who lives his lavish life at the expense of the rest of the world. However, on a trip to Afghanistan to sell his newest weapon, he is kidnapped, held hostage, and seriously wounded.
Tony Stark’s wound, both literal and symbolic, is worth exploring. One of his own weapons explodes, filling his chest with shrapnel. He then designs an “arc reactor” which will keep the shrapnel from penetrating his heart and killing him. This arc reactor also comes to power the Iron Man suit. This idea that Stark’s technology – American technology – is both the source of his wound and his salvation is deeply allegorical. America today lives in fear of a nuclear or biological or chemical attack, which could lead to the destruction of this nation. In order to combat this threat, we continually search for even more technologically advanced defenses. Technology and industrialization are both America’s constant threat and hope of salvation. It is likewise significant that Tony’s heart is wounded. The heart, the symbolic source of emotion, compassion, and empathy, is nearly broken by Tony’s experience in Afghanistan. When he finally returns to America, however, it is not the nature of his physical wound which causes him pain; rather, it is the knowledge that his weapons are being used for evil purposes which causes him heartache. As he states in a press conference, “I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability.” This experience is the catharsis, the catalyst which transforms Tony Stark into Iron Man. His heart has been damaged, but his intellect remains intact. His creation of the Iron Man technology –and perhaps even more importantly, his decision to trust the technology to no one but himself – stems directly from this emotional wound. Tony Stark decides to take personal responsibility for the ramifications of his work. Hence, Iron Man. Iron Man is the embodiment of the deepest aspiration of the American armed forces: a nearly invulnerable, technology advanced soldier, who is deeply governed by his sense of right and wrong. He is the platonic definition of the “army of one.”
Obadiah Stane, of course, represents the antithesis of Tony Stark. If Stark is a symbol of the sort of empathetic and actively benevolent capitalism to which America aspires, then Stane is our dark fear of cutthroat free enterprise without restraint. Stane sells weapons to the highest bidder; Stane “improves” upon Stark’s designs, making them more deadly; Stane is duplicitous, ruthless, and utterly without remorse. His age is significant, as well: as part of the generation before Tony Stark, we subconsciously associate him with the sorts of cutthroat capitalists who historically supported dictators like Batista or the Shah of Iran. His mission statement is simple: “We’re iron mongers, we make weapons.” His sense of business ethics, like his set of personal morals, is completely absent; when endangering an innocent family during a fight with Iron Man, he simply states “Collateral damage, Tony.” Obadiah Stane is not an accurate depiction of the American businessman, but he is the embodiment of what we fear American businessmen may become, if we practice capitalism without conscience.
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