A Tin Man with a Heart

Ok, I haven't blogged about it yet, perhaps because I wanted to test my infatuation with a little critical distance. But blogbots, even after the most objective period of reflective evaluation I could muster, I'm still nuts (& bolts) about Iron Man.

First off, let me clarify my history with, I would argue, Marvel's greatest character. Since I was around 8 years old, Iron Man has been my favorite super hero. Yes, even over the titans Superman and Spiderman. My late father and I would froth at the mouth at the very mention of Tony Stark and his dazzling array of awesome armor. I collected the IM comics with obsessive avidity, literally Marvel-ling at the often ludicrous storylines and soap opera style twists they would deliver. I thrilled when he fought with the Hulk (and won). I swooned when he joined the Avengers on their intergalactic campaign to stop the insatiable Thanos from assuming control of the universe. I squealed when he battled the nefarious Mandarin, with his ten extra-terrestrial rings of power. I wept when he "died" in No. 284.

Maybe my idolization of this seemingly less interesting hero stems from some inherent fascination with the steadfast but flawed mechanized man. I've always loved the metal underdogs in heroic literature. Going at least as far back as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380), literature's love affair with the metallic man with a heart of gold can be demonstrated in numerous examples. The most basic, I suppose, would be the medieval British knight.

Protected only by the thin layer of metal plating affixed to his body, the courageous knight sallied forth to defeat all manner of hideous monsters. But as the story of Sir Gawain so wisely reminds us, the knight is never as invincible as his appearance would have us believe. There's almost always a figurative "chink" somewhere in his armor, a character flaw or debilitating fear that must be faced and overcome before any true glory can be achieved. The character of Iron Man definitely draws resonance from this literary tradition of the valiant knight. He fights on behalf of those who cannot fight for themselves, but he's never truly out of danger himself. He may be tough on the outside, but he's still just a scared, fallible human being underneath, which leads us to another great example of the imperfect metal man, Baum's Tin Woodman.

Professed to be "heartless," the Tin Woodman actually has the largest heart of all. He weeps off and on throughout the Oz books, but lest that suggest to you that he's a weakling, remember that it is the Woodman who beheads the wildcat so that the Queen of the Field Mice can help drag the Cowardly Lion out of the poppy field. He's certainly not afraid of getting his cans dirty. The Iron Man comics allude to Baum's most charming invention quite directly, and the film picks up on Stan Lee's obvious linking of the two by having Pepper Potts present the reformed Mr. Stark with his original power servo, around which is appropriately inscribed, "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart." Our final example also involves a man unsure of his humanity, one whose immense power only serves to expedite his downfall and highlight his imperfect human nature.

Convinced of his superiority but ultimately the most insecure of all tragic heroes, Darth Vader becomes a living machine, his humanity compromised and melded with his ruthless desire for absolute control over himself and his destiny. But despite his terrible despotism and record of widespread genocide, Anakin Skywalker never truly disappears behind his metal mask. As his son rightly asserts, there is still a substantial amount of "good" in him, buried beneath the mass of restrictive mechanics that isolate him from the world.

So what's your point, Bibb? Well, I suppose my point is that, for me, Iron Man now represents (and maybe always has) my father. He was a profoundly flawed individual, consumed by self-doubt and alcoholism, but he also did his best every day to put on a brave "face" and protect the ones he loved from the horrors of the world. He didn't always succeed in this endeavor, but his willingness to keep trying definitely shows how much heart he truly possessed. And I hope that one day I can be as tough as he was without losing the humanity that made him a great dad and a good friend. And though he didn't live to see Iron Man on the big screen (we often talked about how Tom Selleck would make the perfect Tony Stark, but I like to think he would have been pleased with R. Downey, Jr.'s performance), I hope he knows, wherever he is now, that he was always my favorite hero: an occasionally malfunctional machine with a good man inside.

I love you, dad.