Fiction and Superheroes

Iron Man the movie is a great thrill, inspired by a comic book series that began in the 60's. Tony Stark, a weapons manufacturer, visits Afghanistan to test a new weapon system code named Jericho. Stark is kidnapped by an international group whose members look suspiciously like terrorists. This group has a compound and plenty of armament that, as fate would have it, comes from Stark's company--Stark Enterprises.

Seeing that the fruit of his labors actually causes destruction for so many innocents, Stark escapes and dedicates himself to a pacifist way of life swearing off the production of weapons.  Nevertheless, Iron Man is brought into one fight after another and decides that he alone can protect the unprotected.  In other words, he'd like everyone to disarm, while he (a child prodigy and MIT graduate) remains the only one with any fire power, because he has the best of intentions.

I've reads thousands of comics as a kid, but as an adult I see just how left-wing comic books have always been, and now that they are made into movies it's that much harder to avoid the simplistic cliches.  A reporter chides Tony Stark for being a "merchant of death", but Stark is quick to give his pedigree as a patriot--his father was key in the construction of the atomic bomb used to end the War in the Pacific.  As the movie continues, Stark's conscious even relativizes the roll his father played and wonders if the bomb was justified--as if the Japanese were going to surrender if you asked them politely enough.

Throughout the movie Iron Man, the characters are categorically skeptical of the government's motives, but are not terribly curious about what motivated the terrorists in Afghanistan.  In fact, the whole conflict in Afghanistan is sanitized to exclude religion or responsibility--none of the Afghan women are shown in the socially mandatory burkha.  We learn that the head honcho of the terrorists, a shaved head Arabic-speaking tyrant, wants to "rule the world" like any other generic evil dude.

I always enjoyed comics as a kid, maybe it was the storytelling, where my imagination filled in the gaps between the panels. In the movies the artistic team has more control over the presentation, so things like ideology have a much more prominent role.

Going all the way back to 1938, one of Superman's first crusades was against "war profiteers", arms manufacturers, fueling a fictional conflict in Latin America.  The two youngmen who created the Man of Steel were social progressives projecting their frustrations and solutions through a superhuman character.  Despite seventy years later and leap to the big screen, not much has changed. 

Comments

[Rex]

i enjoyed the movie, but i think you missed the biggest clue about the terrorist group. only a fan of the comics would have made the connection. the group called themselves "Ten Rings." one of Iron Man's greatest adversaries is the Mandarin, who wears 10 mystical rings. i think the terrorist group Ten Rings is foreshadowing the eventual appearance of the Mandarin as an antagonist in a sequel. this is probably why there wasn't more details on what was actually motivating the terrorists.