Charlie Stross v. Tony Stark

[brainofck]

CK: Which reminds me, I wanted to find out why that other guy Husband likes hates Iron Man.
CK: Charlie something with an S. *prods brain*
CK: Stross
zats clear: good lord
zats clear: i love iron man :-(
CK: I will confess to having turned down the offer of an entry into comic writing a few years ago -- Marvel offered me "Iron Man", but the closer I got to the coal face the more I realised I detested Tony Stark and everything he stood for.
CK: Since he's talking about comics in 2011, I wonder if they were trying to get him to write during Civil War, and he sided with Cap? :D
zats clear: :-)
zats clear: you crack me up
CK: LOL! Here's a comment on a list of stories one should read before seeing Iron Man - "Warren brings a genuinely science fictional tone to his superhero comics, and this reads more like a Charlie Stross story than, well, an Iron Man story."
zats clear: i really wished i liked comics
zats clear: makes me sad
zats clear: but i cannot visually process them
CK: I may have to apologize to my brother. I'm liking the art in Civil War WAY MORE than I expected to. I was expecting to mostly hold my nose about it being a comic in favor of getting the primary source material for my current fandom.
zats clear: hahaha
zats clear: cool
zats clear: like i said, i wish
CK: Also: The nearest I've ever come to scriptwriting is when an editor at Marvel wondered if I'd be interested in taking over "Iron Man". I did my research, and got a serious hate on for Tony Stark -- so serious I couldn't do it. I don't play well with superheroes ...)
zats clear: good grief
CK: Hahahaha! - Tony Stark might as well be a Mary-Sue figure for Donald Rumsfeld. Want to see me write a misunderstood/comic Adolf Hitler? That'd be easier to do than for me to write Iron Man (other than by turning the frame upside-down and making him the villain).

---

So I am very amused. I don't really know that much about Rumsfeld's politics, but I am really wondering if Mr. Stross just doesn't get Tony Stark? Or perhaps I play with too many fangirls who try to make him look better than his overall backstory? The Avengers and Iron Man did spend a lot of time fighting Communists back when Communists were relevant, I suppose? Maybe it was a bit jingoistic? Haven't reviewed the source material, only the secondary sources. *amuses self* I'm especially smiling imagining Mr. Rumsfeld, tip tapping away at his computer in his office in the White House or the Pentagon or wherever, working on his Cap/Iron Man, with Tony as his TOTAL MARY-SUE OMG!!!! *cries laughing*

UPDATE: Yeah, the more I think about it, he must have read Civil War. I have not read it yet, though it has been sitting on my couch for a week. But Tony does some crappy stuff in that, and depending on how you are inclined to view his reasons (and I have only viewed them through the lens of fanfic, so I don't know what they really look like on paper), I could imagine making the Nazi comparison. Though I always get really, really twitchy when people want to compare anybody to Hitler. That's a whole different league of evil and I really feel like you need a full-fledged genocide on your hands before you get to be compared to Hitler. Just sayin.'

Comments

[green_grrl]

Interestingly, Stan Lee purposely invented Iron Man during the anti-war, anti-capitalist 1960s to see if he could create a sympathetic character out of what everyone at the time hated. Guess his hidden depths were never enough for Charlie.

Of course it's better for him to say No up front rather than to be Matt Fraction and say, "Oh, I want to take over a run and tear down everything competent and good about him and leave nothing but rubble and ashes at the end! Let me!" And Marvel saying yes. >>>:-(

[brainofck]

>>>:-(

*pets* This is what fanfic was made for, after all.