The original comic book Tony Stark was indeed a popular playboy, and Congress wanted to know why he wasn't incorporating his "Iron Man" technology into the equipment he built for the military (reason: he feared that the average Joe might go overboard with it), but his enemies were this country's enemies: Commies who built their own super-suits. (His drinking problem came later.)

Am I the only one who thinks it's telling that the critics are praising the movie version of the comic book for putting a politically-correct spin on it, by making America's "military-industrial complex" his enemies?

To answer your question: yes, you are the only one.

Technically, it's only those segments that sell weapons to America's enemies that are Stark's enemies. That's Stane's entire motivation for trying to get rid of Stark - he wants to sell weapons to terrorists who use them to kill Americans. Which is treason, obviously. (If you want to argue that it is absurd for an American company to do this, you're free to do so, but the movie does at least make a point of vibrantly endorsing American business and capitalism as long as it's not being used to kill Americans. And honestly, this plot development was the weakest thing in the movie, as any critic who actually paid attention would realize. Stevens of course was too busy nitpicking over scenes that she didn't even understand to notice, but she also emphatically did not praise the plot, and too the contrary found it insufficiently PC, AFAICT.

In any case, your point - and Ms. Stevens' as well - is based on a misunderstanding of the character. Tony Stark's enemies are still America's enemies. Some of them just happen to be Americans.

You get it righter, but as for the movie it takes an even sharper twist than you give it credit for. In the older comics, it was as simple as, America's enemies are Tony Stark's enemies, but in the cave where he realizes that he wants to be a hero, he's not concerned about American national security, he's concerned about the legacy that he's leaving behind. He's concerned about leaving the world being better off for him having been there and not worse off.

To me, Tony Stark wasn't some lofty symbol of patriotism, he was just a guy who wanted to start doing the right thing. In the comics, the guy who died in the cave with him is basically just a fallen soldier, but in the movie, the guy in the cave is his greatest inspiration. I don't understand why people want to make this an us v. them thing again when the movie was clearly trying to get away from that.

People complained about the simplicity of the final battle but don't get it's obvious message. When someone or a group of people live their lives irresponsibly for a while and suddenly decide, for one reason or another, they want to turn things around, things don't magically just fall into place. You usually have to face a monster, and it's usually a monster of your own design.

When Tony decided that he wanted to leave a noble legacy, he has to deal with the legacy that he's already left and he has to deal with the evil that has grown due to his irresponsibility. If you want to look at Tony Stark as some symbol of America, then he's at once a criticism and a hope for redemption.

I also wanted to say that it annoyed me when the author tried to compare smart bombs with Tony Stark's targeting system - It's Fantasy! That's how we wish things were! By having that in the movie nobody is trying to tell you that it's that easy now. I mean, he has already hurt the people that he's trying to protect - it's not about Iron Man trying to spread democracy or depose a dictator. It's about Tony Stark trying to finally "make good". I'm so riled up about this I wonder how you people, the writer of this article and the writer of the iHero article even get paid to write on things and have such a provincial way of seeing the things that you write about.

gdestroyer8:

You get it righter, but as for the movie it takes an even sharper twist than you give it credit for. In the older comics, it was as simple as, America's enemies are Tony Stark's enemies, but in the cave where he realizes that he wants to be a hero, he's not concerned about American national security, he's concerned about the legacy that he's leaving behind. He's concerned about leaving the world being better off for him having been there and not worse off.

To me, Tony Stark wasn't some lofty symbol of patriotism, he was just a guy who wanted to start doing the right thing. In the comics, the guy who died in the cave with him is basically just a fallen soldier, but in the movie, the guy in the cave is his greatest inspiration. I don't understand why people want to make this an us v. them thing again when the movie was clearly trying to get away from that.

People complained about the simplicity of the final battle but don't get it's obvious message. When someone or a group of people live their lives irresponsibly for a while and suddenly decide, for one reason or another, they want to turn things around, things don't magically just fall into place. You usually have to face a monster, and it's usually a monster of your own design.

When Tony decided that he wanted to leave a noble legacy, he has to deal with the legacy that he's already left and he has to deal with the evil that has grown due to his irresponsibility. If you want to look at Tony Stark as some symbol of America, then he's at once a criticism and a hope for redemption.

I also wanted to say that it annoyed me when the author tried to compare smart bombs with Tony Stark's targeting system - It's Fantasy! That's how we wish things were! By having that in the movie nobody is trying to tell you that it's that easy now. I mean, he has already hurt the people that he's trying to protect - it's not about Iron Man trying to spread democracy or depose a dictator. It's about Tony Stark trying to finally "make good". I'm so riled up about this I wonder how you people, the writer of this article and the writer of the iHero article even get paid to write on things and have such a provincial way of seeing the things that you write about.

Back in the sixties the scientist who helped Tony Stark build the original Iron Man suit was a Vietnamese scientist who the Commies were also forcing to work for them. (His dying words were something like "At least I die a free man!")

And the suggestion that members of the "military-industrial complex" are just as much this country's enemies as Commies or al Qaida is exactly what I mean by a PC-spin.