Characters / MCU: Tony Stark

Main Character Index > Heroic Organizations > Avengers > Tony Stark | Steve Rogers | Thor Odinson | Bruce Banner | Natasha Romanoff | Clint Barton | James Rhodes | Bucky Barnes | Sam Wilson | Wanda Maximoff | Pietro Maximoff | Vision | Scott Lang | Peter Parker (Peter Parker Variants) | Carol Danvers | Allies (Michelle Jones) | Families (Yelena Belova | Hank Pym | Hope van Dyne)

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Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.

Tony Stark / Iron Man

"Truth is... I am Iron Man."

Birth Name: Anthony Edward Stark

Known Aliases: Iron Man

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., MIT, Damage Control

Portrayed By: Robert Downey Jr., Davin Ransom (young)

Voiced By: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man video game), Eric Loomis (Iron Man 2 video game) ^{Foreign voice actors}Idzi Dutkiewicz (Latin-American Spanish dub), Juan Antonio Bernal (European Spanish dub), Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese dub, Iron Man-Endgame), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese dub, What If...?), Bernard Gabay (European French dub since Phase 1 + Canadian French dub since Phase 2), Daniel Picard [Phase 1] (Canadian French dub), Marco Ribeiro (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Tobias Meister (German dub), Vladimir Zaytsev (Russian dub)

Appearances: Iron Man | The Incredible Hulk^note Cameo | Iron Man 2 | Captain America: The First Avenger^note Archive footage from Iron Man and The Avengers in The Stinger | The Consultant^note Archive footage from The Incredible Hulk | The Avengers | Iron Man 3 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Captain America: Civil War | Spider-Man: Homecoming | Avengers: Infinity War | Avengers: Endgame | Spider-Man: Far From Home^note Flashback with archive footage from Civil War and archive photography | WandaVision^note Archive footage from Age of Ultron | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier^note Flashback with archive footage from Civil War | Loki^note Archive footage | Deadpool & Wolverine^note Archive footage

"You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor: I have successfully privatized world peace."

Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark was born on May 29th, 1970 in Manhattan, New York City, to Howard and Maria Stark. He is an era-defining genius and the CEO of Stark Industries who uses his own self-designed Powered Armors. After being held hostage by terrorists and escaping only with the help of Ho Yinsen, his worldview and philosophy changes, leading to him shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of his company and becoming the superhero Iron Man.

Despite various interpersonal clashes, Tony finds himself called in to join the Avengers and proves a vital asset to them as The Team Benefactor, particularly during the conflict with Ultron. However, Tony's increasing desire to protect the world and his friends, culminating from the Survivor's Guilt accumulated through each successive film he's made an appearance in, inspires him to make some catastrophic decisions that begin to cause a rift between him and his friends - particularly Steve Rogers.

After the following Civil War that ensued, during which he recruited Peter Parker and brought him under his wing, Tony split from the Avengers until the arrival of Thanos caused him to reconcile with them. In the five years after the Snap, Stark chose to retire from being Iron Man, marrying Potts and having a daughter, Morgan. During the Battle of Earth, Stark sacrificed himself to eliminate an alternate version of Thanos and his army, who traveled through time to collect their Infinity Stones, saving the universe from decimation and leaving behind a legacy as one of Earth's most revered superheroes.

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#-B

• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • He quits being Iron Man at the end of Iron Man 3, and even destroys all of his suits to reinforce the point. Predictably, it doesn't stick, and he's back in action in a sleek new armor in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
  • Happens a second time in Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the ending once more implying that he's done; however, Captain America: Civil War sees him back into the conflict.
  • He retires during the five-year Time Skip in Avengers: Endgame, but temporarily walks out of it so that he can undo the Snap and happily return to his family once the world is made whole again. Sadly, it turns into Retirony after he dies snapping Thanos and his army out.
• Aborted Declaration of Love: Knowing that he was slowly dying in Iron Man 2, Tony attempted to confess to Pepper about his romantic feelings for her but because of his earlier shenanigans, she tells him to Get Out!.
• Accidental Misnaming: When he reveals to Peter he knows his identity.
  Tony: So you're the Spider... ling? Crime-Fighting Spider? Spider-Boy?
  Peter: ...S-Spider-Man.
• The Ace: Tony was a Child Prodigy who graduated MIT with honors at the age of 17. He's proven to be an exceptional businessman, arguably the greatest Gadgeteer Genius of his generation (building the very first Iron Man suit with nothing but scraps), an Omnidisciplinary Scientist who can pick up advanced subjects literally overnight, a very skilled and intuitive fighter and a second-to-none multitasker. He's also one of the biggest womanizers in the films.
• Ace Custom: The Iron Man armors are always a step or two higher in terms of technology and gear compared to every other armor he makes. This is most notable when Tony upgrades to nanotech in Infinity War and Endgame, but he never upgrades the others to nanotech level. As said by Tony himself:
  Tony: While I'm happy to make the world a better place with my technology and all, there are times when you gotta save the best gadgets for yourself.
• Ace Pilot: The Iron Man armour is basically an incredibly small, agile jet fighter when it's in the air, and he's one of the Avengers' top aerial combatants. It doesn't matter who you are - trying to outfly Iron Man is almost always a futile endeavour.
• Action Dad: In Endgame, Tony has a daughter with Pepper named Morgan. Although he's officially retired, he participates in a last Avengers mission, but with the higher stakes in that he now has Morgan to return to. He does not.
• Action Hero: Over the course of his career, he's squared off against terrorists, alien invaders, rogue A.I.'s, gods, monsters, super soldiers, and even Thanos himself in order to keep people and the planet at large safe.
• Achilles' Heel: As powerful as his armor is, it becomes completely useless if something prevents the arc reactor from powering it. Steve and Bucky spend most of their fight against him in Captain America: Civil War trying to disable it, with Steve eventually succeeding by impaling his Vibranium shield into it.
• Adaptational Badass: With the Mark L, Tony fought Thanos when he first met him in Avengers: Infinity War, while in the comics, Tony was beaten easily◊ by the Mad Titan when they first met.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: One of the most significant changes to Tony's personality in the first Iron Man movie was to make him a Deadpan Snarker and have him deliver a ton of One Liners while the comics make him a more serious guy without such quips. In the first two Avengers movies, most of the humor is generated by Tony's quips. Later movies downplay this.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: MCU Tony Stark has Robert Downey Jr.'s natural brown eyes, as opposed to the blue eyes of the comics' Tony Stark.
• Adaptational Heroism: Captain America: Civil War portrays him much more sympathetically than the comics do. In the film, he goes along with the Accords out of guilt over the deaths he believes he caused. His conflict with Cap isn't just because he won't sign, but because Cap is protecting a wanted fugitive and jeopardizing the UN's sanction of the Avengers.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed. Tony Stark is a genius in all versions of his character, but his original comic rendition has him only specializing in engineering and physics. The MCU version, on the other hand, is a master engineer, physicist, chemist, hacker and computer scientist, a skilled biologist, knowledgeable in neuroscience, and a master businessman. Justified in that MCU Tony Stark is a Composite Character, with Reed Richards' intelligence being a major part of his combined character.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Later films reveal that HYDRA orchestrated the murder of his parents by the Winter Soldier, an event which affected Tony greatly and even shaped his personality. In the comics, neither HYDRA nor the Winter Soldier had anything to do with the death of Howard and Maria Stark.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Tony Stark differs greatly from his comic book counterpart. He's still an egotistical Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarker with a reckless approach to saving the world, but he isn't the self-hating Broken Ace who imprisons his friends in a Hell-adjacent Pocket Dimension and repeatedly throws the world into chaos from the comics. He also isn't the perpetual Casanova playboy who still serves as an Arms Dealer and is judged by Big Good Captain America. Instead, MCU Tony — due to being the series' first hero — is actually considered the Big Good of the world, no longer sells weapons, and settles down with the love of his life.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The MCU takes several liberties regarding his relationship to other characters, compared to the comics.
  • Howard and Maria Stark are his biological parents in the MCU. In the comics, he is actually their adopted son, though this can be chalked up to that being a retcon that happened after the MCU started.
  • Obadiah Stane was a business rival to Stark Industries in the comics, while in the first Iron Man movie, he is portrayed as the former partner of Howard Stark and a fatherly advisor to Tony before it's revealed he is Evil All Along.
  • He and Bruce Banner become friends in The Avengers. Not only are they both experts in science, Tony recognizes something of himself in Bruce, in that they're both men Cursed with Awesome that could use their terrible powers for good. In the comics the two aren't friends, and Stark was even one of the men that exiled Bruce from Earth in the prelude to Planet Hulk.
  • He becomes a father figure to the young Peter Parker. In the comics, Spidey didn't have such a relationship with Stark, and if anything was closer to the Fantastic Four. He, however, had such a relationship with Peter in the Ultimate imprint, and were friends in the lead-up to the 616 Civil War (they had a falling-out during when Peter defected to Cap's side).
  • Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, spent much of his comics time as a supporting character for Stark, being sort of like his sidekick. Iron Man's most famous comic book story, Armor Wars, had Scott play a pivotal role. It's rather funny then that Civil War had them meet on opposing sides, with Stark being completely unaware of who Scott was.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Iron Man armor is noticeably less durable compared to the comics. He also lacks the Extremis virus that boosts his armor.
• Age Lift: In the comics, Tony began his career as Iron Man in his twenties and is currently around 34 or 35 years old but in the films, he became Iron Man when he was 37. This makes him older than his comic book counterpart.
• The Alcoholic: Downplayed. Since this is a universe where the Demon in a Bottle comic arc never happened, many scenes in Tony's first few appearances involve alcohol, although it's less because he has an addiction and more because he was a carefree Millionaire Playboy. In Iron Man 2, he gets plastered while wearing the suit, though it's because more he knows he's dying and isn't handling it well. From Iron Man 3 onwards, Tony isn't shown drinking much, if at all, due to Robert Downey Jr.'s reluctance to revisit an old mindset that resulted in his self-destructive behavior.
• All for Nothing: Sort of, but given that Tony sacrificed himself just to bring back half of the universe with Peter being his main motivation, the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home somehow caused his sacrifice to be in vain because 1. Tony's firing of Quentin Beck inadvertently caused him to target and frame Peter for murder, 2. Peter eventually tries to get help from Doctor Strange, only to get cold feet and rip open the Multiverse, and 3. in the end, Peter has Doctor Strange erase everyone's memories of him. To add insult to injury, Peter's Stark Industries properties are seized by Damage Control and there's no telling what happens to Pepper and Morgan.
• Alternate Self: Tony has at least 6 variants that exist within the Multiverse. Just like with the Tony of the Sacred Timeline, most of them all end up dead, but due to different circumstances. The only known Stark variants that seem to be alive are the one seen alongside Gamora, Slayer of Thanos, and one from Earth-838 that perfected the Ultron program.
• Always Second Best:
  • Fears he'll never be as brilliant as his father or as goodhearted as Steve. Is literally second-best in Captain America: Civil War when Steve chooses Bucky over him.
    Tony: [regarding his father] Been dead for 20 years... still taking me to school.
  • Subverted in terms of his father, thoughinvoked. Word of God notes that he's even more brilliant than his late father Howard Stark.
• Always Someone Better: Played with and is a case ofinvoked Flip-Flop of God. Producer Nate Moore claims that Black Panther's younger sister, Princess Shuri, has the highest I.Q. in the MCU, which would put Tony in a tie for second place with Bruce Banner and Hank Pym. The Russo brothers also stated Shuri is the smartest person in the MCU. However, both director Ryan Coogler and Shuri's actor, Letitia Wright, have stated on two separate occasions that Tony and Shuri are equals in terms of natural I.Q. As shown in the films, both are gifted engineers, but Shuri is more concerned with neuroscience and medical science as secondary practices, while Tony is more invested in physics, chemistry, and computer science.
• AM/FM Characterization: In general, Tony likes to listen to a lot of hard rock from The '70s, especially in the Phase 1 films.
  • Iron Man: Tony's Establishing Character Moment involves rolling in a Humvee as part of a military convoy, listening to "Back in Black" by AC/DC.
  • Iron Man 2:
    • After his birthday party is ruined by an Iron Man suit-wearing James Rhodes, Tony requests for the DJ to play Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as a way to show he doesn't take Rhodes' threat even remotely seriously.
      Tony: Give me a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to.
    • Earlier in the film, he dives into the Stark Expo playing "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC, which will be repeated in...
  • The Avengers, when he hacks the Quinjet's PA System before flying in to confront Loki in Germany. No matter where he goes, he has to create a spectacle. He also wears a Black Sabbath T-shirt after that.
• Anger Born of Worry: After coming to Peter's rescue during the ferry incident, Tony very angrily scolds Peter afterward for not just overstepping his boundaries and disobeying him, but for needlessly risking his life and accidentally putting everyone on the ferry in danger.
  Tony: What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? 'Cause that's on you! And if you died... I feel like that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience.
• Anti-Hero: A Type 2. He's one of the good guys, but he has a lot of character flaws. It's lampshaded by Tony and everyone around him at least once per film.
  Tony: Apparently, I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others.
  Pepper: That I did know.
• Anti-Role Model: In Spider-Man: Homecoming, he sees himself as this, claiming that he wants Spider-Man to be better than him and not do what he would do.
• Apocalyptic Log: At the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, Tony is recording one to Pepper, telling her that he's lost in space, adrift, with food and oxygen running low.
• Appropriated Appellation: The press comes up with "Iron Man", and he decides to go with it. In the Novelization, Tony even imitates Ozzy Osbourne's "I AM IRON MAN!" when reading the news.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • In a reversal of Rogues' Gallery Transplant, Tony's archenemy in the MCU is Thanos. He's indirectly responsible for the PTSD and trauma that plagued Tony in Phase 2 and 3, which led Tony to alienate himself from Pepper and the other Avengers. Tony's actions are centered around preparing for his inevitable invasion. On Thanos' part, Tony foiled his first invasion and is one of the few enemies he respects. In the end, Tony kills him but dies in the process.
  • To Ultron. While Ultron is technically an enemy to the Avengers as a whole, his beef is most personal with Tony considering he is Tony's creation making him Ultron's father in a sense. Having been created by Tony, Ultron despises taking after his creator and cannot help but having Tony's likeness within him. This is very mutual on Tony's side who is well aware that Ultron is a problem he is responsible for and therefore his duty to stop.
  • To Mysterio, posthumously. His entire goal of snatching EDITH and taking over the Avengers started off due to Stark firing the man over the BARF goggles, to the point Mysterio's willing to kill Peter and innocent people so as to spite him.
• Arc Words: "I am Iron Man" becomes this throughout his movies. "Legacy" is also a very important one, driving all of his initial characterization and leading him to create Ultron.
• Arm Cannon: Many of his weapons are mounted on his forearms, such as the Mark III's anti-tank missile and the Mark VI's lasers.
• Ascended Fanboy: To Bruce Banner as seen in their first meeting in The Avengers. He's a fan of Bruce Banner's scientific work and also the way he loses control and turns into an enormous green rage monster. They become close friends.
  Bruce Banner: ...Thanks.
• The Atoner: As described by Wanda Maximoff:
  Wanda: He will do anything to make things right.
  • Initially, he really didn't give much of a crap about who was blowing up what with his toys, but after being held hostage by terrorists armed with weapons of his design, he vowed to undo his destructive legacy.
  • The later films partially revisit and correct this, with Tony Stark still being plagued and haunted by his past even after he has tried to atone for it, bringing home the fact that his actions still have consequences which he has to live with. Examples include Aldrich Killian, Adrian Toomes, and the Maximoff twins for whom his actions are not Easily Forgiven in the slightest. It strays a little into Contrived Coincidence at times.
  • It's also criticized in that Tony's desire to atone becomes something of a Fatal Flaw in that it leads him to over-correct to make up for it in a grand gesture. It leads him to work on Ultron with Bruce, and then it leads him to support the Sokovia Accords simply because of his need to make up for his guilt. He takes every death personally, whether it's someone killed by one of his toys or someone he failed to save.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Tony's eccentric nature and constantly active brain makes him prone to non-sequiturs and zoning out of what he's supposed to be doing.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • In conjunction with his various Sherlock Scans. In Iron Man 3, Tony deduces the plan behind the Extremis project just by watching security footage of a failed Extremis experiment. In The Avengers he's the first one out of the Avengers to figure out that Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. have ulterior motives for the Tesseract, and in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he finds the secret hallway where the Scepter is being held based on J.A.R.V.I.S.'s descriptions of air currents.
  • In a more negative take on this trope, this is also why Tony's verbal digs tend to pack more of a substantial punch than most of the other characters'; he has the ability to see what gets under their skin and use it.
• Back-to-Back Badasses:
  • Does this with his best friend War Machine during the final battle of Iron Man 2 against the Hammer Drones.
  • And again with his wife Rescue when fighting Thanos' army at the end of Endgame.
• Badass Boast: His response to Steve in The Avengers when called out on his seemingly egotistical exterior.
  Steve: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?
  Tony: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
• Badass Bookworm: Incredibly intelligent and ingeniously knowledgeable in anything STEM, and a badass with or without the "Iron Man" armor.
• Badass in Distress: In Endgame, he is heading back to Earth with Nebula in the Guardians' spaceship when they run out of food and water, and get close to running out of oxygen, and need external help to survive. Captain Marvel ends up saving them both.
• Badass Normal: Whenever he's out of his suit, he's like James Bond, but making his own gadgets:
  • In Iron Man 2 he is able to do well against Vanko without his armor during the raceway attack, fending off Whiplash using a combination of Deadly Dodging and Car Fu.
  • When without a suit in Iron Man 3, he shows he's been practicing martial arts, and even manages to kill the super-powered Ellen Brandt with some improvised explosives. He also storms the Mandarin's hideout with a few improvised weapons he cobbled together from materials he bought at a hardware store.
  • He even tries his luck with some success against the Winter Soldier in Captain America: Civil War with an incapacitating device he deploys on his hand.
• Bash Siblings: With the other Avengers, especially his best friend Rhodey.
• Battle Couple: With Pepper in Endgame after she suits up for the final battle. They even get a mid-air Back-to-Back Badasses moment.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: In Iron Man 2, Tony made a big show of refusing to co-operate with the U.S government in regards to sharing his superhero tech. Fast-forward to Captain America: Civil War, and Tony is now leading the Pro-Registration side of the putting the Avengers under the UN's direct control to prevent self-made catastrophes from happening.
• Beware the Silly Ones: If he's not acting like an immature jerk, quipping at friends and enemies alike, or being a in general, then he's making revolutionary (and often deadly) scientific discoveries and inventions and verbally and/or physically destroying his opponents.
• Big Damn Heroes: He did not become one of the leaders of the Avengers for nothing:
  • Iron Man: Just as the head thug is about to execute an innocent villager in Afghanistan as his wife and children scream for them to stop, he falls out the sky and proceeds to lay the smackdown on all the terrorists in short order.
  • The Avengers: Multiple times. He intervenes to aid Captain America against Loki in Stuttgart, Germany. And then again saved a (shieldless) Cap from Loki's mook who had him pinned with gunfire. He also takes out a Chitauri footsoldier trying to attack Hawkeye and then a Chitauri carrier chasing Black Widow in the final battle. Then at the end of the film he sacrifices himself by carrying a nuke into the Chitauri spaceship.
  • Iron Man 3: When the "House Party Protocol" is invoked, an entire legion of Iron Man armors come in to assist against the Extremis soldiers. Tony also drops in to save the passengers of Air Force One.
  • Age of Ultron: Swoops in to save a family trapped in a building, and then stops a hovercraft carrying civilians into the helicarrier from crashing when an Ultron drone shoots out one of its boosters.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming: An Iron Man drone piloted by Tony saves Spider-Man from drowning when a parachute malfunctions. Later, Spider-Man webs up the ferry to keep it together, and Iron Man arrives to give Peter the support he needs.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: A brash-but-brilliant engineer who shows off his colossal wealth with luxury, world-class accommodations and specialized expos, is the in-universe poster child for playboys, talks a big game to everyone he meets, and always has a swagger to his stride... also has a two-sided a Dark and Troubled Past, PTSD, Inferiority Superiority Complex and a guilt complex. He cares deeply for his friends and teammates, is a father figure to his protege Spider-Man, would sacrifice himself for the greater good, and is terrified of not doing enough to keep the world safe. He's just very good at hiding it.
• Big Entrance: A big ego demands a big entrance.
  • In Iron Man, he interrupts an assault on Gulmira by falling out of the sky in a Three-Point Landing.
  • Iron Man 2: He lands stylishly at the site of his Stark Expo in his Iron Man suit to the cheers of many admirers after skydiving out of his personal carrier. For added effect, he's surrounded by a group of women in garb meant to resemble his armor who are performing the Can-Can. All while " Shoot to Thrill " plays in the background.
  • The Avengers: Tony hacks the Quinjet's PA system to blast out AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill", blasts Loki, and then makes his Three-Point Landing.
    Iron Man: Make your move, Reindeer Games.
• Bigger Stick: He claims to be America's Big Stick in Iron Man 2, and stopping others from abusing his "sticks" is a recurring problem for him.
• Bond One-Liner: In Iron Man 3. Savin, the Extremis-enhanced soldier Tony was fighting, tanked a direct blast to the face in their first engagement. The second time they come to blows, Tony puts a hole through his chest.
  Tony: Walk away from that, you son of a bitch.
• Brainy Brunette: He has his trademark, jet-black hair and is a scientific genius.
• Breakout Character: Before the movies came out, Tony Stark was the Lesser Star of Marvel comics: not as smart as Reed Richards, not as popular or beloved as Spider-Man, not as socially relevant as X-Men, and boasting the least interesting supporting cast and Rogues Gallery of major heroes. Then the movies came out, and suddenly Iron Man is one of the biggest things ever — to the point that he rivals Spider-Man in popularity as a brand these days, and thanks to the rights issues of Fantastic Four, has taken over Reed Richards' role as the main genius with Dr. Doom and Norman Osborn transplanted to his storylines and titles.
• Break the Comedian: One of the more light-hearted of the Avengers, and can usually keep up the razor-sharp wit even in the face of all the trauma thrown at him. However, after being beaten by Thanos, he returns to Earth dispirited and silent. He only speaks up to drop a furious "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Cap's face and leave in disgust.
• Break the Haughty: Zig-zagged. Tony starts off as arrogant and selfish, and is constantly placed in situations where he's proven wrong or his ego gets him into trouble. However, the lesson often doesn't stick, necessitating more rounds of Break the Haughty. It doesn't help that he's right as often as he's wrong, which doesn't help his ego, or that his reaction to trauma is to become more arrogant and controlling.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Tony's father was distant and occasionally abusive to him. In turn, Tony tries his best to be a Parental Substitute and mentor to Peter, and becomes a genuinely good father to Morgan.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Implied to be this pre-Character Development in the first film. Along with Shuri and Bruce Banner, he's the MCU's foremost genius, and can build, invent, revolutionize, and improve almost anything mechanical or scientific like that — but only when he wants to, or absolutely has to. He sure built that arc reactor pretty quickly once he needed it, and found the solution for Extremis overnight when he needed a cure for Pepper. He's more hardworking, but quite hedonistic.
• Broken Ace: In Tony's own words, he's a "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist", and that was before he became Iron Man and became one of the world's most famous and adored superheroes. But beneath his self-confident and arrogant exterior is a man who lets his mistakes haunt him, thinks his father didn't love him, and is afraid that no matter how strong Iron Man becomes, he still isn't strong enough.
• Brought Down to Badass: Partway through the third movie, he loses a lot of his technology. Then he proves he doesn't need it. He is Iron Man.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: With his own issues, multiple personality quirks, and a long list of character flaws, Tony Stark is by far the most eccentric character in the MCU. He's also arguably the most brilliant and scientifically knowledgeable, and as such is a world-renowned billionaire and genius, an essential part of the Avengers, and operates as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s business consultant. Granted, the majority of the people he works with spend 90% of the time wanting to punch him in the face, but they still put up with him because he's just that good.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • Played for Drama. He's utterly horrified to find out that Killian was some random guy whom he played a cruel joke on years ago.
  • Also Played for Laughs: Apparently, the formula for Extremis (i.e. the MacGuffin powering his opponents in Iron Man 3, and what many people in the cast were trying to reverse-engineer) was something he scribbled out on scrap paper while blind-drunk.
• Byronic Hero: Every single characteristic save for the brooding—unless you catch him in a downbeat moment.

C-D

• The Cameo: Has one at the end of The Incredible Hulk.
• Cannot Spit It Out: When Tony produces an engagement ring for Pepper at the end of 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Happy states they had been carrying it around since 2008. Tony had evidently been stewing about popping the question for nearly a decade, around the events of the first Iron Man, and only got around to it when pressured to give reporters a sound bite.
• The Casanova: Is known as such in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. By the time of The Avengers however, he's in a monogamous relationship with Pepper and while, probably from habit, still a little flirtatious in his interactions with women (especially May Parker), he's not one by the later movies. That being said, he does retain his playboy attitude, as his crack in Age of Ultron about wanting to reinstate "prima nocta" shows.
  Soldier: Is it true that you went twelve-for-twelve with last year's Maxim cover models?
  Tony Stark: That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict, but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins.
• The Cassandra: All of Tony's motivations post-The Avengers is about preparing for the day aliens come back and attack earth once more. None of the Avengers take Tony's fear seriously and Natasha even rolls her eyes. Bruce Banner when hearing about his plan for Ultron notes that it doesn't take into account human threats from Earth, which later films and Ultron itself prove would not truly go away.
• Cassandra Truth: The whole point of Tony building Ultron and Vision was to prepare for the day when a greater extraterrestrial threat came back to Earth to finish what the Chitauri started. Everyone besides Bruce Banner initially thought this sentiment was far-fetched and ridiculous — until Thanos and the Black Order came to Earth and did exactly what Tony had predicted years ago.
• Celebrity Superhero: As head of Stark Industries and a well-known playboy and billionaire, he was a celebrity before he became a superhero. Once he announced his identity as "Iron Man" at the end of his first movie during a press conference, he became wildly known and celebrated as a superhero by the public.
• Character Catchphrase: “I am Iron Man.” He says this in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, and Avengers Endgame.
• Character Development:
  • Aside from the obvious "becoming less of a dick" aspects, in the first movie he's helpless to manage his affairs without Pepper, but by the third he's apparently secreted caches of money he can access while still remaining off the grid. And may have been carrying quarters, just in case he came across a payphone.
  • After going into the wormhole at the end of The Avengers and being off-planet and possibly facing death in the abyss of space, while battling a cosmic-level threat, he becomes more serious, responsible, and paranoid.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, he takes up the role of a Parental Substitute for Peter Parker. He scolds Peter like a father would, after the younger hero acts recklessly with his technology and endangers civilian lives, and ends with him confiscating the suit which he later says was an act of Tough Love. At the end of the film, after seeing Peter being more responsible on his end and how much Peter has matured, he even has a So Proud of You moment with the boy.
  • Ultimately, Tony's character development is how he goes from being an arrogant loner to a team player... and how that conflicts with Steve's development. It's ironic, because both Tony and Steve are consumed with guilt over their roles as The Ace, but Tony is desperate to find ways to offload that responsibility on organizations and Steve wants to eliminate those same organizations.
• Character Narrator: In Iron Man 3, Tony narrates bits of the story. The Stinger reveals that he's talking to Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk.
• Character Tics: Tony is sometimes massaging/holding his left arm, since it has a tendency to get repeatedly injured over the movies, ever since the first Iron Man. He usually does this when stressed and it can occasionally be seen trembling, making it likely that it's a nervous tic and probably linked to PTSD.
• Character Title: Of his own films.
• Chekhov's Skill: In terms of his hand-to-hand abilities. Initially, Tony had no skill whatsoever in unarmed combat (which is ironic, considering that his actor is one of the few Marvel actors who actually does know legitimate martial arts), but after he found himself in more and more situations when he was without his suit, he began to train in basic self-defense. Iron Man 2 has Tony practicing boxing with Happy, and in Iron Man 3, Tony's lab is notably equipped with punching bags and a wooden Wing Chun dummy, which he uses briefly while testing the Mark XLII. This all pays off later in Captain America: Civil War, when Tony engages the Winter Soldier and almost manages to bludgeon him with his own gun before he's put down.
• Chick Magnet: Tony's wealth, fame and roguish charm have earned him the attention of many, many women. This is most clearly demonstrated in the original Iron Man, which includes references to several past one-night-stands Tony had with famous models, a scene where he hooks up with a reporter, and a line from a gorgeous woman eagerly asking Tony if he remembers her (he doesn't). He stops responding to the ladies' affections once he starts dating Pepper, but we get no indication the attention stops.
• Child Prodigy: A former one. He built his first circuit board when he was four, his first engine when he was six, and at some point in his childhood he designed and constructed his mechanical lab assistants DUM-E and U. It's also mentioned he built his first A.I. at the age of seven, and, given that he graduated from MIT at the top of his class when he was seventeen, he would've gotten into MIT at thirteen years old.
• Children Raise You:
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming is just as much about Peter learning responsibility as a superhero as it is Tony learning responsibility as a Parental Substitute; one of the key scenes is Peter gaining self-actualization and Tony working out his Daddy Issues in the same conversation. By the time Avengers: Infinity War rolls around, several movies' worth of Character Development, along with the recent mentoring of a young teenager, have notably matured Tony and made him far easier to work with and fight beside.
  • Tony's experience in raising Morgan finally allows him to understand and empathize with his father, accepting Howard's missteps as a parent. Notably when he meets Howard in the past, the two are able to have a sincere and open heart-to-heart with no resentment or anger on Tony's part.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He really has a hard time giving up being Iron Man. At the end of Iron Man 3, he initiates a self-destruct sequence on all of his suits, has surgery to remove the shrapnel in his chest so he no longer needs the arc reactor, and tells Pepper that he no longer needs the suit, as he considers it a cocoon from which he's emerged, a new man. Yet by Age of Ultron he's back in the fight, flying the suit for the opening action sequence. In Captain America: Civil War, he admits to himself that he doesn't want to stop.
  Tony: And then, and then and then... I never stopped... 'cause the truth is, I don't wanna stop.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He certainly has some rather... eccentric behaviors, including threatening his mechanical lab assistants and AI systems, purposefully poking Bruce Banner in order to evoke the Hulk (and expressing excitement over the idea of the Hulk running rampant), dropping dissonant remarks both inside and outside of combat (such as when he discovers a new element in Iron Man 2; he destroys a good portion of his lab in the process, and gives a gleeful "Oops!" as the laser is cutting things in half.). He also gives nicknames to everyone and everything.
• Collapsible Helmet: In the first film, his face plate just slides up or down as necessary. By Iron Man 2, not only is the helmet of Mark 5 collapsible, the whole suit is. Even then, the helmet is the last part of the suit to deploy. By Civil War, his Mark 46 armor has a helmet that can fully retract into the suit. In Infinity War, the helmet is made out of nanomachines, and a new one can reform if the first one is torn off, which happens while he's fighting Thanos.
• Combat Pragmatist: Very much so, and it's especially prevalent when he's without his technology:
  • Iron Man 3 has Tony relying on a combination of James Bond-style tricks, homemade weapons, and basic but effective physical maneuvers that outclass the greater martial prowess of the Extremis super soldiers, and in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he uses his technological know-how to disable one of the Ultron-controlled suits with an icepick.
  • Tony has also displayed ingenious use of his suit and his environment. In The Avengers, when Thor has him pinned down, instead of trying to get back to his feet and risk more blows, Tony simply guns his repulsors forward, knocking Thor off his feet and positioning himself for another attack. In Captain America: Civil War, he uses his various weapons to control his surroundings by collapsing parts of the ceilings and walls in order to trap Bucky and impede Captain America. And in his one-on-one fight with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, it is because of his cunning and sheer variety of attacks that Tony is one of the only characters to (albeit briefly) give the Mad Titan a good fight.
• Comes Great Responsibility: After his switch to The Atoner, Tony is perfectly willing to wield the power of his money, fame, and genius for the greater good. Naturally, given the trope's association with Spider-Man, this justifies why the MCU version of web-slinger is so closely tied to the story and world of Tony Stark, even after the latter's Heroic Sacrifice, including Spidey's Rogues Gallery for the MCU, and why Tony serves as Peter's mentor and benefactor.
• Comically Missing the Point: A few times, though he does this mostly on purpose. For instance, his thoughts on being called "the Da Vinci of our time"...
  Tony: Absolutely ridiculous, I don't paint.
• Composite Character:
  • This version of Tony Stark blends the serious demeanor of his 616 counterpart with the more playful billionaire personality of his Ultimate universe counterpart.
  • He also takes aspects of Hank Pym being a Science Hero and an Omnidisciplinary Scientist that serves as The Smart Guy of the Avengers, right up to replacing him as being the one who builds Ultron and having to suffer that as his greatest failure.
  • More generally, he takes the role of Reed Richards in being the great representative genius of the MCU, whereas before Tony Stark was seen as a skilled inventor and engineer but not as good a theoretical physicist as Reed. This is Lampshaded in The Avengers where Tony has to learn thermonuclear astrophysics overnight and proves a very quick study. Stark's comparability to Richards is also noted where Spider-Man is concerned, as the comic book version of Parker idolized Richards at a similar point in his crime-fighting career.
  • His mentoring of Peter Parker, being his backer and handler is analogous to Ultimate Fury in Ultimate Spider-Man. Samuel L. Jackson was originally supposed to reprise that mentor role in Homecoming but MCU decided to go with Tony instead.
• Consummate Liar: As shown in the prologue of Iron Man 3, back in 1999 he lied to Aldrich Killian at the New Year party to get rid of him, making the latter uselessly wait for him on the roof all night while Tony was exploring a female scientist's... research. He thus made Killian his future enemy.
• Control Freak: In response to the looming threat of alien invasion, Tony created an super-intelligent AI to police the world and supported legislation to put superheroes under direct control of the government. Half of the superheroes refused to comply with the legislation and Tony in return threw them in a supermax prison.
  Hawkeye: The futurist, gentleman! The futurist is here! He sees all. He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not.
• Cool Garage: His workshop houses a Saleen S7, a Tesla Roadster, an Audi R8, an AC Cobra and a hot rod. He smashes one of them and sprays debris on another during his tests of the Iron Man suit.
• Cool Plane: Tony's custom Quinjet. It can fly anywhere in the world and has stealth technology so advanced that even people who know what to look for can't find it.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Played with. It's demonstrated that Tony builds his suits with contingencies in mind, and newer versions improve on the flaws of the last model; The Mk 42 would've been a Lightning Bruiser if it worked right. Yet, Tony is unable to have spares of important equipment when he needs it.^note If Pepper hadn't been sentimental, Tony would've died because he wouldn't have a spare Arc Reactor. Packing spare laser cartridges would've trivialized Vanko. Having spare armors in Stark Tower would've been better than waiting for the Mk 42 to recharge. The only exception is The Avengers where not only has the Mk 6 been upgraded to have more weapons, but he has the Mk 7 to replace the Mk 6.
  • By the third film, he's hidden stashes of money he can get to while remaining off the grid, and memorized how to access them, as well as learning the basics of how to shoot and hand-to-hand combat.
  • The Hulkbuster system in Age of Ultron includes lots of spare parts up to full on limbs, correctly anticipating the Hulk tearing them off. On the other hand, he doesn't anticipate that Hulk would start tearing up the delivery system.
  • Pays off loads in Endgame: Being one of the designers of the new Infinity Gauntlet used in the film, he basically anticipated the possibility of it blowing up or someone else stealing it and using it for the wrong reasons. Thus he made sure that the stones can be easily removed and that his Mark LXXXV can form a replica Infinity Gauntlet to fit the stones to when the need arises, such as when Thanos got a hold of the gauntlet in the film's climax.
  • A posthumous example: in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where it is shown that if any technology absorbs his nanotechnology, the bots will just override whatever machine tried to steal them, giving the suit owner full control of the enemy's weapons. It ultimately proves to be Doc Ock's downfall.
• Create Your Own Villain: The fact that he keeps ending up having a hand in the villains he fights begins to wear on him over time, burdening him with guilt that drives his character arc:
  • The Iron Monger suit Obadiah Stane uses in the first film was literally created by Tony, as Stane uses the prototype armor Tony built when he escaped the Ten Rings and steals the Arc reactor Tony designed after his return to Stark Industries for it.
  • Tony admits to doing this in the opening narration of Iron Man 3. Specifically, it's his cruel joke back in 1999 that sets Killian on his Face–Heel Turn.
  • He's also Ultron's main creator. Likewise, the initial reason why Pietro and Wanda worked for HYDRA was that they blamed Tony for the death of their parents and destruction of their home when his missiles were used by enemy combatants over Sokovia.
  • Helmut Zemo also has Ultron's destruction of Sokovia as his excuse in Civil War, though he blames all the Avengers rather than Tony in particular, even if Tony created Ultron (though partly due to Wanda's influence).
  • He even does this for other heroes' villains. Spider-Man: Homecoming shows that his continuing efforts to atone for his days as a weapons manufacturer drove Adrian Toomes out of business and led him to become The Vulture.
  • This even happens posthumously. He was the one who fired Quentin Beck after he made the B.A.R.F. device, yet Stark still personally used it himself. When Stark died, Beck took the opportunity to engineer himself as a superhero known as Mysterio. What's worse, Beck isn't working alone, he has a team of over a dozen disgruntled current and former Stark Industries employees working with him, all of whom hate the late Tony's guts and feel underappreciated by him.
  • This is a trait Tony inherited from his father. Howard's treatment of his former partner Vanko gave rise to Iron Man 2's Whiplash, and he oversaw the creation of SHIELD, which was immediately taken over by HYDRA. You could argue that Howard and Tony together overshadowed Stane enough to drive him to villainy, too. Between them, the Starks created at least half a dozen villains. And HYDRA!SHIELD.
• Crime Fighting With Cash: He combines his colossal wealth with his phenomenal intellect to create the most sophisticated Powered Armor on the planet — and then puts it to good use by shutting down threats ranging from pirates to aliens.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The radiation from wielding the Infinity Gauntlet burns most of his right arm and the right side of his body, and he's left looking like death and being too weak to even speak. He dies within the minute, presumably in incredible pain.
• Cunning Linguist: According to Tony's S.H.I.E.L.D. file, he speaks fluent English, Spanish, Italian, and Dari, and even demonstrates some basic knowledge of French in Iron Man 2. It's downplayed in regards to his comic book counterpart, who spoke a grand total of at least eight different languages.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • By The Avengers, this is how Tony Stark has come to view the electromagnet and the miniature arc reactor that are plugged into his chest 24/7 and are the only things keeping him alive. He spends a good deal of the film trying to convince Bruce Banner that the Hulk is a similarly awesome curse.
    Tony: It's a terrible... privilege.
  • This is proven true later in The Avengers when it's shown that the reactor makes Tony the only person unable to be controlled by Loki's scepter because it cuts direct access to his heart.
• Cutting the Knot: When challenged by Steve Rogers in The Avengers over his worldview and his unwillingness to make the sacrifice play when the chips are down, he defends himself thusly. His final act in Endgame demonstrates he is the guy to make the sacrifice play.
• Cyborg: First, we have his Arc Reactor pacemaker. Following The Avengers, Tony's PTSD leads him to build subdermal implants in his arm allowing him to control his suit remotely piece-by-piece to pull them to him or put them on another user. While he has surgery to remove the "walking death" shrapnel from his chest, throws his reactor into the ocean and blows up the entire Iron Legion of his remaining armors (which could be controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S.) at the end of Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron shows that he didn't get rid of the implants.
• The Cynic: His main front he puts in the public, to hide how emotionally affected he really is, such as his reaction to Natasha's assessment of him regarding the Avengers Initiative, finding Steve Rogers' "outdated and irrelevant idealism" annoying, or feebly trying to dismiss Coulson as an idiot for taking on a god and getting killed for his efforts. The mask falls apart in the finale of Civil War when he finds out that Bucky killed his parents while brainwashed, resulting in him lashing out furiously and painfully at him and Steve.
• Daddy Issues: Where to begin? Between Howard Stark's constant idolizing of Captain America and berating Tony for not doing more with his gifts makes Tony much more fond of his mother.
• Dance of Romance: He first seems to notice Pepper romantically when he gets her out onto the dance floor for a nice slow waltz. They have an awkward and comedic conversation about it afterwards.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Between his distant and neglectful father and his oft-distant mother, Tony's less-than-caring upbringing is a major part of this, though the true darkness that influences his character is when he was abducted, tortured, and enslaved for three months in Afghanistan.
• Deadpan Snarker: The biggest one in the MCU. His sarcastic streak is legendary.
  Brandt: That's all you got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?
  Tony: Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.
• Death by Disfigurement: He dies shortly after being gruesomely disfigured by the power of the Infinity Gems.
• Death by Irony: Tony Stark, "the Futurist who sees all and knows all" who acted in the name of the greater good ultimately is manipulated by Dr. Strange, who really can see the future and know all, into performing a Heroic Sacrifice in the name of the greater good of stopping Thanos and saving the universe. The great Control Freak of the MCU who anticipated and prepared for every possibility and eventuality ends up becoming a victim of fate.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Randian Objectivist hero. He is an Eccentric Millionaire who is also physically fit and handsome enough to successfully seduce a reporter that was trying to slander him for his shady practices, the kind of Übermensch that Rand always wrote as the ideal. Like Rand's protagonists, he butts head with the government, naive altruists, and the unsuccessful who envy him. The Deconstruction part comes later in Phase 3, when he sees where his Enlightened Self-Interest gets him after Sokovia's destruction at the hands of his creation Ultron and the lives lost afterwards cause him crippling guilt, eventually turning in-favor of government oversight. Even his death in Endgame — sacrificing his own life to save everybody else — fits Rand's ideas of altruism, a concept canonized as the least Objectivist thing you could ever do.
• Decoy Protagonist: In Civil War, Tony starts out as a Tritagonist overlapping with Hero Antagonist and Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist, however, when Zemo plays the tape that shows the death of his parents at Bucky's mind-controlled hand, Tony, while still counting as the film's Hero Antagonist, becomes a vengeful Inspector Javert Final Boss who battles Bucky (and indirectly, Steve) to the death to avenge the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Downplayed in Iron Man 2, where Tony's response to his looming demise is to give up all pretense and make an ass of himself at his own birthday party. Even Rhodey fighting him and stealing the War Machine suit isn't enough to snap him out of it. Ultimately subverted when Nick Fury clues him in to the fact that all hope is not lost, according to Howard Stark.
  • Comes reeeeaaaally close to it in Iron Man 3, after Pepper apparently dies. He can't even emote properly. Thankfully, she lives.
  • Invoked in Age of Ultron where Scarlet Witch uses a vision of Tony's greatest fears to drive him into self-destructive mania and, ultimately, to creating Ultron.
  • All but crosses it in Infinity War, when everyone he fought alongside, aside from Nebula, is dusted. In Endgame, he's initially alright with the idea of dying while drifting in space after sending a message to Pepper... Although Captain Marvel has other ideas.
• Deuteragonist:
  • While he initially was the protagonist of Phase 1; starting with The Avengers, the focus shifted towards Captain America to build up the conflict in Civil War. He remains the character with the most face-time taking in account all movies, but given that the storylines involving him (notably all of his movies, save minor sections of the first two) tend to be self-contained while Cap's have a greater impact in the general universe, he could either be considered this in general, a supporting protagonist at best, or a hero antagonist (such as in Civil War) at worst.
  • Narrative focus shifts back to Tony for the events of Infinity War and Endgame.
  • There's precedent for this in the comics too, at least in regards to The Avengers roster, with Tony starting out as The Hero and The Leader of the team during the book's first few issues, until Captain America is thawed out and takes on both these roles, and Tony becomes more of a deuteragonist.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Tony's "run before you can walk" philosophy has mixed results. His first flight test nearly kills him, though confronting the icing problem helps against Iron Monger's untested suit. Telling the Mandarin "here's my home address, come and have a go" was a bit much even for him. It reaches its ultimate endpoint when his desire to protect the world and save everyone causes him to jump without any real plan or even talking things out with his teammates besides Bruce, leading to the creation of Ultron.
  • This even extends to his future appearances. It's hinted in Captain America: Civil War that in his support for adopting the Sokovia Accords, he didn't truly understand how much power he was actually giving up or what would've happened to the superhumans who went against it. It's clear that he's blindsided by the sheer unconstitutionality of his former teammates' detainment and how little Ross cares about his opinions towards his methods.
  • In both Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, this is done posthumously. While gifting E.D.I.T.H to Peter was a grand gesture showing how much he trusted and cared for Peter, he never should've even made it without telling anyone or gifted what amounts to a Weapon of Mass Destruction to a teenager. It resulted in nothing but problems for both Peter and Stark Industries who had to deal with the bad press of both its existence and how it fell into Mysterio's hands.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
  • In The Avengers, Tony mocks, nicknames, and threatens both Thor and Loki, even going as far to do so without his suit at one instance. He gets bashed with a hammer, struck by lightning, and tossed off a skyscraper for his troubles, though not before getting in a few good hits himself.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, he's similarly sarcastic toward Ebony Maw and even calls him "Squidward" at one point. He also gets a brief verbal back-and-forth with Thanos and manages to sufficiently insult him before charging into battle and making him bleed.
• Disability Superpower: The arc reactor that powers Tony's Powered Armor is installed in Tony's chest in the first place as (to oversimplify) a very fancy pacemaker. Remove the arc reactor and Tony's heart will very quickly give out. He finally gets the shrapnel removed in Iron Man 3.
• Disappeared Dad: Downplayed. Tony is nothing but an attentive, caring father to his and Pepper's daughter, Morgan, but unfortunately becomes this to Morgan after pulling a Heroic Sacrifice in Endgame.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While captured in Iron Man 3, he taunts a guard with this after the guard breaks his borrowed "deluxe Dora the Explorer" watch. "Just for that, I'm going to kill you first."
• Don't Do Anything I Wouldn't Do: His word of advice to Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming:
  Tony: Don't do anything I would do. And definitely don't do anything I wouldn't do. There's a little grey area in there, and that's where you operate.
• Doom Magnet: Everyone Tony comes to love seems be doomed to a life of misery, ruin or failure (if not all three) by mere association with him. By Endgame, he's left his friend Rhodes an invalid, his wife widowed, and his daughter fatherless. Worst of all, because he made Spider-Man an Avenger, Peter loses everything he cares about: his crush, his aunt's life, his secret identity, and when he gets the latter back, everyone he ever knew forgets he existed.
• The Dreaded: As of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony's reputation as Iron Man and an Avenger is so well-known that criminals start to rethink their choices once he decides to make an investigation on them.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Tony is seen drinking all sorts of beverages, but being worldly and manly, he appears to prefer Scotch whisky or hot sake. His second drink of choice is champagne.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In Avengers: Endgame, he uses his own Badass Fingersnap to wipe out Thanos and his forces. However, Tony's body is too weak to handle the strain of using the Gauntlet, killing him.

E-H

• Early-Installment Weirdness: The Iron Man 1 novelization implied that Tony had a healthy relationship with his father. Subsequent films establish that Tony's relationship with Howard was strained at best and abusive at worst.
• Eccentric Millionaire: He buys million-dollar paintings just because they're overpriced, but dislikes being handed anything. He flies to Monaco to watch an F1 race, but decides at the last minute to instead actually compete. Getting the picture?
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: Graduated from MIT summa cum laude at 17 years and certainly has the smarts to show for it.
• Embarrassing Nickname: As of Civil War, as far as Rhodey is concerned, his name is now "Tony Stank".
• The Engineer: This is Tony Stark's superpower (and what makes him a super hero), and building suits of Powered Armor is just one aspect. In Iron Man 3, he engineers himself out of most of the film's dilemmas, usually without the armor. In Endgame, he creates a functional time travel system and a nano-tech Infinity Gauntlet.
• Equipment Upgrade: Tony is constantly upgrading his armor to be a more effective superhero, starting with adding flight and moving on from there.
  • Over the course of Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, he works on ways to make the armor more compact and easier to get in and out of without needing a massive rig to store it and take it on and off, as he does in the first film. By the time of Iron Man 3 his armors have the ability to open up and let him climb in and out with ease.
  • In The Avengers, his new armor includes its flight stabilizers on the back rather than relying on the repulsors in his gauntlets, allowing him to use repulsor blasts as weapons while flying without compromising his flight capabilities.
  • In Iron Man 3, Tony experiments with implants that let him control his armor remotely via thought, and future suits retain this functionality. The Mark 42 is modular and can be summoned to Tony and assemble around him in pieces and while he abandons this idea for his personal armors, he adopts a modular design for the Hulkbuster armor. He also integrates his AIs into his armors more thoroughly, allowing them autonomy since the suits can have their own AI to control them when he's not wearing them.
  • In Infinity War, he's upgraded to nanotech, allowing him to store his suit within the arc reactor on his chest and he can deploy it just by tapping the reactor. He's also able to shapeshift the armor into different weapons for combat such as shields or Arm Cannons, and it's self-repairing as long as he has enough nanites to reform damaged parts.
  • In Endgame, he's augmented the polymorph features of the last suit with hard light technology to help conserve nanites. It also serves as a makeshift Infinity Gauntlet capable of stealing the stones from under Thanos' nose.
• Everyone Has Standards: In a bit of Adaptational Heroism from the comic which Captain America: Civil War is loosely based on, he's unsettled by the prison conditions that the anti-Accords Avengers are placed under.
• Executive Excess:
  • Iron Man: Instead of running his company, Tony prefers to spend his time partying, drinking and having one-night stands with random women. He even skips out on an award ceremony in his honour to spend the night at a casino and has his private plane include paid dancers. He grows out of it following his experiences. Deconstructed in that it was him acting this way that allowed Stane to manipulate him and misuse the company to sell arms to terrorists. Stark is horrified to discover the sheer amount of corruption and death his negligence has let occur.
  • Iron Man 2: He briefly relapses into his former bad habits and takes them to self-destructive levels. It's a consequence of knowing that he's slowly dying and being unable to find a cure to the heavy metal poisoning from the tech that's allowing him to be Iron Man and keeping him alive.
• Expert Consultant: Natasha Romanov recommends Tony Stark to not be admitted to the Avengers Initiative, but kept on as a consultant. This lasts all of one short (The Consultant) before he's brought in as a full member in The Avengers.
• Expy: Outside of the MCU and Marvel in general, in Captain America: Civil War, that bared plot similarities with First Blood (both film and [[First Blood, the book the it is based on]]), his role along with T'Challa's are akin to that of the book's sympathetic version of police chief (instead of sheriff in the film version) Will Teasle for their plot-specific establishment Hero Antagonist roles they play in those respective aforementioned works. Their personal motivations to avenge the deaths of their fathers/father figures in their lives against the fugitive War Hero vets whom they believed are responsible, with Tony wanting to avenge his father Howard's death against Bucky to that of Teasle in the novel wanting to avenge his Parental Substitute Orval Kellerman's death against Rambo. In addition, both of them were estranged from their female partners at the time of the premise at the beginning of the story, with Pepper Potts having broken up with Tony at the time to that of Teasle being separated from his wife Anna in the original book as revealed in the first act, both of them have one Red-Headed Hero on their team with Black Widow for Tony to Deputy Mitch (at least in the film version) for Teasle and both characters found themselves conflicted if they're performing their committed duties the right way or not. Tony's calling out to Steve that the vibranium shield no longer belongs to him while lying on the floor after being defeated by the latter mirrors of that of the film Teasle's Defiant to the End Get It Over With egging as he lies on the floor too after being defeated by Rambo in the final confrontation.
• The Extremist Was Right:
  • Creating Vision in Age of Ultron is a move of desperation that almost everyone thinks is a terrible idea, but Stark is ultimately proven correct that the Avengers aren't beating Ultron by themselves and Vision is critical to victory, and that his hopes about an A.I. superhero protector were ultimately vindicated.
    Thor: [...] Stark is right.
    Bruce Banner: Oh, it's definitely the end times!
  • Played with and discussed in Avengers: Endgame, when he gets back to Earth half-dead, he points out to the others just how Properly Paranoid he was when he made Ultron. A threat from space did come, they were completely unprepared for it and now half of the universe is nothing but ash in the wind. On the other hand, how much use Ultron would've been against a guy with five Infinity Stones is debatable.
• Face Death with Dignity: He's extremely composed in the face of his attempted Heroic Sacrifice in The Avengers (2012) and his real one in Endgame.
• Famed In-Story:
  • Unsurprisingly, given that he appeals to almost all demographics. His billionaire playboy status made him something of a celebrity to men and women alike, his genius and business success made him renowned around the world for being the lead in technology, and his philanthropy made him popular with the public in general. It's exaggerated once he dons the Iron Man armor; Tony can't go anywhere in public without drawing a crowd or Happy having to chase off the paparazzi.
  • In Spider-Man: Far From Home, his sacrifice in the Battle of Earth has made him a martyr in the eyes of the public. There is a proliferation of art in tribute to Iron Man and people are constantly comparing other heroes to Tony.
• Family Man: At some point within the five-year gap between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, he and Pepper married, are living in a quaint little house by a lake and have a five-year-old daughter named Morgan. It is made fairly obvious from the get-go that she takes after a lot from her father and he in-turn has a close relationship with her.
• Fatal Flaw: Carelessness, a flip side of his tendency to be Taught by Experience. His carelessness lead to the creation of Ultron and the Avengers falling apart.
• A Father to His Men: As one of the co-leaders of the Avengers, especially towards Peter Parker in Civil War when he sends him off early in the middle of battle to make sure he does not get hurt. Then in Spider-Man: Homecoming, he continues to look out for Peter while acting as a Parental Substitute.
• The Fettered: Tony Stark before his kidnapping by the Ten Rings was The Unfettered. After returning from his experiences a changed man he realizes he has been "comfortable with a system of zero accountability" and creates a new legacy of responsibility, which becomes a major theme for Iron Man throughout the franchise.
• Fiction 500:
  • Forget the private jet that turns into a nightclub with flight attendants who double as exotic dancers. He has the personal resources and completely automated production facility to build a fully functional Iron Man suit in five hours in his garage.
  • As of Iron Man 2, said garage now contains a miniature, personal Hadron Collider.
  • The Avengers has him kicking it up a notch, having bought the MetLife building and given it some drastic upgrades: he completely cut it off from the city's electrical grid, equipped it with 10 stories of R&D, gave it the capability to both manufacture the Iron Man armor and remove it from Tony while he enters his apartment, and chopped the top off to rebuild it as what can only be described as a fantastic display of ego.
  • In 2013, Mr. Tony Stark ranks #4 on Forbes' Fictional 15, with a net worth of $12.4 billion.
  • His "Binarily Augmented Retro Framing" device (or "B.A.R.F.") cost him over $600 million to bring to life, something he admits could only be self-funded since no research firm would ever throw that kind of green at him on flight-of-fancy tech. He then says that everyone in attendance of the demonstration (which he is conducting at MIT) will have their research projects fully funded by his grant.
• Final Boss: Steve's final opponent in Civil War is not Baron Zemo, nor the other Winter Soldiers that are in hibernation. It's Tony, trying to kill Bucky to avenge his mother.
• Final First Hug:
  • Defied in Spider-Man: Homecoming; he tries to keep himself emotionally distant in his mentoring of Peter Parker, rebuffing a hug from him.
  • Played straight in Avengers: Infinity War. When Thanos' Badass Fingersnap culls half the universe's population, and Peter is one of the victims, all Tony does is hug the terrified, crying boy as he disintegrates.
  • Also played straight in Avengers: Endgame. When taking a brief break from the final battle, Tony Stark runs into Peter Parker, who has been brought back to life by Bruce Banner and does not hesitate to give him a hug. Tony dies not that long afterward, with Peter standing by him as he passes on.
• Flaw Exploitation: In Civil War, his emotionally volatile responses to negative situations do pretty much all of Zemo's work breaking up the Avengers. All Zemo has to do is show Tony and Steve the recording of Bucky killing the Starks and Tony flips, any thought of stopping or capturing Zemo forgotten in favour of just plain killing Bucky. Just as Zemo was banking on.
• Foil:
  • To Steve Rogers, playing the seemingly selfish cynic to Steve's old-fashioned idealist. For example, when both are shown to be darlings of the public (featured at big show events complete with dancing girls), Steve is visibly uncomfortable with the spotlight while Tony relishes in it.
  • To Doctor Stephen Strange: they both start out as being self-centered, reckless men who care about personal pleasure and success until a life-changing accident brings them down a few pegs. The difference is Tony (as Iron Man) uses technology while Strange uses magic. Additionally, Stark gets the chance to stroke his own ego for good by becoming a beloved superhero, while Strange learns humility by fighting battles kept away from the public eye. It is these similarities that lead to them butting heads so often.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Downplayed. After the Time Skip in Avengers: Endgame, he finally forgives Steve for his part in their falling out, represented by giving back Captain America's shield. However, judging by how he refuses to mention his parents' death by name and is uncomfortable referring to it even obliquely, he's not fully forgotten it.
• Forgot About His Powers: After the trailer for Endgame, memes joked about how Tony could build robotic armor when trapped in a cave but is helpless on an alien spaceship full of advanced technology.
• Formerly Fit: Not as much as Thor but 5 years of retirement and simple aging means that Tony is notably out of shape and weaker in Endgame than he was in Infinity War.
• For Your Own Good: In Civil War, his attitude towards Wanda, putting her under lock and key (and Vision's watch) in the Avengers compound to avoid anyone trying to attack her. She doesn't appreciate Tony making major decisions on her behalf without even bothering to talk to her first. Hawkeye later calls him on it as well.
  Wanda: You looked me in my room.
  Tony: First of all, that's an exaggeration. Secondly, I did it to protect you.
  Hawkeye: He sees all. He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not.
• Freudian Excuse: Tony describes his father as emotionally distant, "calculating", and not given over to displays of affection or love. This might help explain some of his present-day problems.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: He's not very popular among the superhero community due to three reasons: his status as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and a reputation for hedonism; his past as a Jerkass weapons manufacturer and a son of Howard Stark (especially important to the Maximoff twins, Hank Pym, and Scott Lang to whom Hank passed the prejudice); his role in the creation of Ultron and the Sokovia Accords. He tends to win people over when they see him putting his life on the line.
• Friend to All Children: Tony has an affinity for kids, and is a lot more patient and understanding (yet no less snarky) when interacting with them. Three of the closest bonds he shares are with kids, in fact: Harley, Peter/Spider-Man and his own daughter Morgan hold their own with regards to witty banter and adore the man greatly.
• Fun with Acronyms: Tony likes giving his tech and AI acronyms. J.A.R.V.I.S. is Just a Very Intelligent System, B.A.R.F. is Binary Augmented Retroframing, etc.
  E.D.I.T.H.: Mr. Stark loved his acronyms.
• The Gadfly: Depends on what mood you catch him in.
  • Tony has an unfortunate habit of using sarcastic humor as an icebreaker in interpersonal relationships, most tellingly in his tendency to give everybody goofy nicknames and being absolutely fine about openly and lightly discussing personal trauma, such as with Captain America's 70-year freeze and how he's a fan of the way Bruce Banner "turns into an enormous green rage-monster."
  • In The Avengers, he pokes Bruce with a cattle prod, but Bruce finds it funny. They're both scientists; little lab pranks like that happen all the time.
  • In Civil War, he teases Peter Parker over his initial improvised costume and gadgets.
• Gadgeteer Genius: When pushed, he can revolutionize Arc Reactor technology and design advanced prostheses IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!, as well as build his own personal Hadron Collider by nothing more than rewiring his own home. He is also masterful in multiple fields of science and has accomplishments ranging from being the first to crack nanotechnology without the use of vibranium to finding a cure to the Extremis method. To the point he also created two Infinity Gauntlets on the fly without being dependent on the smiths of Asgard.
• Generation Xerox: Of his father, Howard Stark. Genius inventor in the arms industry that gets involved in a war and becomes cynical and aloof as a result. Probably the real reason for their estranged relationship was that they were too similar to each other.
• Genius Bruiser: He's a genius no matter what he wears and easily qualifies as one of the most powerful Avengers when he's in his suit. Case in point, he's the only character besides Thor, Wanda, Captain Marvel, and Dr. Strange to (albeit briefly) match Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Genocide Survivor: He survives the Snap at the end of Infinity War, which is of little-to-no comfort for him as he's been fearing that something like this would happen ever since the Chitauri Invasion happened.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe: A running gag in the films is that Tony Stark is terrible at buying gifts for Pepper.
  • In Iron Man, he outright forgot her birthday and she bought herself an expensive dress on his dime.
  • In Iron Man 2, he buys her strawberries has an apology present, forgetting that she's deathly allergic to them.
  • In Iron Man 3, he buys her an enormous stuffed bunny for Christmas that barely fits in the house and that she does not like, which he's eventually forced to agree with.
  • In Avengers: Endgame, Tony is building the Rescue Suit as an anniversary present (an odd choice since Pepper's something of a Wet Blanket Wife who disapproves of Tony continuing to be Iron Man). He lampshades this trope as Pepper "never wears what I buy her". In a subversion though, Pepper does end up donning the suit in the climax of the movie.
• Giver of Lame Names: Despite being the MCU's resident Nicknamer, he has had some off moments:
  • He called two of his early robotic arm assistants "DUM-E", and "U".
  • In the Novelization of Iron Man 2 and one of the tie-in comics, it's explained that he tried to get his new element patented as "badassium". Predictably, the IUAPC shot it down.
  • In Endgame, his Paper-Thin Disguise when confronted with his father Howard Stark when they met in the SHIELD facility in the 1970's? "Howard Potts."
  • Played for Drama in Spider-Man: Far From Home. One of Quentin Beck's gripes with Tony is naming his life's work "Binarily Augmented Retro Framing", or B.A.R.F.
• Good Is Not Nice: Yes, he's willing to work hard to keep the world safe, and his heart is in the right place, but he's also abrasive and not good at endearing himself to his teammates.
• Good Parents: Tony becomes a caring and devoted father to his and Pepper's daughter, Morgan.
• Good with Numbers: Since he's a genius in anything STEM (particularly engineering and physics), this is a given. It's lampshaded by Tony himself in Iron Man:
  Tony: [to Yinsen] If my math is right — and it always is — then three gigajoules per second.
• Go Out with a Smile: A dying Tony still manages to give Pepper a weak smile in his last moments.
• Grade Skipper: He graduated top of his class from MIT when he was seventeen with a BS in Engineering. Given that he started MIT at age 14 and an undergraduate degree generally takes four years to earn, Tony would've graduated a year early.
• Guile Hero: Doubles up with Science Hero. Tony Stark, of the original Avengers, is the most likely to Take a Third Option. It often works; his crazy and half-improvisational plans often leave his enemies without a clue what he's going to do next.
• Guilt Complex: In Civil War, he gives his complete support to the Sokovia Accords because of his overwhelming guilt over the events of Age of Ultron. He strives to submit to a higher authority that would prevent him from doing any more wrong, and attempts to appease the government by any means necessary. He also tries to convince the other Avengers to do the same regardless of their concerns. Of known events in support of the Accords (New York, Washington D.C., Sokovia, and Lagos), only one (Sokovia) can be blamed on the Avengers — the rest were caused by enemy forces, and the Avengers tried to stop them and minimize the collateral damage. Tony's inability to see that because of guilt eventually results in fracturing the team, the very thing that he was trying to prevent.
• Handicapped Badass: Until Iron Man 3, Tony had to use an arc reactor to stop shrapnel from killing him. And even then, he was a badass genius.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Initially, Tony tried this approach with Peter, fearing that if he was any more involved he'd be overbearing like his father. After this proves to not be the most effective way of mentoring Peter, though, Tony keeps closer tabs on the kid.
• Happily Married: Contrary to both his and Pepper's fears, he's a devoted husband and father. It helps that he retired from super-heroics, allowing him to focus on his family.
• Heartbroken Badass: Hand in hand with his unresolved issues concerning his father's lack of love towards him, Tony's single greatest fear is to fail a child who admires and looks up to him; hence his continued (and futile) refusal to return Peter Parker's friendship and affection lest he begins to love him like a son. You can therefore witness the exact moment that Stark's heart shatters in Avengers: Infinity War when he helplessly watched a crying Peter Parker crumble into ash in his arms, as he collapses and inconsolably weeps for the boy who saw him as a second father.
• Hero Antagonist: In Captain America: Civil War, he is in direct opposition to Cap even though he isn't evil. While Helmut Zemo is the true Big Bad and the one responsible for the events of the movie, Tony and his group are actively trying to capture Steve and Bucky while ignoring Zemo's plan to unleash five HYDRA Super Soldiers from suspended animation. He officially takes this spot in the film's final act once he finds out HYDRA used Bucky to kill his parents, by watching a video of it with Bucky right next to him, and snaps.
• The Hero Dies: One of the principal heroes of the entire MCU, and the one to start the MCU in the first place, and he gives his life to stop Thanos and his forces during the climax of Endgame. The Infinity Stone Saga begins and ends with him. Spider-Man: Far From Home has Tony's death as a major plot point, since Peter Parker saw Tony as a father figure; now that Tony's dead, Peter spends a good portion of the film rather upset.
• The Hero's Idol: Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man's biggest influence growing up was easily Iron Man. Tony tries to guide this younger, more impulsive Spider-Man to making smarter choices as a hero. Peter is likewise devastated by Tony's death at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Beck manages to deconstruct it by pretending to be similar to the man, allowing him to seize the EDITH goggles to wreck havoc.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • The Avengers: He attempts to make "the sacrifice play" by directing a nuclear warhead away from Manhattan and into the wormhole towards the mother-ship. He has no expectation or hope of surviving in the deep vacuum of space, in another part of the universe. He survives by falling back into the wormhole just in time and having his fall stopped by the Hulk.
  • Endgame: He uses the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out Thanos and all of his army, knowing that his body is too weak to use it.^note It had previously been established that normal humans couldn't use the Gauntlet and Tony thought that even Thor would be unable to wield it. He takes a second to realize what he is about to do and still go through his fingersnap. It also counts as a Dying Moment of Awesome.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • As of Iron Man 3, he's very aware of how flawed he is. Hilariously so.
    Pepper: You know, I think I understand why don't want to give up the suits. What am I going to complain about now?
    Tony: Well, it's me. You'll think of something.
  • And:
    Pepper: Am I gonna be okay?
    Tony: No. You're in a relationship with me. Everything will never be okay.
  • This theme continues in Spider-Man: Homecoming where he makes it clear that he doesn't consider himself a superhero role model. He tells Peter, "don't do anything I would do" and later, when Peter says he was trying to be a hero like him, Tony replies, "I wanted you to be better."
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In the beginning of the Age of Ultron, one of Tony's droids is met with hatred by the locals of Sokovia, and the camera pans to some anti-Iron Man graffiti. After Age of Ultron, for co-creating Ultron, he has more than a few haters in-universe (although he's still popular among young people as seen in Homecoming). This bad publicity is part of what leads him to support the Accords and become more responsible. Even when Tony becomes an acknowledged hero the world posthumously, the former Stark Industries employees hate him enough to sabotage Peter Parker, with Mysterio's entire chain of actions designed to discredit him and usurp the Avengers.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Rhodey; he's one of two people that Tony trusts.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Even though he's just doing his duty to support the Accords, Captain America: Civil War depicts Tony going down this route as he increasingly becomes real enemies with Steve, allowing Revenge Before Reason to be in the front wheel of his morale during his battle against Steve, especially after his friend Rhodes gets injured in a skirmish. Once he finds out HYDRA used Bucky to kill his parents, Tony goes ballistic and doesn't even attempt to capture the former anymore, instead actively trying to hurt him.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Uses sarcasm, obnoxious humour, and narcissism to hide any insecurity or fear — which there turns out to be a lot of, given his Inferiority Superiority Complex, Daddy Issues, Survivor Guilt, Guilt Complex, and Cassandra status.
• Honest Corporate Executive: After he returned from Afghanistan and refused to allow his products to fall into evil hands.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Tony Stark met with Ulysses Klaue — a gangster -– prior to repurposing his company, but he waves it away as just a meeting and that he never actually did business with Klaue.
  • Later on, Tony assumes that with the new evidence that exonerates Barnes and proves Zemo was responsible for the attack, Ross will help him out. Not so much.
• Hot Paint Job: One of the cars in his garage is a 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster with a flame paint job. He fittingly calls it "Hotrod".
• Howard Hughes Homage: Tony's a 21st century version inspired by Hughes in his youth, as a wealthy, eccentric, playboy engineering genius who loves to fly - although Tony prefers Powered Armor to planes.
• Hypocrite:
  • He believes that superheroes need to be put in check, but has absolutely no problem enlisting an unregistered up-and-coming underage superhero (Spider-Man) to further his goals.
  • Despite being a Friend to All Children, he also throws said untrained sixteen-year-old who's only had his powers for a matter of weeks into a super-battle.
  • Tony accuses Steve of letting his emotions cloud his reasoning regarding his opposition of the Sokovia Accords, even though Tony's own reasons for supporting them is largely due to his own guilt. Tony then throws reason out the window in the final act as he tries to kill Bucky over something Bucky had no control over. This is all compounded by him not disclosing his attempted murder, facing no consequences for said crime, and proceeding to walk past the cells of the imprisoned Avengers who ultimately helped prove Bucky’s innocence.
  • Admonishes Peter for being "nothing without the suit" by saying he shouldn't have it if that's how he feels, yet he has tied almost all of his identity to being Iron Man (despite making many attempts to distance himself). At least in this instance, it comes with an air of "do as I say, not as I do." Plus, Iron Man 3 made a point of demonstrating that with or without the suit, Tony is Iron Man.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Part of his Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! in the first Avengers is in part due to him realizing his description of Loki also fits himself.
  • He tells Peter to shut up with the pop culture references in Infinity War after Peter makes a second reference to the Alien franchise — a thing Tony himself is often guilty of, including earlier in the same film when he called Ebony Maw "Squidward". Minutes later, he's calling Drax "Mr. Clean" and Quill "Flash Gordon".

I-M

• I Am Not Left-Handed:
  • invokedWord of God notes that the reason Tony didn't just flat-out bash Bucky's skull in or laser him to pieces at the end of Captain America: Civil War was because he wanted to strangle him with his bare hands to make a point — a brainwashed Bucky killed Maria Stark by strangling her to death, so in Tony's mind it was only fair that Bucky die the same way.
  • The same goes for his clashes with Steve; invokedWord of God, as well as various instances at the end of Captain America: Civil War, make it abundantly clear that Tony had no intentions of actually hurting Steve or even knocking him out had Cap not tried to intervene in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• I Am Not My Father: Much of his motivation prior to the Sokovia Accords is undoing Sins of Our Fathers by taking Stark Industries out of the weapons trade, which is how Howard Stark built the fortune that Tony inherited. The fact that civilians continue to be killed by bombs made by Stark Industries haunts him through Iron Man 3 and Civil War. His father's actions such as deporting Vanko, and having a bad relationship with Hank Pym (though in that case, Hank was hardly all that nice a guy himself) also haunts him. It also reflects on his anxiety about settling with Pepper and starting a family, since he's worried if he'll be good with kids, and his interactions with Harley and later Peter stem from him trying to be a good Dad to see if he can make it.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Tony inherited his Science Hero tendencies from his father, Howard. Like Tony, Howard was a drunk and a womanizer and a genius who eventually settled down with a woman he adored. He also drove Tony really hard, wasn't able to tell his son how proud he was of him, how much he loved him. And he died when Tony was only 21, so they could never talk it out and reconcile. Iron Man 2 is nothing but daddy issues unpacked.
• Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: He builds his first Iron Man armor to escape his imprisonment by the Ten Rings but doesn't build the iconic red and gold suit until sometime after he returns home. Even then the suit's baseline abilities (such as flight and repulsor rays) don't properly debut until Tony takes it to deal with a Ten Rings attack on an innocent village.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: During the final confrontation in Civil War, he makes it clear to Cap several times that he only wants Bucky, not him. This reluctance is what actually causes him to lose the fight.
• I Hate Past Me: He rather nonchalantly tells Scott Lang to go ahead and give his 2012 self the equivalent of a heart attack so they can grab the Tesseract.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: A downplayed example as he does like being a hero and a billionaire but Tony's greatest wish is to retire to a humble life with Pepper.
• Immune to Mind Control: Ends up being this by accident in The Avengers. Loki has to put his scepter up to people's hearts in order to brainwash them into doing his bidding, but Tony's Arc Reactor just so happens to be in front of his heart to prevent the shrapnel from killing him. Thus, all Loki can do is make a pathetic "clink" sound effect when he tries to take control of Tony.
• Improvised Weapon User: Tony dismantles Bucky's gun and uses the slide to bludgeon him when armorless in Civil War.
• Incoming Ham: His arrival at the Stark Expo in the second movie, and appearing in Germany with guns blazing and hijacking S.H.I.E.L.D.'s audio systems to play AC/DC in The Avengers.
• Insecure Love Interest: Tony agrees with Killian that he doesn't deserve someone like Pepper, which is in complete compliance with his self-loathing nature.
• In-Series Nickname: Almost always referred to as just "Tony". About the only person who calls him Anthony is Justin Hammer.
• Insistent Terminology: During a senate hearing, he states that he doesn't see the Iron Man armor as a weapon, but a hi-tech prosthesis.
• Instant Costume Change: When the situation calls for it, Tony can don his Iron Man armors very quickly.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Near the beginning of Iron Man 2, he is Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee because he refuses to share his signature Powered Armor with the US government. He proceeds to make a mockery of it. By the time he gets home, his antics are already on YouTube with 1,890,873 views, much to his amusement.
• Insufferable Genius:
  • Snubs an award ceremony for technological brilliance and then gives away the award like it's junk. This also colors a lot of his interpersonal interactions, though it's usually played for laughs.
  • He kept the Ultron project a secret from the other Avengers (sans Bruce) because he didn't want to be given the whole "man must not meddle" lecture. When called on it afterward, he just angrily bites back that everyone else "doesn't get" what he was trying to do.
  • In general, when Tony's at his worst (or lowest), this becomes a serious issue for him, as he'll absolutely refuse to accept the possibility he might be wrong about something, or refuse to budge on an issue. For example, throughout Iron Man 2, he believes that since he's looked for every possible means of curing palladium poisoning, there isn't one at all, and needs encouragement from Fury to find one (and never mind the problem was caused by having a chunk of palladium in his chest in the first place, something that 3 demonstrates could have been solved by Tony just hiring a bunch of doctors to get the shrapnel out of his chest). Hawkeye calls him on it during Civil War.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • He befriends a boy named Harley in Iron Man 3 who proves to be quite a useful Kid Sidekick.
  • He becomes something of a mentor to Peter Parker from Captain America: Civil War onwards.
  • For a while, he was friends with Steve Rogers.
• Irony:
  • As pointed out by Obadiah Stane in the first Iron Man:
    Stane: How ironic, Tony! Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!
  • In Civil War, Peter Parker is hesitant about flying to Germany, but Tony charismatically pressures him into going. Whereas in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter is eager to join the Avengers, but Tony is hesitant about it.
  • His goal of enabling Peter to succeed Iron Man as an even better hero ends up with the poor boy having his identity erased.
• Irrational Hatred:
  • Tony attacks Bucky with a murderous rage over the killing of his parents, despite knowing that Bucky was a brainwashed slave of HYDRA at the time. In his defense, he was also blindsided by Steve's betrayal in keeping the truth from him for years, coupled with the very stressful events he experienced that day.
  • In Infinity War, he has come to acknowledge being irrational when he attempts to reason with Star-Lord to prevent him from making the same mistake by attacking Thanos for killing Gamora before they can remove the Infinity Gauntlet.
• It's All About Me:
  • Zig-Zagged. While both Cap and Miriam Sharpe directly accuse Tony of fighting only for himself, he actually demonstrates plenty of ability to empathize with, and fight on behalf of, the common man when shown how much harm his weapons cause in the hands of criminals and terrorists. However, it is true that Tony has an oversized ego and self-interest, and that he spends every movie he appears in struggling against it.
  • Self-centeredness has long been a character trait of Tony Stark, but initially it was portrayed more an endearing/annoying factor than a true flaw. Such as when he bought a giant tower in order to put his name on it in big letters. As he says, "It's like Christmas, but with more... me."
  • While Tony does think supporting the Accords is the right thing, he's perfectly willing to ignore his teammates' feelings on the matter and go behind their backs to do it. Eventually, Black Widow and Hawkeye call out Tony on making the issue all about himself and his personal guilt.
    Black Widow: Are you incapable of letting your ego go for one goddamn second?
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, when he rips Peter a new one after the ferry disaster, he seems to care more about how Peter's actions could affect him, though this ends up being subverted in Avengers: Infinity War.
    Tony: If you died, that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience.
  • In Avengers: Endgame, he initially refuses to help Scott Lang and his remaining Avengers teammates try to figure out a way to bring back their loved ones who were Snapped because most of his loved ones are still around or, in his daughter's case, arrived after the event. He does eventually change his mind, but only once he's assured that they won't do anything that may jeopardize his daughter's existence.
• It's All My Fault: Deconstructed. He's a textbook case of how fine a line there is between this and It's All About Me, and how they can be equally destructive; he constantly attempts to assuage his guilt and self-loathing with superheroism, only for his altruism to be scorned as his self-gratification^*You think you fight for us? You only fight for yourself., and his efforts to assuage his guilt^*That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable in the wrong hands, I shut it down, stopped manufacturing.. As of Civil War, Pepper has left him because being Iron Man has consumed his life to the point of leaving no room left for self-indulgent romance. This continues in Spider-Man: Homecoming where he tries to be a responsible mentor for Peter Parker so the kid stays out of trouble that he can't handle and grows into a better superhero than he himself, but at times it sounds like he is trying to vicariously fix his own troubled relationship with his deceased father.
• I Work Alone: Initially turns down the Avengers Initiative because, by his own admission, he doesn't "play well with others." Some of it's that Insufferable Genius acting up. Tony initially thinks no-one can keep up with him, and so he shuns help, but even when he doesn't, he tends to piss people off, anyway. Fortunately, the events of Avengers help him get out of this mindset.
  Tony: I told you, I don't wanna join your super-secret boy band.
  Nick Fury: Yeah, I remember you do everything yourself. How's that workin' out?
• Jack of All Stats: Due to the Ace Custom nature of his armors, Tony can (and does, as the first Iron Legion indicates) build armors that can specialize in certain environments, tasks, or forms of combat. However, his baseline suits definitely put him in the top tier of the Avengers, but he isn't the number one in any particular area. Tony undoubtedly has the highest IQ, but he lacks Steve's tactical skill. Tony and Thor can both fly, but Thor seems to fly faster and is a veritable Flying Brick. Tony's suits grant him superhuman strength, but without something like the Hulkbuster or the Bleeding Edge armor, he is not as strong as the Hulk. Tony has also been taking self-defense training, but without his suit he is not as capable of a hand-to-hand combatant as Black Widow or Hawkeye. Tony is a Gadgeteer Genius, but his ability to manipulate technology is inferior to that of the android Vision.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Tony is a selfish, hypocritical, narcissistic Manchild with a complex Never My Fault attitude. But, he's still correct on some things.
  • He proves that the Hulk isn't inherently dangerous and is a part of Banner rather than a different being.
  • His decision to go with the Accords is because that the Avengers do need to be checked with their incredible power.
  • Tony's anger at Natasha in Civil War is reasonable given how she was supposed to side with the Accords and decided to help Steve during the airport flight.
  • While ordering Vision to keep Wanda under house arrest was very much a dick move, Tony is correct to point out that Wanda's undocumented status within the U.S, combined with her very powerful abilities she hasn't fully mastered yet, makes her a massive Walking Disaster Area both physically and PR wise, especially in lieu of what happened in Lagos. As such, keeping her in a safe place where no harm can come to her isn't completely unreasonable, though Steve vehemently disagrees.
  • While visiting the superheroes in prison after the airport fight, Clint makes a sarcastic quip in regards to Tony's Knight Templar like actions but Tony points out that he and the others had a choice and knew the consequences.
  • His anger and murderous hatred towards Steve and Bucky, respectively, is hard to blame. For the former, Steve withheld information regarding the deaths of Tony's parents; as for the latter, while he was brainwashed into it, Bucky is still responsible for the murders of Tony's parents.
  • Throughout Homecoming, Tony wasn't exactly the best mentor to a young Peter, but he was right to call out the boy for being reckless in his pursuit to apprehend the Vulture. His attitude regarding Peter being dependent on his suit is also justified, given that Peter underestimated his own abilities and truly defeated the Vulture after getting in tune with them.
  • His anger at Dr. Strange in Infinity War is understandable given he and Peter had just saved him from torture and death but the doctor can only respond with ungratefulness.
  • Though he was ignoring his own fault in the Civil War mess, Tony's livid What the Hell, Hero? moment to Steve points out the latter's was also at fault for the mess as well.
  • While nicknaming Beck's hologram technology "BARF" was a bit of a dick move, firing Beck for being unstable was clearly the correct thing to do. And to be fair, even Tony himself openly admitted there and then to not being fond of the name, but likely couldn't come up with any other name in time, though Beck clearly ignored that part.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Tony can be a bit of a showoff, his heart's in the right place and he works hard to make the world better. By The Avengers, he's also indulging in shockingly open and extravagant displays of compassion and thoughtfulness in between smug, self-aggrandizing quips. Age of Ultron reveals that Tony's greatest fear is the other Avengers (whom he fully considers his friends by now) dying and Earth being destroyed because Tony didn't do enough.
• Jumped at the Call: Tony is living proof that becoming a hero can still be a lot of fun.
• Karma Houdini: Played With. He created Ultron yet doesn't face any consequences for the property damage and deaths that his Ax-Crazy A.I. caused. That said, he is haunted by his mistakes and is willing to atone for his actions in Civil War.
• Kidnapped Scientist: In the first film, he and Dr. Yinsen are abducted and told to build the Jericho missile by the Ten Rings or be executed (or build the Jericho missile and then be executed anyway). They Take a Third Option.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Tony marinates daily in cynicism and sarcasm before setting forth to bring world peace, protect the innocent, and mock the stupid.
• Kryptonite Factor: Although the Iron Man armors can withstand things ranging from small arms fire to Thor's lightning, they are susceptible to heat intense enough to melt through them. This is why any of the Extremis fighters can almost fight on even ground with Tony.
• Ladykiller in Love: The first and second movies made it obvious that for all his Casanova tendencies, Tony was in love with his long-time Beleaguered Assistant Pepper Potts. Since Iron Man 2, he has been monogamous.
• The Lancer: In The Avengers as a direct foil to The Leader and Ideal Hero Captain America, and an obnoxious Ace that always has a plan different to Steve's. He's also listed as the official Number Two (to Cap) of the team.
• Large Ham: As a man who believes the spotlight is always trained on him, it's a required trait. His hamminess dials down after The Avengers (something about staring face to face with the void at the heart of the universe made him wise up).
  Tony Stark: I am Iron Man, the suit and I are one.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Lampshades this in his narration of Iron Man 3, as his act of spurning Killian in 1999 eventually comes back to bite him in the ass.
    Tony: We create our own demons.
  • In the opening scene of Iron Man, during his attempt to call for help during the Ten Rings ambush, a warhead lands right in front of him with the corporate label Stark Industries prominently displayed for a brief moment before promptly detonating and peppering him with shrapnel. A weapons maker gets attacked by his own weapons.
• The Last Dance: In Iron Man 2 until he finds a replacement element for the palladium core of his arc reactor that was poisoning him.
• Leaning on the Furniture: He makes a habit of it that Doctor Strange does not appreciate in Infinity War:
  Strange: Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?
• Legacy Character: He inherits his father's mantle as a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, then kicks it up a notch by becoming the Iron Man. Then he passes that legacy on to Spider-Man and Ironheart.
• Leitmotif: Many of his scenes involve AC/DC songs.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Many people, both foes and allies, have assumed that Tony's Cloudcuckoolander irreverence and Obfuscating Stupidity mean he's an Upper-Class Twit who can't take anything seriously, let alone pose a threat. These people were very wrong.
• Like Father, Like Son: As the MCU has expanded, we've learned that Tony is extremely similar to his father in many ways such as sense of humor and a desire to help people.
• Like You Were Dying: In Iron Man 2 when confronted with his poisoning and seemingly imminent death, Tony asks Natasha Romanoff what she would do if she had only a brief time to live. Natasha, evaluating him for S.H.I.E.L.D., tells him that she would do whatever she wanted. As a result, he decides to have a wild party at his house in Malibu and get completely drunk in full armor, thereby endangering everyone around him.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Everything from Tony's personality to his looks seems to come from his dad — both are playboy tech whizzes who run the same multi-billion dollar company and have a sarcastic streak. They're also both dark-haired, dark-eyed, about the same height, and have similar facial structure and hair style. This is in contrast to Tony's mother, who was a soft-spoken blue-eyed blonde that seemed to prefer art and music over science.
• Locking Macgyver In The Store Cupboard: How he built the Mark I Iron Man armor. It's a Invoked Trope; the Ten Rings asked him what he needed to build a Jericho Missile and Tony told them exactly what he needed.
• Lonely Rich Kid: He had no friends growing up in his swank boarding school. Later, he grew up to be a Millionaire Playboy enjoying swank parties and seducing reporters, although it's shown that this is a very shallow existence and his only true friends are Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, and his robots.
• Luxurious Liquor: In several films, he is seen drinking scotch to match his narcissistic rich boy persona. In the first Avengers film, he even prepares one for Loki when they're exchanging words at Stark Tower and as an excuse to go behind the bar to get his Iron Man suit attachment bracelets in preparation for needing to jump out the windows — though this could well be exploiting the theory behind the trope to prevent the trickster from questioning his movement. In the first Iron Man film, he even throws in a portable alcohol station for the troops in the Middle East who buy his weapons.
  Tony Stark: Give me a scotch, I'm starving.
• MacGyvering: His main ability when he's not inside his Iron Man suit. Other than building a Powered Armor with just scraps of metal, he can come up with weapons using whatever he has access to at the time.
• Mad Scientist: Proudly calls himself one in Age of Ultron. You gotta own up to it, you know?
• Made of Iron: He can take an amazing pounding, even out of his suit. Routinely takes impacts and falls that should kill a human being. Except a massive dose of gamma radiation after using the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Manchild:
  • At times, Stark looks more like a child building with legos than an adult saving the world. Considering that he built his first A.I. at just seven, he really hasn't grown out of revolutionising technology by playing with toys!
  • He'll often start behaving childishly even in serious situations, like during his Senate hearing, where his antics earn him a disapproving look from Pepper. Most of Iron Man 2 involves him struggling with these tendencies.
  • Even his former employee Quentin Beck lampshades this, outright calling him a "boozy manchild".
• Manly Facial Hair: This is a distinctive trait of Tony's, being a superhero who has not once (save in a computer-generated flashback in Civil War) been clean-shaven while onscreen. When time travelling back in the 1970s his facial hair style is even commented upon as resembling that of a Beatnik, befitting his rebellious "bad attitude" persona.
• Married to the Job: See his Chronic Hero Syndrome entry. By Civil War, his devotion to the Iron Man role is damaging his relationship with Pepper. He's obviously realized this flaw in Homecoming, where Tony tells Peter that if he truly needs the suit to be a superhero and good person, then he doesn't deserve it.
• Meaningful Funeral: Tony Stark's funeral pans over his family, friends and associates and is interspersed with shots of the universe recovering, showing how many lives he touched and how much he gained after the cave in Afghanistan.
• Mentor Archetype: A Parental Substitute to Spider-Man in Homecoming, by providing him with a better suit and giving him life lessons such as "if you need the suit to be a hero then you don't deserve it" while also praising him when he succeeds. He becomes a case of Mentor Occupational Hazard in Endgame.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: His father was murdered before the start of the film series. Yinsen died helping Tony escape from the Ten Rings. Tony then found himself on the other side of this trope when he took on Peter Parker as a protégé and had a daughter.
• Meta Casting: Given Downey Jr.'s history with partying and drugs — plus snarky characters — he was made for the role ...except for his height. The comic book version of Tony Stark is 6 inches taller than him, and Downey is shorter than everyone in the MCU aside from Scarlett Johansson (hence the visual tricks done to make him look taller). It memed.
• Metal Head: As punny as it might seem... huge fan of both Black Sabbath (having a song eponymous to his codename helps!) and AC/DC.
• Metaphorgotten: Towards the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark tells Peter, "You screwed the pooch, but then you did the right thing; you took her to the free clinic, you raised the hybrid puppies- Okay, that's not a great analogy..."
• Millionaire Playboy: Billionaire, in this case. And a philanthropist. Oh, and genius.
• Mirror Character: Iron Man and Doctor Strange both started as arrogant and selfish persons who turned into anti-heroes, and their origin films have similar plot points. They share a strong mutual dislike of the other, primarily because they're both Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarkers who are evenly matched in both capacities.
• Momma's Boy: A Badass Bookworm Guile Hero with razor-edge technology of his own design who gravitates more toward his mom due to his abusive father. He never talks negatively about her and her death affected him more than his dad's. Note his reaction upon finding out that Bucky killed his parents: "He killed my mom."
• Motor Mouth: The man never shuts up. Pepper has the singular ability to hold a conversation with him by talking right over him without pause and listening at the same time, otherwise she'd never get a word in edgewise.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • His naiveté on the harm the weapons his company initially created were doing.
  • His hand in the creation of Ultron, and the ensuing destruction of Sokovia, leading to the dissolution of the Avengers come Civil War.
  • Peter Parker dying in his arms and being unable to save him is probably the worst; finding a reminder about that painful loss is what ultimately convinces him to return to the Avengers for one last mission.

N-P

• Narcissist: Black Widow's report in Iron Man 2 dubs him as such. However, it is a milder case of It's All About Me: Tony acts like he believes the entire world revolves around him, as demonstrated by his series of suspiciously specific denials at the Stark Expo, his performance at the Senate subcommittee hearing, and discussed by Nick Fury (who reminds Tony that he is "not the center of my universe") and Pepper, who at one point threatens to throw something at his head if he says "I" one more time. But he deeply cares about Pepper, fellow Avengers, young Peter Parker and ordinary people he protects for their own sake — something a pathological narcissist is incapable of, along with taking the blame. Ironically, his egotism often means he tries to take too much responsibility.
• Never My Fault:
  • Tony goes along with the Accords and does his best to repair the public image of the Avengers, ignoring that keeping Wanda under house arrest is a bit much even for PR.
  • When Clint holds Tony responsible for imprisoning most of Team Cap, Tony tries to deflect blame by telling him they're the ones who decided to break the law and he didn't write it. Of course, Tony is ignoring the fact that Ross was initially going to send a SWAT team to go after them (which Team Cap probably would've easily beaten) until Tony convinced him to let him and the other Pro-Reg heroes do it.
  • Tony rips Peter a new one after the ferry incident in Spider-Man: Homecoming, ignoring that it was his aloofness and dismissiveness towards Peter that spurred him to try to take on the Vulture himself in the first place.
  • Tony explodes at Steve in Endgame, claiming that his idealism left Earth vulnerable to Thanos and for not being there for him when it all happened, ignoring a) that none of his own solutions like Ultron or the Sokovia Accords ultimately panned out, b) his refusal to communicate or compromise with his teammates resulted in the Avengers disbanding in the first place and c) Steve had given Tony a direct line to contact him with that he never even attempted to use until Bruce implored him to put his grudge aside and call him. Which he still didn't do, albeit due to being distracted by the Children of Thanos, and Bruce having to make the call instead.
• N.G.O. Superpower: After revealing himself as Iron Man he says that he has "privatized global security". When the U.S. Senate tells him to hand over the suit, he fights them and wins. Maria Hill joined Stark Industries after the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. so his Army of Lawyers could protect her from the worlds' governments, it worked. And that's not even counting the added power of the Avengers.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Tony is the one who ultimately gets blamed for creating Ultron. This is the defining event that causes the UN to draft the Sokovia Accords in Civil War, which splits up the Avengers, of which both Tony and Steve are responsible for.
• The Nicknamer: One of the indicators of his generally flippant attitude is his tendency to toss off casual and frequently pop-culture-laden nicknames for people and objects. His reputation as a nicknamer was even used as a category on Jeopardy! in 2019.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He is, in his own words, a "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" with a suit of Powered Armor.
• No Kill like Overkill: He favors this for his combat tactics. Also the case with the arc reactor in his chest. Three Gigajoules per second is a power output roughly on par with a nuclear power plant, and he essentially made it to power a pacemaker. Keep in mind that's the prototype, and he has upgraded it at least twice.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Gives one at the end of Iron Man 3.
  Tony: So if I were to wrap this up tight with a bow or whatever, I guess I'd say my armor, it was never a distraction or a hobby, it was a cocoon. And now, I'm a changed man. You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys. One thing you can't take away... I am Iron Man.
• No OSHA Compliance: As noted above under Fatal Flaw, nearly every experiment he does would have gotten him arrested in the real world.
• No-Sell: Thanks to the reactor cutting off direct access to his heart, Loki cannot mind-control him.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: At the start of Endgame, he becomes this after 3 weeks in space with barely any food and water to keep him alive. After arriving on Earth, he's so malnourished that he can't even stand for long before collapsing out of exhaustion.
• Not Me This Time: A variation. While he did fire Quentin Beck in the past, unlike the other "demons" he created, it's established that Beck was always an unstable and shifty person before losing his position, and used this event as an excuse to run a Monster Protection Racket.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • From Loki in The Avengers, much to his chagrin.
    Tony: ...And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva! He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered—
    [realises he's describing Stark Tower and in turn, himself]
    Tony: Sonofabitch.
  • From Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When Peter Parker confronts Toomes and accuses him of being an illegal arms dealer selling high tech weaponry to the highest bidder, Toomes points out that Tony started off as an arms dealer who sold high tech weaponry to the highest bidder as well.
• Not Staying for Breakfast: Young Tony may be The Pornomancer, but he fears the morning after something fierce. In the first film, he dispatches Pepper to get rid of Christine Everhart while hiding in his basement garage. He also does it in a flashback from the third film.
  Tony: How'd she take it?
  Pepper: Like a champ.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He often acts absentminded, easily-distracted, and excessively self-obsessed and arrogant, but is shown to be incredibly brilliant socially and technically, delivering sarcastic putdowns to people who irritate him and building incredible machines out of whatever he has on hand. After one night of study, he becomes enough of an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics to discuss the specifics of the Tesseract with Bruce Banner.
• Odd Friendship:
  • With Bruce Banner in The Avengers, due to them being the resident science geeks.
    Tony: Finally, somebody who speaks English!
  • With Nebula in Avengers: Endgame. Despite their contrasting attitudes, the two bond while being stranded together in space.
• Offscreen Breakup: With Pepper after Iron Man 3. They get back together by the end of Homecoming.
• Off to Boarding School: Tony bitterly describes Howard Stark's happiest moment as the day he shipped Tony off to boarding school. Subverted with the reveal that HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., and that Howard was a target. Howard sending Tony off was in order to get him away to safety.
• Oh, Crap!: Despite being a superhero, Tony is a civilian and the only one of the original Avengers without any formal combat training and the psychological training associated with it, so he gets this a lot:
  • In Iron Man:
    • When an armed missile lands right in front of him, which causes the injury which leaves him with the shrapnel in his chest.
    • More subdued one, but he has one when he realizes his terrorist captors are using guns manufactured by his company.
    • Again when he gets the proof that his company was actually selling them the weapons.
    • When he fails to escape the F-22s sent after him.
    • When Obadiah takes his arc reactor.
    • When Iron Monger was not taken out by a fall from the skies.
  • In Iron Man 2:
    • When Vanko attacks him at the racetrack.
    • When he realizes the Hammer drones and War Machine armor had been hacked by Vanko.
    • When Vanko activates a self destruct sequence.
  • The Avengers (2012):
    • When he gets news that the Tesseract was missing.
    • When he gets trapped between the helicarrier rotors.
    • When he realises Loki was headed for Stark Tower.
    • When Loki attacks him.
    • When the Chitauri start pouring in.
  • Iron Man 3: Most of the movie.
• Old Superhero: Downplayed but there by the Time Heist where Tony is 53 and visibly getting on in years after spending the last 5 years in peaceful retirement. His age and being out of shape has a noticeable impact as while Tony's mind is still as sharp as ever, in battle Tony isn't the Strong and Skilled One-Man Army he was at his peak.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Word of God defines Tony as a master engineer, master physicist, master chemist, master computer scientist, skilled in neuroscience, and knowledgeable in biology. His main skill is the franchise's greatest engineer and he can build impossible inventions by having a practical grasp of different subfields in science and how to create tools that tap into the different kinds of knowledge. Originally he used this ability to build weapons, later he uses that to build his Iron Man technology and its various upgrades and sub-systems.
• Once per Episode: Tony's introductory scenes are accompanied by an AC/DC song: "Back in Black" in the first film, "Shoot to Thrill" in Iron Man 2 as well as The Avengers, and "Let There Be Rock" in the Fury's Big Week comic.
• One Last Job: In Avengers: Endgame Tony is retired and only participates in the Time Heist to bring back Peter Parker. It's implied that once it's over he will go back into permanent retirement. True to this trope, he dies at the climax of the movie.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Whenever Stark stops being a Deadpan Snarker, you know shit is gonna get serious. For example, when he chews out Peter for being careless and most notably when he learns Bucky killed his parents.
  • Infinity War shows him as the only person left to stand up to Thanos after the plan to take the Infinity Gauntlet is botched. It also shows Tony when he's lost control of the situation. There's no strategy. Tony is throwing everything he has at Thanos, with none of it working. It's the first time we've seen Stark panicking in a long time.
• Opposites Attract: With Pepper. In particular, Pepper is good at covering for his weaknesses and shortcomings being reliable, focused and organized to counter Tony's Absent-Minded Professor and Workaholic tendencies.
• Papa Wolf:
  • He is very protective of his teammates, especially Peter Parker. In Infinity War, when Quill has Peter at gunpoint, Tony angrily threatens to shoot Drax, with a large laser cannon no less. Bringing Peter back is one of his major motivations for rejoining the fight in Endgame.
    Quill: [holding Peter at gunpoint] Tell me where the girl is or I swear to you, I'm gonna french-fry this little freak.
    Tony: [angrily] Let's do it! You shoot my guy and I'll blast him! Let's go! [aims a cannon at Drax]
  • In Endgame, Tony is initially reluctant about traveling back in time since the outcome can jeopardize the existence of his daughter Morgan. Later on, when 2014 Thanos plans to use the Infinity Stones to kill everyone (Morgan included), Tony performs a Heroic Sacrifice by using the Infinity Stones to disintegrate the Mad Titan and his army.
• Parental Neglect: Tony complains that his dad was cold, never around for him, and he seriously doubted that his father even loved him at all. This is eventually shown not to be the case in regards to whether he loved him.
• Parental Substitute: Tony acts as this for Peter Parker from Civil War onwards, being the father he never had. He becomes his mentor for all things superhero, giving him his supersuit and saving him when he gets in trouble. Even though Tony is emotionally stunted, he attempts to give Peter encouragement and "break the cycle of shame" that he had to endure with his own father. When Peter gets disintegrated by Thanos, Tony does not take it well. The first thing he does when they reunite in Endgame is hug him. Tony also became this to Harley Keener (whose real father abandoned him). According to Ty Simpkins, Tony and Harley kept in touch after the events of Iron Man 3 and Harley grew to see Tony as a father figure. Harley also attended Tony's funeral.
• Parent-Child Team:
  • With Harley in Iron Man 3 against the Extremis-enhanced supersoldiers.
  • With Peter Parker at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming and the New York battle in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Parent ex Machina: Subverted. If it wasn't for Tony, Peter would've drowned and/or split himself in half trying to hold a ferry together — not to mention his suit, which was provided by Tony, has bailed him out multiple times. However, Tony ended up playing a much larger role to Peter than just being a convenient save here and there, and helped Peter become a more responsible, self-actualized hero by the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
• Parents as People: In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony isn't Peter's father but he does serve as a Parental Substitute. He's incredibly flawed in that role, prone to both not listening and not clearly communicating. There's also an undercurrent of Tony trying (unsuccessfully) to not get emotionally attached which comes across as neglecting Peter. Tony even realized this at one point, mentioning how much much he's acting like his father Howard. They make up later and by Infinity War, the two share a close relationship.
• Parents for a Day: More like parent for a few hours. In Iron Man 3, Tony briefly bonds with Kid Sidekick Harley in order to defeat the Mandarin.
• Parents in Distress: Tony would've been bludgeoned by one of the Thanos' minions during the battle of New York had Peter not appeared out of nowhere and pulled a Punch Catch on it in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Parting-Words Regret: When he's demonstrating his new technology to reframe old memories, he expresses a wish that the happy memory of his last moments with his parents was how it had really happened.
• Passing the Torch: E.D.I.T.H. from Spider-Man: Far From Home is Tony's way of handing control of Stark Industries' weapons and information gathering technology to Peter after his death.
  Tony's Note: To the next Tony Stark. I trust you.
• Paying for the Action Scene: In Age of Ultron during the fight in Johannesburg, he piledrives the Hulk into a skyscraper that is under construction, but makes sure to buy the building before he commits to the act.
• Perspective Reversal: Early in the films, Tony is an egotist who has little use for authority, while Steve Rogers just wants to join the Army and do his part for his country. By the time of Civil War, the fallout from his reckless actions have made Tony believe that the Avengers need to be subject to oversight while Steve, having witnessed how corrupted and obstructive governing bodies have become in the modern day, distrusts the idea, to the point where the two end up leading opposing factions of the team.
• Phlebotinum Dependence: He needs to keep his electromagnet powered by palladium on so that shrapnel in his chest won't migrate to his heart. In Iron Man 2, he creates a new element to replace the palladium, and at the end of Iron Man 3 he has the pieces of shrapnel removed so that he no longer needs the arc reactor to survive.
• Playboy Has a Daughter: Has a daughter Morgan with Pepper Potts after the five-year Time Skip in Endgame. She, along with his quiet wood cabin by a lakeside, contrast with his former life of philandering in his isolated, flashy, modern bachelor pad with an ocean view. (And also Stark Tower, or the Avengers upstate HQ.)
• Playful Hacker: Among other things, he enjoys hacking other people's sound systems to play appropriate music for his dramatic entrances. In 2 he gleefully hacks a live senate broadcast and several military satellites just to prove a point. He reminisces cracking the Pentagon security net in high school on a dare, in Age of Ultron.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Tony's not very good at talking to other people about his problems, which leaves everyone around him confused and irritated by his strange behavior while he does things like build a suit of Powered Armor in his basement or slowly die of palladium poisoning. Pepper spends most of 2 assuming Tony's just on a massive ego-trip driven by his new status as a hero, and when Tony does try to tell her his inability to articulate his thoughts means he completely blows it. Twice. However, by the time of the third film he's getting much better, coming right out and telling Pepper that he's got problems when they start to affect her directly. He's also open to Harley about anxiety attacks.
  • He's back at it twice in Age of Ultron, the first time played straight after Scarlet Witch uses a vision of Earth being destroyed and the Avengers dying because Tony didn't do enough to save them to drive him to self-destructive isolation and a rabid need to do something, anything to protect the world.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming: The damage to the ferry would have been prevented if Tony called Peter earlier to tell that he received the warning about the weapons deal and tipped off the FBI, if Peter didn't hang up on Tony, or if Peter hadn't removed the suit's tracker so Tony would know where Peter was heading. FBI agents also would be better prepared to tangle with Toomes and his men, if Tony had done a better job at listening to Peter to know what they were facing.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home: Tony leaves E.D.I.T.H. to Peter with a rather short and cryptic note. Peter would never have given it to someone else if Tony had written a more explicit message to prevent Peter from misinterpreting his intent.
• The Pornomancer: He's the page image for a reason (12 for 13 on a yearly cover model list) but he stops becoming this by the time he's in a committed relationship with Pepper Potts.
• Posthumous Character: In Far From Home, Tony is dead but his legacy still weights on many of the characters. Left without a superhero like Iron Man, many people place their expectations on Spider-Man who is reluctant to become a successor of such an icon, while Quentin Beck is revealed to be a former employee of Stark Industries with a grudge on Tony. Tony has also left Peter his glasses, which contain an advanced AI giving Peter control over a swarm of killer drones.
• Post-Victory Collapse: In The Avengers after helping save New York from an alien invasion and a tactical nuke, he is found lying on the street, nearly comatose. After he regains consciousness, he doesn't have any particular desire to sit up again right away:
  Tony: All right. Hey. All right. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it.
• Power Copying:
  • In Iron Man, Stane uses a Sonic Taser to paralyze Tony. In Incredible Hulk, Stark Industries has created vehicle mounted Sonic Cannons. By Civil War, Tony has a glove-mounted personal defense version, and the War Machine suit has it's much heavier big brother. In a variant on this trope, the technology was technically Tony's in the first place.
  • In Civil War, Bucky and Cap beat Tony in a melee. By the time Endgame rolls around, Tony's nanotech suit and fighting style uses a lot more close-range fighting and mobility, including a shield. When that doesn't work against Thanos, he goes even harder on melee for Infinity War.
• Primal Fear: As revealed in Age of Ultron while he is under Wanda's spell, Tony's greatest fear is being a sole survivor. Becoming an Avenger gave Tony his first real friends in a long time. He would sacrifice himself for the greater good without a second thought but is deeply afraid of losing them. When Thanos uses the Infinity Gauntlet in Infinity War, Tony helplessly watches his new teammates, including the boy who saw him as a father, disintegrate one by one until only Nebula — whom he barely knows — is left. He is completely broken.
• Primary-Color Champion: His main Iron Man suit is one with both red and yellow colored armor.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: The climax of the Final Battle in Endgame has him uttering his catchphrase prior to finger-snapping away the time-displaced Thanos and his entire army.
• Properly Paranoid: He's possibly the only person on the planet who believes that the Chitauri and their mysterious master will return one day, and kick the Avengers' asses. He's not wrong.
  Tony: A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space — we're standing 300 feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there? That's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?
• The Protagonist: Of his own series of films, but one of two main contenders for this for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, the other being Captain America.
  • His film was the one that kick-started the MCU, and he continues to have a major role and Character Development through The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming as well as cameos and mentions in the others.
  • By the time Civil War rolled around, Tony shifted to a Deuteragonist or Tritagonist role, but by the time of Infinity War and Endgame, narrative perspective shifts back to Tony and thrusts him to the Protagonist role again.
  • Even when he's not personally present, his family's influence is felt through the different films (i.e. Howard Stark in The First Avenger, the Insight Repulsors or Hank Pym hating Howard Stark).
  • Ever since New York, Tony is haunted by the potential of what he saw and the Chituari army, and warns others that don't take him seriously. When Thanos becomes a major threat in Infinity War, Tony's fears are proven correct, as he's been anticipating it the entire time. With Thor, the threat of Thanos is one of the most personal for him, shifting focus back to Tony for Infinity War and Endgame.
  • Tony has a climatic one-on-one fight with the Big Bad of the MCU himself, Thanos in Infinity War. Tony confirms It's Personal.
  Thanos: You're not the only one cursed with knowledge.
  Tony: My only curse is you.
  • Tony is the one who ultimately kills Thanos in Endgame, thus ending the threat once and for all and concluding the story.
  • RDJ gets the most screentime out of the main Avengers cast.
• Pungeon Master: He doesn't force the puns, but he never shies away from an opportunity for innuendo. For example, Iron Man 3 he claims his autobiography could be titled A Cheap Trick and a Cheesy One-Liner.
  James Rhodes: Think I can't hold my own?
  Tony Stark: We get through this, I'll hold your own.
  James Rhodes: You had to make it weird.

R-T

• Rage Breaking Point: After being on edge for most of Civil War, Tony finally snaps when he finds out that Bucky killed his parents. But what really makes him go full ballistic is when he finds out that Steve knew and deliberately kept Tony in the dark about it.
• Really Gets Around: There's Maya Hansen, Christine Everhart, and Pepper, plus the offscreen twelve models, that we know of... Thankfully, he cools it down a lot after the first film and even more after joining the Avengers. He's in a committed relationship with Pepper, after all.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Tony gives one to Loki in The Avengers, telling him that there's no way there's any scenario that ends with him victorious, because he pissed off a bunch of people who'll fight until the end to beat him.
  • Tony gives one of these to Maya in Iron Man 3, calling her out on compromising her moral integrity for progress.
  • Tony gives a big one to Steve in Avengers: Endgame while still recovering from his near-death experience in space. He rips his IV drip out after yelling at Steve about how his naïve attitude in Age of Ultron and Civil War led to Earth being unprepared for Thanos' invasion. He rages at Steve for holding him back and not being present for the fight on Titan, all before passing out.
• Red Is Heroic: Red is his signature color because he specifically included "hotrod red" into the Mark 3 armor which is the one he uses to start his superhero career.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The Red Oni To Steve Rogers' Blue Oni. Boy, does it show between these two. Heck, the colors of their suits can be a good literal/visual example of this.
  • Tony is also the Red Oni to Doctor Strange's Blue Oni. For the two of them, it is science vs. magic.
  • Tony plays the role of Blue Oni to Peter Quill's Red Oni on Titan, trying to browbeat him into a plan and to take Thanos seriously. It's implied that Tony's greater experience has matured him, experience that Quill lacks.
• Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice: In Endgame, Tony finally settled down with Pepper and had a child in the 5-year interim after The Blip, but after discovering Scott Lang's quantum time travel, figures out a way to bring everyone back and has to see it through. He dies defeating Thanos, but ensured his family (including Peter Parker) would be safe in the process.
• Related in the Adaptation: Inverted. After the movies were released, the Tony of the comics was retconned to be Howard Stark's adoptive son, though they're still related in the Ultimate universe.
• Relationship Upgrade:
  • To Official Couple with Pepper as of the end of Iron Man 2. Broke up with each other sometime between Iron Man 3 and Civil War, due to Tony breaking his promise to retire as Iron Man, but are back together by the events of Spider-Man: Homecoming and are engaged with wedding plans during Infinity War.
  • They have another Relationship Upgrade at the end of Homecoming. When Peter backs out of the press conference they had planned at the last minute, Pepper pressures Tony as to what they are going to tell the 50 reporters they had gathered in the next room, to which Tony and Happy produce an engagement ring they had been carrying since 2008. Come the beginning of Infinity War, Tony and Pepper are discussing having children.
  • Following up on the above, Endgame features the ultimate example of this. By 2023, five years after Infinity War, Tony and Pepper have not only gotten married but are also raising an adorable four-year old little girl named Morgan.
• Relative Button: Tony has two main ones:
  • Anything involving his parents, but especially Howard. This is mostly due to his troubled childhood and his parents' untimely deaths.
  • Losing the people he loves is another. Tony cares deeply for his friends and family and fears their death above all else. Threatening or hurting the people he cares about is a great way for him to lose all reason and rationality.
• Renaissance Man: So much so that his nickname to much of the world is "The Da Vinci of Our Time". Not only is Tony an accomplished Omnidisciplinary Scientist with breakthroughs in engineering, physics, chemistry, neuroscience, computer science, and genetics, but he's also business savvy, politically apt, multi-lingual, and a competent tactician.
• The Resenter: Judging by a comment he makes in Civil War, at least some of Tony's initial dislike toward Cap, besides thinking he's an outdated relic, was hearing about him endlessly from the otherwise distant Howard.
  Tony: Oh, you knew him? He only mentioned that about a thousand times. God, I hated you.
• Retired Badass:
  • By the end of Iron Man 3, Tony decides that being with Pepper is more important than being Iron Man, going so far as to blow up his entire arsenal of armored suits.
  • In Age of Ultron, Tony leaves the Avengers at the end, deciding that he's done enough damage.
  • In Endgame, Tony fully retires for 5 years and gets to build a family with Pepper. Now living in a more humble house by a lake and having a daughter he adores in Morgan, Tony is actually reluctant to accept the Avengers' call for his help.
• Retirony: In Endgame, a retired Tony is the one who is most adamant that they only bring back those killed by Thanos' snap and change nothing else, having gained a family in the intervening years that he doesn't want to lose and fully wishing to go back into retirement with them afterwards. He ends up making a Heroic Sacrifice to save the universe.
• Revenge Before Reason: During the climax of Captain America: Civil War, Tony lets Zemo escape after the latter reveals that Bucky was responsible for killing Tony's parents. Despite knowing that Zemo was the manipulator of all the events in the film, Tony instead focuses on trying to kill Bucky. Additionally, he knew that Bucky was brainwashed while under HYDRA and wasn't in control of his actions.
• Revenge by Proxy: It's stated by the Russos that his real motive in trying to kill Bucky in Civil War was not to get revenge on him for killing his parents, but rather that he was hoping to kill Bucky to get revenge on Steve, since he defended Bucky and withheld the true cause of his parents' death from him.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Is uncharacteristically quiet when pursuing Bucky at the end of Civil War, and refuses to quit his hunt even as his armor's functions are reduced one by one. It takes Steve needing to shut down his armor completely to have him halt.
• Robo Family: Tony builds a number of AIs that join the "family business" so to speak, composed of the robotic arms DUM-E and U (seriously, those are their names), J.A.R.V.I.S., F.R.I.D.A.Y., and partially (as in, partial credit for creation), the Vision. Age of Ultron plays out like a teenager rebelling against his father and Tony even jokes that Ultron is "breaking your old man's heart". Note that Ultron implicitly accepts that analogy.
• Robot Master: Tony was always an engineering whiz in the comics, but this version makes him a genius at the programming side as well.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Has this dynamic with Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War. While Tony is snarky and blunt towards the other heroes they need to team up with, Peter's a lot more approachable and easygoing with them.
• Running Gag:
  • Does not like being handed things. Works literally and as a Stealth Pun about his character, as well: his father's success could have left him phenomenally rich and spoiled, but he nevertheless proved himself to be a prodigy and went on to earn a rightful place among the greatest minds of the planet.
  • He's technically not an Avenger. He's a consultant.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Stark may be smart enough to build the world's first functioning suit of Powered Armor, but he's simultaneously too dumb to know his own social security number and too dense to buy remotely acceptable Christmas presents for his own girlfriend (as another example, when trying to apologize to her he brought her strawberries, which she was deathly allergic to, and attempted to atone for this gaffe by noting that at least he remembered strawberries were 'important' in some way). In general, the films play up his total lack of normal human skills a lot more than the comics do, where he's brilliant but just an asshole.
• Sad Clown: At the end of Avengers, he laughs off his near-death experience and starts babbling about the Kiss of Life and shawarma. By 3, the adrenaline's worn off and he's suffering from PTSD due to the events of Avengers. By the time that Civil War has rolled around, a combination of his guilt over Ultron's actions, the pressures of trying to keep the Avengers together in the face of the Sokovia Accords, his Offscreen Breakup with Pepper, and the Trauma Conga Line he suffers throughout said movie leave Tony a shell of his former self who barely jokes or snarks at all.
• The Scapegoat:
  • In the case of Iron Man 2, Vanko blames Tony for the actions of his father Howard Stark for the impoverishment and downfall of himself and his father. Howard Stark saw to deport Ivan's dad when the latter sought to use the Arc Reactor technology for weapons. Likewise, Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3 chose to use AIM to weaponize and exploit veterans on his own, all to get back at Tony for insulting him at a party.
  • Mysterio blames Stark for firing him for being unstable and accuses him of stealing credit, while Beck's attitude makes it completely clear Stark was justified in firing him.
• Science Hero: He makes powered armor and then he kicks evil ass wearing it. It's particularly prevalent in Iron Man 3, where even without his suit he can hold his own using improvised weapons he made from materials brought from a hardware store.
• Secretly Dying: In Iron Man 2, he realizes that the Arc Reactor in his chest, which was supposed to keep him alive, is slowly poisoning him. He prepares for his death by handing control of his company to Pepper, and undergoes a public, alcohol-fueled breakdown.
• Seen It All: By Infinity War, he just takes crazy things in stride. He is more surprised by seeing Banner again than he is by Doctor Strange's sudden introduction via a magic portal. He also doesn't bother questioning how he's meeting another human being from Earth on a distant planet, accompanied by a blue alien and a yellow-ish alien with antennae.
• Shadow Archetype: All three of the major Avengers villains serve as Foils to Tony... as is one hero.
  • Loki has the worst of Tony's Drama Queen and Attention Whore tendencies. He also has Daddy Issues with Odin like Tony has with Howard. Lampshaded by Tony himself in a hilarious "Not So Different" Remark.
  • Ultron is directly this due to being Tony's creation based on his own personality. He has Tony's snark (he occasionally steals Tony's lines), narcissism and drama queen tendencies as well has his affinity for machines and science. However, instead of channeling his ego and brilliance into being a superhero like Tony does, Ultron becomes a genocidal maniac. Also lampshaded by various characters.
  • By Avengers: Endgame, Tony has become a foil to Thanos. Both are great men of power, wealth, intellect and scientific-mastery driven by ironclad ideals and haunted by obsessions and self-perceived obligations to a greater purpose which they are willing to give their lives to accomplish. Both were fathers to daughters and adopted children whom they loved dearly, and both walked down the path of tyranny in the name of defending the safety of their perceived reality. To emphasize the point, their leitmotifs are the same melody, only Thanos' "Porch" is played in a Minor key, and Tony's "The Real Hero" is played in a Major key.
  • Steve and Tony serve as major foils to one another. Tony starts as an arrogant loner The Ace, Steve starts as a desperate joiner loser. Tony's journey is a response to his guilt over not being able to save everyone by himself and his desire to join and build organizations so he can offload his responsibility. Steve's journey is to respond to disappointment and betrayal by trying to take apart organizations and build up individuals so that no organization can usurp power in his name.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: When he's not in his armor or his lab, Tony can almost always be found in a top-of-the-line suit and tie. Justified as a businessman, social worker and public figure, he has to maintain appearances. It's lampshaded by Thaddeus Ross in The Consultant:
  Ross: Stark. You always wear such nice suits.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: His near-death experience at the end of The Avengers has caused him nightmares, anxiety attacks, and a case of PTSD in Iron Man 3. Wanda playing to his fears of this event and what hinged on it is what sets in motion the events of Age of Ultron. Peter Parker's death in Infinity War pushes him over the edge and he is an emotional wreck when he returns to Earth.
• Shipper on Deck: After his Relationship Upgrade with Pepper he apparently wants to see everyone else happily paired off as well; in The Avengers, when he offers Agent Coulson the use of his private jet to go and visit his girlfriend, who's just moved to a new city. "You gotta keep the love alive."
• Signature Move: The double palm repulsor blast, followed by the arm missile.
• Sink or Swim Fatherhood: Tony unexpectedly becomes a Parental Substitute to Peter after Civil War, forcing him to learn how to parent on the fly. It doesn't work out so much at first, but after a few near-disasters and an attempted heist, Tony and Peter share a close bond and a working relationship by the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming and throughout Avengers: Infinity War.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: His "mentoring" of Spider-Man consists of just giving Peter a high tech suit and letting him patrol the streets of New York with no supervision or training. The only regular contact between them is Peter sending Happy reports of his activities which are then given to Tony and the only times Tony ever personally gets involved are to chew Peter out and punish him when he screws up, or save his bacon. He did try and turn it into something constructive, but circumstances interrupted him.
• Sins of Our Fathers:
  • In Iron Man 2, Vanko (A.K.A. Whiplash) was Howard's fault, not Tony's, but Tony was the one who had to deal with him.
  • In Ant-Man, Hank Pym outright refuses to call the Avengers for aid on the grounds that he'd spent too long trying to keep the Pym particle from Howard to just hand it over to Tony despite there having been no indication that Tony and Pym have ever met or that Tony even knows Hank exists. Hank seems to have gotten over this after Tony's Heroic Sacrifice, considering he attended his funeral.
  • Unfortunately, he ultimately becomes the "father" in this trend. Spider-Man's first two Big Bads, The Vulture and Mysterio, start their respective evil plans because of Tony's actions; the former lost a substantial salvage contract because of Damage Control and the latter was offended that Tony named his illusion technology "B.A.R.F." and fired him for being "unstable".
• Sitting on the Roof: He often ends up on the roofs, enjoying the view, fighting enemies or making out with Pepper (which earns him a "Get a roof" comment from Rhodey). Thus in Iron Man 2, he is chilling out on the rooftop sign:
  Nick Fury: Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to exit the donut.
• Skewed Priorities: Played for laughs quite often. He waves off Pepper's request that Happy Hogan drive Tony to the hospital after his captivity in Iron Man despite Tony's injuries. Instead he wants to hold an admittedly serious press conference — but only after he gets a cheeseburger.
• The Smart Guy: Zig-zagged, as he shares this role with Bruce Banner the majority of the time. While Tony is the world's premier mechanic and engineer, Bruce specializes more in biology and radiation, with both possessing a general knowledge of each other's fields. In The Avengers the two finally meet and hold an intelligent, scientific conversation with each other, cracking physics jokes and the like.
• Smart People Build Robots: He's created the world's most advanced A.I., J.A.R.V.I.S, and at least one other robot — DUM—E — who makes up in loyalty and charm what it may lack in sophistication. All of Tony's bots have personality.
• The Snack Is More Interesting: He is often seen eating, be it a burger just before a press-conference or pizza during a heated conversation with Obadiah in Iron Man; donuts before talking to Nick Fury or strawberries after an unsuccessful attempt to explain himself to Pepper in Iron Man 2; or dried blueberries while arguing with Captain America in The Avengers. It has become such a defining trait of the character that they used it in the teaser for Captain America: Civil War, where Robert Downey Jr. is quarreling with Chris Evans over a donut.
• The Social Expert: As expected of someone who is constantly in the spotlight, Tony is very good at analyzing people and social situations. In his establishing character moment, he effortlessly deduces the motivations and history of a reporter and uses it to charm her. As a hero, Tony uses that skill to deduce a villain's motivations and to play to crowds of people as well as help lead the Avengers. In a more negative take, Tony often makes hurtful verbal digs because he can understand someone enough get under their skin.
• Something Person: Iron + Man.
• So Proud of You: Tony has a moment of this toward Peter at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, after Peter catches the guy selling and distributing alien weapons. He has his arm around his shoulder and everything, and even offers Peter a new suit and a place on the Avengers.
• Stating the Simple Solution: In Avengers: Infinity War, in response learning about Thanos' going after the Infinity Stones and needs all six for the Snap, he immediately suggests to the Sorcerers to put the Time Stone "down the garbage disposal". The latter refuse as protecting it was their job and actually destroying it might not even be possible as unlike the Mind Stone with Wanda, there are no known individuals that are directly powered by the Time Stone for a similar case to happen.
• Super-Intelligence: True to his comic book original, Tony is one of the rare examples of this trope that was born with this ability, rather than receiving it later on from an outside source. Along with Shuri, Bruce Banner, and a handful of other geniuses, he's the smartest human on the planet.
• Symbolic Glass House: "Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" Tony owns a sleek, modern clifftop mansion with panoramic views of the ocean below. It is generally a show of luxury, with a bit of 'isolation' in the second film, where he pushes his friends away while Secretly Dying of palladium poisoning and 'exposure' in the third, where the house is the target of a missile strike carried out by gunships disguised as news helicopters.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: In Captain America: Civil War, Tony is committed to fulfilling his role in the pro-Accords side due to his guilt over the collateral damage caused by all of the Avengers' fights; however, he still cares about his friends and wants the Avengers to sign the Accords in order to protect them. He starts to swing into Inspector Javert mode during the second half of the movie as he refuses to listen to Steve about the possibility that Bucky may be telling the truth about Zemo trying to unleash a group of Super Soldiers and assumes that Steve is delusional, going to more extreme lengths to end the conflict, which isn't really helped by the fact that he has an extremely small deadline to bring Steve and Bucky in before the authorities take over completely. He eventually becomes a full on antagonist (though a sympathetic one) when he finds out Bucky killed his parents and snaps (due to the circumstances in which he finds out), and attacks Bucky.
• Tainted Veins: In Iron Man 2, he suffers from palladium poisoning from the arc reactor, and the veins on his chest around it turn dark and visible.
• Taught by Experience: A running theme with each of his armor upgrades is that aside from improving their functionality in general, Tony specifically makes sure to eliminate weaknesses he notices in previous fights.
• The Team Benefactor: He becomes this for the Avengers; Steve is the leader, while he provides the expensive tech and a skyscraper headquarters.
  Maria Hill: All set up, boss.
  Tony Stark: Actually, [Steve]'s the boss. I just pay for everything and design everything and... make everyone look cooler.
• Team Dad:
  • Chris Hemsworth (Thor) describes him as "the godfather of the Avengers" because of how closely he works with S.H.I.E.L.D. to get the team together, as seen in The Stinger of The Incredible Hulk. This would explain why Tony always clashes with The Leader Captain America over how to "raise the kids," so to speak.
  • He plays this role during the Battle On Titan by bringing everyone together, playing peacemaker and coming up with the plan to take on Thanos (which Quill then modifies). At times, he seems like an exasperated parent dealing with unruly teenagers.
• Team Prima Donna: In The Avengers, he is insufferably smug and bossy. Tony does, however, turn the stereotype on its side by being by far the most welcoming and friendly person out of everyone else toward Bruce Banner, the team's Naïve Newcomer.
• Technological Pacifist:
  • Tony gradually becomes one through the first movie and is firmly seated in this trope by the end of it. He really does not want the government or military to get a hold of his technology by Iron Man 2, specifically because he believes far more lives will be saved if his suits are never mass-manufactured or used in wars.
  • This continues in Avengers, where he is livid that S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to create weapons based on the Tesseract, and in Iron Man 3, where Pepper's reasoning for turning down Killian is that Tony would not approve of how easily the technology could be weaponized.
• Teen Genius: A former one, in addition to Child Prodigy. He cracked the Pentagon's firewall on a dare when he was seventeen and graduated top of his class from MIT with a prize-winning invention at the same age.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Tony doesn't like Steve, at all, but there's nothing like a battle to forge a friendship. Black Widow even calls them out on their Ho Yay in Age of Ultron, and in Avengers: Infinity War, he gets past his initial irritation with both Dr. Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy in order to fight side-by-side with them against Thanos.
• Three-Point Landing: He is often depicted in his suit in this pose in promotional art, and he actually performs such landing in Iron Man 2 (on the Stark Expo main stage), The Avengers (when he makes an appearance in Germany to capture Loki), Iron Man 3 (multiple times), Age of Ultron (during the assault on Hydra's Sokovia base) and Infinity War (during the fight with Thanos).
• Thrill Seeker: Tony started this way, with his sport cars and his women. His experimentation with the early Iron Man suits were ill advised and show him laughing and screaming in joy. It takes a few dozen movies for him to calm down and become a more sedate family man.
• Throwing Out the Script: At the end of Iron Man, Tony and S.H.I.E.L.D. come up with a cover story that Tony is supposed to give at the press conference. After a few questions from a skeptical press, Tony decides to just tell the truth: "I am Iron Man."
• Title Drop: For what would eventually be the final Avengers movie, back in Age of Ultron.
  Stark: We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there... that's the endgame.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Between The Avengers and Iron Man 3 Tony has taken Captain America's question about what he is without his armor seriously, since he can now handle himself in a fight without the armor and pulls off a successful infiltration of the Mandarin's mansion through MacGyver'ed gadgets made out of things he found at a home supply store. Although he may have gotten a start on this in Iron Man 2, where he's at least dabbling in some informal martial-arts training with his head of security. By Captain America: Civil War, he's able to briefly hold his own against the Winter Soldier without a suit.
  • The armor showcased in Infinity War is the culmination of the technological prowess and tactical skills Tony honed throughout his entire superhero career. Taking notes from the Black Panther, it utilizes nanomachines that form the suit around him with the press of a button on the arc reactor on his chest, making it incredibly convenient to have around compared to his previous armors. It can also create virtually any weapon Tony can think of for him to utilize, boost his flying speeds in a pinch, and allow him to survive in the vacuum of space.
  • Speaking of Infinity War, Tony's absolute determination to keep fighting and his ten years of experience as Iron Man make him the only hero in the entire film, besides Thor, capable of going toe-to-toe with Thanos and wounding him, despite his vastly inferior strength.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his experience in Afghanistan, he realizes how important he is to the rest of the world. It should be noted that as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he's still obnoxious.
• Too Much Alike:
  • Seems to be one of the (many) reasons he and Howard never got along.
  • He and Stephen Strange share a strong mutual dislike of the other, primarily because they're both Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarkers who are evenly matched in both capacities. Not helping is that Strange doesn't work for Tony, so there's not much incentive for him to be on Tony's good side, since Tony can't do anything if he doesn't.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tony was noted to have a liking towards cheeseburgers and it was the first thing he wanted after he escaped captivity.
• Tragic Hero: Tony definitely has shades of this. While all of what he does is born of a genuine desire to do the right thing (and fulfill his promise to Yinsen not to waste his life), his hubris and his impulsive nature causes him to act quickly and make decisions that make things worse. And he is often the one to suffer the consequences of it. Endgame has him being the one whom Doctor Strange foresaw as making the Heroic Sacrifice to save the universe, which Tony silently comes to terms with before he does it, knowing he will never have the chance to live out his years in peace with his wife and daughter. He truly fulfilled his promise to Yinsen in the end.
• Tragic Keepsake: Despite his attempts to retire and move past the events of the Snap, he has a photo of himself and Peter Parker at his home. His funeral shows that he still has the arc reactor that he and Yinsen built in Afghanistan.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • His default response when he gets angry. He doesn't shout, nor does he scream, instead keeping a calm demeanor while tripling the effort to take the target of his ire down or failing that, explosively remove his opponent's face.
  • In Civil War once Tony sees the video of Bucky murdering his parents as the Winter Soldier and hears Steve admit that he knew about it, he drops his usual snark routine and becomes single-minded in his desire to see Bucky dead.
    Tony: Don't bullshit me, Rogers, did you know?
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, after Peter goes and gets involved with stopping Vulture – the exact opposite of what Tony told Peter to do – and the attempt culminates in a ferry almost sinking, Tony later takes Peter aside and the audience then gets to see him at his scariest; he doesn't raise his voice or change his expression, but you can feel the wave of blistering fury that comes from the suit when it opens to reveal he's inside.
  • His final confrontation with 2014 Thanos is silent fury at his opponent deciding to exterminate all life in the universe for his own version, and doesn't raise his voice above speaking levels while snapping him and his army out.
• Trauma Conga Line: Boy, does Tony through a lot in each film he appears in starting from Phase 2. He suffers from PTSD, nearly watches his girlfriend die, has his creation attempt to destroy the world, briefly breaks up with Pepper, almost loses his best friend, is betrayed by one of his teammates and gets beaten up by him and his parents' killer, left as one of the few operating Avengers after the team disbands, and personally fails to stop half the universe from being killed, resulting in his protégé, who he had come to see as a son, fading to dust in his arms.
• Trickster Mentor: To Bruce Banner in The Avengers. He pokes him with a cattle-prod to test how he'd react, then comments that Bruce is wrong to deny the part of him that is the Hulk, noting that the amount of gamma radiation exposure he endured would have killed anyone else. Much like Yinsen stopping the shrapnel from reaching his own heart, he believes that Bruce was kept alive for a reason.
• Troll: Along with his status as The Gadfly:
  • Iron Man: Tony sardonically talks down to Christine Everheart after she tried to demonize him to the public. It is also a Running Gag for Rhodey to scold Tony for being irresponsible, only for Tony to find some new way to defy him just for kicks.
  • Iron Man 2:
    • At the Senate hearing, he calls Senator Stern "dear", turns everything he says into a double entendre, and ignores him for several minutes at a time. It gets Stern so upset that he launches a Precision F-Strike at Tony... only for Tony to blow kisses to him on his way out.
    • At the same hearing, Tony delivers a Stealth Insult as Justin Hammer was first entering the courtroom and makes a huge deal of Justin being on-screen when Tony hacks into the Senate's video recordings to magnify everyone else's attempts at the Iron Man suit. Tony also announces that Iran, North Korea, and Hammer Industries are five, ten, and twenty years away from success, respectively.
    • Tony interrupts Nick Fury to ask whether he should focus on Fury's eye or eyepatch, refers to the Avengers Initiative as Fury's "super-secret boy band", and, after Fury finishes explaining the role of business consultant to Tony, Tony shakes his hand like he's accepting... and then promptly tells Fury with a smile on his face that S.H.I.E.L.D. can't afford him.
  • The Avengers: Tony purposefully avoids Phil Coulson in his first few minutes on-screen. Fast forward to his fight with Thor, and he's making fun of Thor's accent, clothes, hammer, and overall foreign presence. He is also constantly mouthing off or talking down to Steve Rogers, pokes Bruce Banner with an electric cattle prod in order to evoke the Hulk, and doesn't mind messing with Loki:
    Loki: [after the scepter fails] ...This usually works.
    Tony: [in an understanding tone] Well, performance issues. It's not uncommon. One out of five—
    [Loki grabs him by the throat and throws him out the window]
  • Iron Man 3: Tony calls Extremis-enhanced super soldier Brandt "Hot Wings", tells her he'd dated "hotter" girls than her, and has this exchange with her:
    Brandt: Is that all you got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?
    Tony: Sweetheart, that could be the title of my autobiography.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Tony refers to himself as Ultron's "Old Man", calls Ultron "Junior" and tells him how disappointed he is in him.
  • Captain America: Civil War: After Thaddeus Ross threatens him with detainment, Tony tells Ross that he's welcome to call him, and that Tony would put him on hold because "he likes to watch the line blink." At the end of the movie, Tony does just that, much to Ross' chagrin.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: Tony engages in this and Snark-to-Snark Combat at every opportunity with Dr. Strange. He also has nicknames for most of the Guardians in under a minute.
• Two-Faced: After using the Infinity Stones to kill Thanos, getting mortally wounded in the process, the right side of his face gets horrifically burned, spreading all the way down the right side of his body and even burns off his right ear.

U-Y

• Ultimate Blacksmith: He personally designs and makes his own armors. Even decades after he made his first, no other person on Earth has even come close to replicating it. In Endgame, he even manages to make a fully functional Infinity Gauntlet. It works and holds up to handling the power of the Stones just as well as the one made by Eitri, the greatest of Nidavellir's smiths (who for reference, is the same dwarf who forged Mjolnir and Stormbreaker).
• Uncle Pennybags: We're looking at the guy who gave $100 to a guy for a small box of strawberries in 2, and told the aforementioned strawberry salesman to keep the change. Not to mention funding the projects of ALL the students in attendance at his MIT demonstration.
• Underestimating Badassery: He is focused on major cosmic threats such as the Chitauri and Thanos, but keeps underestimating local threats and dismissing ordinary criminals as "below the pay-grade," both his own and that of the Avengers as a team. His underestimation leads to Ivan Vanko fielding a force that rivals his with Hammer's backing, and the Mandarin destroying his house.
• The Unfavorite: Tony felt this way next to Steve Rogers despite not even being related to him. Howard would always talk about what a hero Cap was to Tony as the latter was growing up, to the point where Tony started both resenting Cap, whom he had never met, and feeling like he was this next to someone who had been presumed dead for decades.
  Tony: [to Steve] Oh, really? You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times. God, I hated you.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Former Ant-Man Hank Pym resents him because his father tried to replicate his Pym Particle and passed this distrust onto his protege Scott Lang, who tells Tony in Civil War that Hank always said you can never trust a Stark. Tony doesn't seem to know who Hank is and definitely doesn't know who Scott is, so he can only respond to this with a genuinely confused, "Who are you?"
  • In Homecoming Adrian Toomes practically considers Tony his Arch-Enemy, both for the fact his government-backed organisation Damage Control took over the lucrative clean-up operation he had heavily invested in, and more generally because he believes the likes of Tony don't care too much about the little people like him. Tony never even heard about Toomes until Spider-Man reported his existence to him, and even then he doesn't consider him enough of a threat to get the Avengers involved.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A major running theme of the MCU is the damage caused by Tony's actions. This continues even after he gives up arms manufacturing and becomes Iron Man, which was a deliberate attempt to avoid this but many of the threats he faces like Aldrich Killian and Ultron were made as a result of his actions. This even carries on posthumously.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Dr. Strange. Turns out the only reason Strange bargained for his life because he saw Tony inventing time-travel technology (the key to undo Thanos' damage across the universe), and Tony sacrificing himself being the deciding factor in defeating Thanos. That said, Strange is clearly not happy about it, and his demeanor makes it clear had he any alternate way to spare Tony while saving the universe, he would have done so without hesitation.
  • To He Who Remains. The leader of the TVA bargained on the Avengers eventually time-traveling so as to send Loki Variant L1190 to him (which, again, is impossible without Tony), so that he could either retire after literal eons of watching over the Sacred Timeline, or watch it burn by one of his evil Variants. Either way, he doesn't have to stick around to find out.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: One of the tie-in comics features a flashback of a five- or six-year-old Tony tinkering around with a screwdriver and a gaming console. Cue Howard stepping on one of his toys the next room over, cursing loudly about it, then going to Tony to slap the screwdriver and gaming console out of his hands and yell at him for wasting his time with toys. Tony runs off crying and tells the butler Jarvis that he wants to go back to school, even though it's a weekend.
• Viewer-Friendly Interface: Tony Stark's computers all use big, gesture-controlled holograms.
• Villain Killer: He's the most prolific killer of villains in the Infinity Saga. He shares his first Big Bad kill with Rhodey, when they kill Ivan Vanko. On his own, he subsequently kills Eric Savin and Ellen Brandt, minor villain Doctor List, Ebony Maw of the Children of Thanos, and finally alternate timeline Thanos and his entire army.
• Warts and All: In a pep talk to Peter, Happy reminds him that while the world needs the next Iron Man, Tony screwed up a lot. Even Tony himself couldn't live up to ideal of Iron Man, but he did his best. So Peter can as well.
• Weak, but Skilled: Tony is heavily reliant on his suits and is not a trained soldier like Captain America or had enough experience with combat like Thor. Once he's out of the suit, then he's pretty vulnerable. Granted, he does have some martial arts skills but his suits are the primary force.
• Wealthy Philanthropist: He is a CEO who once described himself as a "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tony's relationship with his father was strained at best, abusive at worst. This extends to his relationship with Captain America, whom Howard Stark talked about a lot, making Cap into the big brother Tony could never hope to live up to.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He is willing to rush narrowly-focused into a plan that might be better done if he discusses it with others. This helps create Ultron and Vision.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • On the receiving end of one from Steve in Civil War. Cap chews Tony out for his "confining" of Wanda to the Avengers compound, calling it internment. Steve having lived through WWII would notably be very familiar with internment.
  • Tony returns the favor in Civil War towards Steve when he learns the fate of his parents and questions if Steve knew.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, he demands the suit he made for Peter back after he tries to stop the Vulture on his own and nearly sinks a ferry as a result.
• The Wonka: CEO of Stark Industries that has rather strange behavior, such as building A.I.s that snark back at him. It's easy to see how Pepper and Rhodes get exasperated with him.
• Worf Had the Flu: In the final fight of Civil War, he's trapped in an enclosed area, limiting the destructive potential of his heavier weapons such as his missiles or lasers and forcing him to rely on his fists and basic repulsors.
• World's Smartest Man: For a long time, it was believed Tony held this status in the MCU. However, Black Panther (2018) sought to debunk this and establish Shuri, the princess of Wakanda, as the true holder of that title.
• Workaholic: If it wasn't for Pepper, JARVIS, and Rhodey, Tony would've starved, blown himself up, or overdosed on caffeine down in his workshop years ago. In Iron Man 3, he spends more and more time in his lab to cope with his PTSD and nightmares. He's apparently completed at least 30 different Iron Man weapons in the span of six months.
• The World Is Just Awesome: In his Video Will, Tony expresses this sentiment, the culmination of his Character Development from the shallow cynical playboy he once was.
  Tony: God, what a world. Universe now. If you told me ten years ago that we weren't alone, let alone, you know, to this extent, I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised, but come on. Who knew? The epic forces of darkness and light that have come into play...
• Worthy Opponent: To Thanos; the respect is more than earned, due to Tony's bravery, cunning and absolute refusal to surrender. He is one of the only people in the universe to visibly wound Thanos in single-combat.
• Wowing Cthulhu: In conjunction with his Worthy Opponent status. In Avengers: Infinity War, Tony puts up such a phenomenal fight against Thanos that even the Mad Titan can't help but express his respect for him:
  Thanos: You have my respect, Stark. When I am done, half of humanity will still be alive; I hope they will remember you.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Avengers: Endgame gives Tony a huge amount of emotional closure after the Trauma Conga Line of previous movies. Pepper survives the Snap which allows him a peaceful retirement with her, contrary to his fears he's a great dad to Morgan, he's matured enough to forgive Steve Rogers, he brings back Peter, and he finally accepts that his father loved him. With the resolution of his Character Arc, his death was inevitable.
• You Killed My Father: Tony puts aside any rational or political motivations towards the end of Captain America: Civil War once Zemo reveals that a brainwashed Bucky killed Tony's parents in 1991. The only thing Tony wants after that is Bucky's death.
• Young and in Charge: Formerly. At 21 years old, he was the youngest CEO in history to own and run a Fortune 500 company. Turns out it was a good thing for Stark Industries; under Tony's reign, the company's revenue and net worth had never been higher, and currently clocks in at a whopping $20.3 billion and $12.4 billion, respectively.

Variants

In General

• Butt-Monkey: He tends to prematurely die in the Multiverse (at least in the realities seen in What If...?). And the one variant of him who doesn't get prematurely killed some way or another is not chosen by Uatu to fight Infinity Ultron. Downplayed in Season 2 where while the Tony Stark variants face some misfortunes and are often the butt of jokes, at least none of them die unceremoniously and some of them are even happier or more successful individuals than the Sacred Timeline Stark.
• Cosmic Plaything: Almost nothing ever goes right for him here.
• Death by Adaptation: He tends to die much sooner than the main Tony Stark in these timelines.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Most of it has him being killed by Hank Pym, Strange Supreme, the Zombie virus, Killmonger, and Infinity Ultron.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Becomes this in the first season of the What If…? (2021) series where he is slaughtered in all of his appearances... until its season finale when a variant of him is shown in a universe in which Gamora killed Thanos and he's still alive there. It's then averted in Season 2 where none of the Tony Starks that appear die.

King Loki's Tony Stark

Tony Stark / Iron Man

"I told you, I don't want to join your super-secret boy band."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-51825, Tony Stark never had the chance to join the Avengers, instead dying inside Randy's Donuts.

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• Aborted Arc: He's killed during the events of Iron Man 2, meaning he doesn't invent the new element like in the film which cures him of his sickness.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Yellowjacket enters Tony's body through a syringe and rearranges his organs, causing him to convulse and die immediately afterward.
• Death by Adaptation: He dies 13 years earlier than his Earth-199999 counterpart.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Iron Man dies here by a heart attack caused by Yellowjacket. In the Sacred Timeline, he died from the wounds caused by snapping with all six Infinity Stones in his gauntlet.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Downplayed as the real divergence point of the third episode was Hope van Dyne's death that occurred a year before the episode begun, but it's his death and the foul play that comes with it that triggers the murder mystery plot of the episode which eventually uncovers the aforementioned divergence point.

Zombie Apocalypse Tony Stark

Tony Stark / Iron Man

Species: Human (formerly), Zombified human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Avengers (formerly)

Voiced By: N/A

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-89521, Tony Stark became infected by a zombie virus.

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• And Then John Was a Zombie: He is turned by a zombie horde and has to be killed by Hope van Dyne.
• Death by Adaptation: He dies five years earlier than the Sacred Timeline Tony.
• Devoured by the Horde: Went down while fighting a massive horde of zombies, with the rest of the Avengers.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • Instead of dying after dusting Thanos' army in Endgame, Tony is infected by the zombie virus, and his zombie is destroyed by getting beheaded during what would have been the first act of Infinity War.
  • This is also different from his death in the comics, where he dies because a starving, zombified Hulk stepped on his chest so hard that he crushed it.
• Face–Monster Turn: All traces of Tony's humanity are gone once he's zombified, with his first act being to devour and turn Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian alongside Zombie Doctor Strange and Wong before mindlessly going after Bruce shortly after.
• Fallen Hero: He was one of Earth's greatest heroes until he got infected by the Quantum Virus and turned into a mindless zombie.
• Forgot About His Powers: While fighting off zombies in the Golden Gate Bridge, Tony didn't think to just fly up and kill the zombies from up there like what Rhodey did with the Outriders in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Face-Revealing Turn: He's first introduced in silhouette alongside Doctor Strange and Wong, beating the crap out of Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw. The heroic Avengers theme is playing... until the sounds of the fight turn gruesome, the dust settles, and Tony slowly turns around to reveal his decayed, lipless face.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Justified, as the helmet would get in the way of eating people, and his conspicuous lack of a helmet is used to set up a Face-Revealing Turn early on. Unfortunately for Tony, it enables Wasp to easily dispatch him via decapitation. During the last stand of the Avengers, Tony is seen fully helmeted, suggesting that he removed it posthumously.
• "Hey, You!" Haymaker: Delivers a sling-ring assisted repulsor blast to the back of Ebony Maw's head, interrupting his speech.
• It Can Think: Despite being a zombie, Tony can still use his Mark 50 armor (established to be partially controlled through neural uplink) to fly and shoot with repulsors.
• The Noseless: He doesn't have a nose like most other zombies because it either rotted away or was bitten off by another zombie.
• Off with His Head!: Zombie Tony is beheaded by Wasp and drops dead.
• Red Is Violent: He's a ravenous zombie wearing an armor that's primarily red.
• The Undead: He's a flesh-eating zombie.
• Undeathly Pallor: Like the majority of the other zombies, he has an incredibly pale complexion.
• The Voiceless: He doesn't say any lines before becoming a zombie takes away his ability to do so.

King Killmonger's Tony Stark

Tony Stark

"To killers."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

The Tony Stark of Earth-32938, who never became Iron Man due to Killmonger saving him from being injured by his own IED in Afghanistan.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: As a result of being saved by Killmonger, Tony never learned any lessons he would have had as a prisoner of the Ten Rings. He remains arrogant, alcoholic, and all too eager to build bigger and badder weapons for war as payback. The only redeeming quality he has is still caring for his friends which is why he turns against Killmonger after discovering his new "friend" murdered Rhodes as part of a False Flag Operation. Even then, his idea of justice is to coldly murder Killmonger with his own drone.
• Adaptational Villainy: Without his life-changing experience in Afghanistan, Tony sees no problem to make a deal with Ulysses Klaue for Vibranium. His only concern is that it would be bad publicity for his company if the press gets word of it, but gets around it by using Rhodes as his military representative.
• Adaptational Wimp: As a consequence of never becoming Iron Man in this timeline, Tony is significantly weaker in combat due to having fewer toys to rely on in sticky situations. After his attempt to use one of his drones to kill Erik fails, Tony is easily executed by the man with no other backup to help him.
• Affably Evil: As a result of never becoming Iron Man, he never becomes humbled and instead becomes more amoral than ever. Despite this, he possesses a personable and carefree demeanor.
• The Alcoholic: He drinks a lot throughout the episode, having never had the humbling experiences Sacred Timeline Tony went through to kick some of his vices. Most scenes with Tony show him with a drink or mentioning his drinking. Even when Killmonger mortally wounds him, he drops a glass of whiskey.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: He and Erik bond over losing their fathers at a young age.
• Death by Adaptation: He dies 14 years sooner than his Sacred Timeline counterpart.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Rather than heroically sacrificing himself to stop Thanos, Tony Stark is instead killed by Killmonger after he discovers Killmonger's role behind the murder of Rhodes.
• Fatal Flaw: His arrogance and carelessness in how he chose to confront Killmonger backfired quickly.
• Ignored Epiphany: During the press conference, Tony admits seeing his own weapons being used to kill young American soldiers in Afghanistan. Yet, thanks to Killmonger's timely rescue, Stark ignores any implications that it's his war profiteering ways that led to these deaths, instead doubling down on weapon manufacturing.
• Pinned to the Wall: How Killmonger murders him.
• Revenge Before Reason: Tony seethes with anger when J.A.R.V.I.S. shows him that Killmonger murdered Rhodes. But instead of informing the police about it, Tony instead tries to trap Killmonger in his room and kill him with his drone to achieve "justice". He ends up getting killed and Killmonger is able to wipe out J.A.R.V.I.S.'s memory banks to ensure nobody will know the truth.
• Slave to PR: Tony here has no issue with buying smuggled Vibranium from a well-known black market dealer, except for the possibility of shareholders panicking if they or the press find out about Stark Industries' illegal activities. Thus, he has Rhodes represent him under the guise of diplomacy.

Infinity Ultron's Tony Stark

Tony Stark / Iron Man

"You don't have to do this. I made you for peace."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries, Avengers

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-29929, Tony Stark is forced to watch as Ultron succeeds in his plan, dooming not only his world but also his entire universe.

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• Death by Adaptation: He dies eight years earlier than his Sacred Timeline counterpart.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Rather than heroically sacrificing himself to stop Thanos, Tony Stark is instead killed by Ultron as he activates all the nukes in the world.
• Fatal Flaw: And unlike his Sacred Timeline counterpart, it actually is fatal.
• High-Voltage Death: Ultron unleashes a shockwave that finishes him off and activates the world's nuclear codes.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Like in the Sacred Timeline, he created Ultron to avert a potential future where his friends were killed and Earth was ripe for the taking. In this timeline however, Ultron succeeded in his plans and Tony was the last man standing as he watches Ultron enact exactly what he feared would come to pass before getting killed by the android.
• Tragic Hero: Unlike his main universe counterpart, his Fatal Flaw of carelessness winds up killing him and the rest of his universe.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Even more so than his Sacred Timeline counterpart. His version of Ultron not only grows greedy enough to exterminate his world, he went on to destroy his entire universe along with several other universes before being stopped.
• The Worf Effect: He gets killed alongside Thor, Hulk, and Captain America to show how powerful Ultron would have become had he successfully acquired Vision's body.

Sakaarian Iron Man

Tony Stark / Iron Man

"Look, I get it. I lived in my dad's shadow for a long time. I did stuff I'm not proud of. People died because of who I was and what I built. My point is, people can change, and for the better. But I'm not my father. You're not your father. I made a choice for the better, and I became Iron Man."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries, Avengers

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

A variant of Tony Stark who is friends with Gamora and helped her defeat Thanos.

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• Badass Driver: To win against the Grandmaster and stop his tyranny, Tony builds himself a suit that can also transform into a racecar. He spends the climax of the episode pulling off dangerous stunts and going neck-in-neck with the ruler of Sakaar without so much as flinching.
• Butt-Monkey: Goes from the events of Avengers to the much wackier setting of Sakaar, where he's got to put up with the Grandmaster's lunacy, being imprisoned, zapped, attacked by Gamora, covered in foam, and finds that all the drinks suck.
• The Charmer: Even more so than Sacred-Timeline Stark, as this variant is rather good at winning people over. He manages to get Valkyrie on his side pretty quickly, especially compared to the difficult Thor had. And likewise, he manages to get Gamora to pull a Heel–Face Turn at a time when she was still Thanos's loyal assassin.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Seems to suffer from this almost as much as his Sacred Timeline counterpart: As some of the other characters point out, he could easily escape and go back to Earth to reunite with Pepper, but he decides to free Sakaar from the Grandmaster's reign first. In the end, when he finally wants to return to Earth, he's asked by Gamora to help him take down Thanos. And as the finale episode of season 1 shows, he still didn't return to Earth as he continues his hero duties.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing the episode he was supposed to debut in to be delayed into Season 2, he makes a brief appearance in the Season 1 finale in the scene where Uatu recruits his universe's Gamora (who was also supposed to debut in the delayed episode).
• The Engineer: Even when he's stranded on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere, Tony is still able to build himself a badass Iron Man suit that can come apart from his body, and even be repurposed as a racecar.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The Grandmaster calls him "Mr. Metal Mojo Man" much to his annoyance.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even though Tony is notorious for his hedonism and enjoys being entertained, he's utterly horrified by the Grandmaster's races, calling them barbaric.
• Heel Realization: While preparing to kill Gamora after he finds out that Thanos was responsible for what happened in New York, he hears the Grandmaster’s announcement saying that Tony is not the hero they thought he was. After hearing that, he decides to spare Gamora and liberate Sakaar from the Grandmaster's tyrannical rule.
• Ignored Aesop: Despite seeing how easily the Infinity Stones can be misused, he nonetheless entertains the idea of using them to protect the universe.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite clearly living a completely different life to his Sacred Timeline counterpart, he still has the same drive and idea that would lead to the creation of Ultron. Furthermore, Tony still ends up being responsible for Thanos's death, albeit in an indirect way this time.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike Sacred Timeline Tony (and by extension, every other alternate Tony previously introduced), this variant is still alive in the present day, even after the death of Thanos.
• Transforming Mecha: The Iron Man armor he constructs on Sakaar can morph into a race car that he uses when the race car he's given is destroyed in the race.

Tony Stark (Earth-838)

Tony Stark / Iron Man

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Avengers (formerly)

Portrayed By: N/A

On Earth-838, Tony Stark was able to build a suit of armor around the world with the creation of the Ultron Sentries, allowing the Avengers to disband and live their own lives.

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• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: He succeeded where his other counterparts failed by creating a version of Ultron which did what he intended and helped protect the world.
• The Ghost: He doesn't appear and isn't even mentioned in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but was confirmed to exist by Word of God.
• Retired Badass: Implied by the producer of Multiverse of Madness, referencing how Tony had intended for Ultron to make it possible for the Avengers to retire. So it's possible that like Wanda, he retired from the Avengers instead of continuing as Iron Man.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Because he succeeded in creating a benevolent Ultron and Thanos was killed during Infinity War, this Tony never had to sacrifice himself to stop the Mad Titan.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: Inverted. He's not a member of the Illuminati in this universe (though he's definitely an ally as he has Ultron and his sentries defend their headquarters) and the Avenger representing the team in this universe instead of him is Peggy Carter, who is a straighter example of this trope as she was never associated with the Illuminati in the comics.

The Freak's Tony Stark

Tony Stark / Iron Man

"My head of security, everybody. How about this guy, right?"

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries, Avengers

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

A variant of Tony Stark who was working as a Mall Santa when Justin Hammer put the Avengers Tower under attack.

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• Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: He's seen working as a Mall Santa when Happy tries to contact him for help and is clearly not having a good time doing so.
• Mall Santa: Works as this during the episode and it's him being busy at being this is why Happy has a hard time warning him of Justin Hammer taking over Avengers Tower
• Non-Answer: When Happy asks Tony if he can cure his gamma-irradiated form, Tony just laughs and pays him a compliment without actually providing a direct answer to the question.

Captain Carter's Tony Stark

Tony Stark / Iron Man

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries, Avengers

Voiced By: N/A

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-82111, Tony Stark still fought in the Battle of New York and is still a member of the Avengers, which is lead by Peggy Carter in this universe.

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• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: According to A.C. Bradley, Howard was a much better father to Tony in this universe and they had a closer relationship as a result, meaning that this Tony doesn't have the Parental Issues of the other Tony Starks. Howard and Maria also didn't die in 1991 like in most other timelines, so Tony didn't have to grieve over how he Never Got to Say Goodbye to them like his other counterparts.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Due to Howard being a better father in this universe, he and Tony are stated to have a much closer relationship this time around as in every other universe Howard was emotionally distant from his son and they had a frosty and strained relationship as a result.
• The Cameo: He appears in the beginning of "What If... Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?" as one of the Avengers of Captain Carter's universe.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even though Bruce Banner isn't a founding member of the Avengers here and possibly didn't become the Hulk, Tony still becomes very close friends and "Science Bros" with him.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: It's strongly implied that he and Peggy have the same quarrelous relationship that the Sacred Timeline's Tony and Steve had. When Natasha suggests asking Tony in helping Steve out, Peggy bluntly turns her down, and at the end of the episode, she's fine with taking off in Tony's car to look for Steve.

Tony Stark 1602

Tony Stark

"Don't mind me. Just igniting an industrial and mystical revolution."

Species: Human

Citizenship: English

Affiliation(s): Avengers 1602

Voiced By: Mick Wingert

Appearances: What If...?

A variant of Tony who is a scientist in 1602.

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• Adaptational Heroism: In the comics, he was an antagonist sent to find and kill David Banner. However, in this adaptation, he does none of those things and instead proves to be of great help to the heroes.
• Adaptational Name Change: Downplayed. His name was the same in the comics, but he went by Anthony since Tony would have been anachronistic in the 17th century. In this version he's still called Tony.
• Adaptational Nationality: In the comics, he was Spanish, but here he's either American (based on his accent) or English (given the Elizabethan setting).
• Adaptational Wimp: He doesn't become Lord Iron in this version and is far less respected than his comic self.
• Water Wake-up: Peggy wakes him up this way when she sees him sleeping on some hay. He then promptly lies back down for five more minutes of sleep.

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"What am I even tripping for? Everything's gonna work out exactly the way it's supposed to. I love you 3000."