"...the posterboy for Generation Halliburton."

September 12, 2008 4:44 PM

"I asked [Bono] why, in his opinion, [Tony] Stark couldn’t be content with charitable work à la Bill Gates, shaping the world with his billions. "You have to understand these guys," was Bono's one-line reply. "Bill's software. Stark's all hardware." Vanity Fair profiles a year in the life of Tony Stark, and asks what the literal and figurative ascent of the inventor/playboy/superhero means for 21st Century geopolitics. Is Iron Man "the embodiment of an outdated American fantasy -- a self-made, unilateral, technological solution to hopelessly complex problems"? Or is he merely the improbable but logical outgrowth of one young man's vast wealth, careless hedonism, prodigious intellect, and strained familial and mentor relationships? Christine Everhart examines the political implications and personal motives of Stark's quest to beat swords into plowshares -- while profiting from the retrofits.

Not really from Vanity Fair, no.

posted by Asparagirl (19 comments total)

That's... quite long.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on September 12, 2008

Set repulsors on "read."

This looks cool.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:53 PM on September 12, 2008

"You have to understand these guys," was Bono's one-line reply. "Bill's software_._ Stark's all hardware_._"
posted by DU at 5:00 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow. That was a lot of work for a piece of fanfic.
posted by GuyZero at 5:19 PM on September 12, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

It's... a very clever idea.

The execution makes me want to force-feed the author to my communications writing professor from my sophomore year in college, just to see what sorts of bloody chum emerge from the meeting.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:21 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well gee, if you are going to interview a semi-fictional rock star about a fictional industrialist, shouldn't you pick someone like, Noodle who was a product of the military-industrial complex, or Murdoc who is also a megalomaniac?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:34 PM on September 12, 2008

Although now that I think of it, the most brilliant part of Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver was getting Leonard Maltin on camera praising Colin MacKenzie as a lost genius of early cinema. That sells the illusion.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:46 PM on September 12, 2008

The pseudo-Vanity-Fair piece's conclusion seems weird to me, since Iron Man and similar characters have always seemed to me to be echoes of early-20th(-late-19th)-century industrialists— Ford, Carnegie, etc., etc., ruthlessly building an industrial empire but also wanting to use their technology, or at least their profits, to better the general human lot. Not a forward-looking character, that is, but a romantic image from the recent past.
posted by hattifattener at 6:14 PM on September 12, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm more than a little disappointed that this has nothing to do with Ghostface.
posted by saladin at 6:20 PM on September 12, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

I wonder if there's a more exciting - perhaps more visually interesting - medium that someone wishing to tell an imaginary tale about Iron Man could use... it could have more pictures... a lot more pictures, maybe with dialogue and limited exposition printed directly over-top...

But seriously: this is some laudable geekiness right here.
posted by chudmonkey at 6:33 PM on September 12, 2008

Too long to read right now, but it's on my reading list. Turning a visual-medium story to written-media... what, you never heard of Movie Novelizations? But the Vanity Fair article format is a great extra touch.
posted by wendell at 6:49 PM on September 12, 2008

I like that the writer used "Cristine Everhart" the "piece from Vanity Fair" that Stony Stark did in the movie. Nice touch.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:57 PM on September 12, 2008

Yes yes, very much appreciated. I stopped reading Iron Man around the Armor Wars, but I've been fascinated by his neo-con turn over the last 10 years or so. Any other Iron Man fans lurking that have story arcs they'd suggest reading?
posted by butterstick at 8:05 PM on September 12, 2008

butterstick, have you read Extremis? The art is luscious, and the story is pretty darn good.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:14 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I just got finished reading the whole thing, and I'm sorry, that piece just vaulted into my personal top 10 of comic-book writing pieces ever. One hundred kinds of awesome.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:24 PM on September 12, 2008

That was a fantastic Iron Man story. Who says we've gotta wait for a sequel? Thanks for posting this.
posted by EatTheWeak at 12:19 AM on September 13, 2008

I also thought this was great - maybe a skosh too long, or maybe my attention span has decayed completely. A clever idea, executed very well - it really captured the tone of a magazine piece. Thanks for sharing it!
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:47 AM on September 13, 2008

I'm not sure whether to be delighted or EXTREMELY disturbed that my fandom got metafiltered, guys.
posted by bettafish at 12:09 PM on September 14, 2008

Just be delighted that your thread isn't as long as Sarah Palin's.
posted by wendell at 3:38 PM on September 14, 2008