I should probably state right up front what a character web is for those who don't know. It's an idea I ran across in John Truby's book Anatomy of Story. The main characters are all related thematically or in some way to each other and to the main ideas of the story. Each of them representes some particular stance on the theme or a major concept of the story. My previous entry on Jessica Jones was also about the character web, I explain the idea fairly well there I think.
In the workshop he has race cars and model jet planes and the propeller of a plane is hanging on the wall. He likes to go fast and fly—things he'll be able to do solo in the armor later.
Everything before the cave incident shows he's a maverick, flying by the seat of his pants, doing what's required of him (most of it) but in his own way, usually late and unconcerned. But his genius and charisma etc allow him to pull through in the last second where others would fail. All qualities that he'll use later as Iron Man.
Stark. Tony Stark.
Opens with Back in Black as camera cuts to closeup of a drink in Tony's hand. The lyrics of the song reference Bon Scott's death from alcohol poisoning. Have a Drink on Me (which also references Bon Scott's death) would have been too on the nose and distracting, this is more subliminal. A good choice I think, and the first of many indications of how well thought out the story is, and how the characterization is tied in deeply with not only the plot but even musical choices and other incidentals.
To be more precise, Back in Black suggests that Scott has been resurrected after his alcohol-related death. Bon Scott was the original singer for AC-DC, and when he died people thought nobody could replace him and the band was probably done, but then they found Brian Johnson and released their triumphant next album Highway to Hell. So the use of the song here suggests the symbolic death of the alcoholic Tony Stark—of his cold-hearted war profiteer persona—and his resurrection as the hero Iron Man and the new much more humanistic Tony Stark.
The fact that his drink is in a glass and on the rocks demonstrates immediately how suave and playboy-ish Tony is, bringing his wealthy cavalier lifestyle with him even in war-torn Afghanistan. It's also a statement about wealthy American war profiteers in general, because that's what Tony represents at this point.
He's in the Middle East to sell more weapons when suddenly terrorists attack the convoy using Stark Industries weapons and he's thrown into the same situation his weapons have put countless innocent people into.
In their attack the terrorists use bullets, flamethrowers and explosives—exactly what he will spew from his own armored body at the mouth of the cave. It's as if he becomes the weapon-man himself, living embodiment of the weapons he once sold.
When he sees Stark Industries stenciled on the missile, he's confronting his shadow self—all the evil he's been involved with. It's all turned directly against him now. His cold iron heart has leaped out of his chest onto the ground and is threatening his life. This is an incredibly powerful symbolic image. When it explodes (inciting incident) he'll be forever changed. He can no longer accept his own inner evil, he must go head to head against it if he can survive it. Significantly, the only reason he does survive is because he's wearing body armor.
Jet Plane models he probably built as a boy
Pepper takes care of his life, everything he fails to, so he can live his wild playboy lifestyle. She makes sure his appointments are kept etc, takes care of his dry cleaning. All things a wife might do (or maybe his mother), but they're not married. It's the relationship they should have but his character is wrong for it until his change of heart. That fixes everything that's wrong in his life, and then he fixes what's wrong with Stark Industries and begins his campaign to fix what's wrong in the world. Well, certain things anyway. In fact the main point—the theme I suppose—of the 1st movie is Tony's change of heart, symbolically represented by the new tech-heart first cobbled together by Yinsen and improved several times by Tony. When Tony and Pepper do get together later he's become much more responsible, so she doesn't have to do the mothering role she had to as his assistant.
Rhodey is 'by the book'—what the board of directors want Tony to be but he refuses. Rhodey functions as a negative reflection of Tony (not meaning evil, just opposite), used to highlight Tony's opposing character traits. After Tony's change of heart he seems to absorb some of Rhodey's responsibility and caution (not too much) and Rhodey becomes less of a stick-in-the-mud. This is directly referenced in their banter about the FunVee and the Hum-DrumVee. When Tony first said it he was being a bit mocking and insulting, but when Rhodey asks him "So, how was the FunVee?" Tony has already had his big change of heart—the meaning is completely different now. He's no longer the heartless person he was when he said it before. He's been humbled.
Howard Stark was involved in the creation of the atomic bomb. "Some say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it." So Howard is presented as a warmonger. The atom bomb ended the war, but at what cost? Millions of innocent civilian lives. This is another massive part of the burden Tony carries and must atone for to become a hero. A lesser movie would have labored these points too much and probably gone melodramatic. Here it's handled deftly and rapidly and even a bit subliminally. You don't notice it unless you're paying attention to the undercurrents.
Immediately after the explosion Yinsen saves him using crude technology, but pretty fancy for in a cave. He's symbolically Tony's guardian angel, and then sacrifices himself to allow Tony to live. Serves as a role model and inspiration as well as probably being the first person Tony feels deeply for besides his parents.
Car battery links up with his love of racing cars, like the one he was just building. The battery might be called the heart of a car?
Tony's crude new electro-mechanical heart, installed by Yinsen
... and powered by a car battery
Strange crude technology is now linked directly into his newly vulnerable heart. This is Yinsen's lifesaving tech staving off the ever-advancing fragments of Tony's shadow heart—the shrapnel from his own missile that's always burrowing in deeper and threatening to kill him. The more I think about this the more depth and subtlety the symbolism develops. It's brilliant—hard to believe good old Stan Lee came up with it so long ago for a comic book. Of course it's been developed several times since then, but the core of it was all there right from the beginning.
I think Yinsen reminding him how drunk he was at the conference where they met years ago made him feel terrible—he doesn't even remember the guy who admires him so much and who becomes his savior/guardian angel. He now feels a great responsibility, and stops drinking at this point.
On Yinsen's death it's like his Guardian Angel spirit enters Tony and he becomes a guardian and savior of innocents who need one. Tries to amend for all the damage he's done through his weapons, though that's never dwelt on in the movie. There's a great deal of brevity that I think works, you can infer it all quite well I think. To dwell on it more would have been a mistake.
Raza calls him 'The most famous mass murderer in the history of America'. His conscience once again, from an unlikely source, his enemy and the terrorist using his weapons against innocents (and against Tony). Christine Everhart(reporter chick) was another externalized conscience for Tony earlier. Wow, I just noticed—is there deliberate symbolism in the fact that her name is Ever-Heart? Does she represent his new heart, ever-threatened by his former one? Or perhaps ever-powered by the Arc Reactor? Not sure.
Raza's main part in the character web is as a terrorist leader and the major antagonist, who is stealing Stark weapons and even trying to make Tony build him a Jericho missile. He's the face of antagonism, as well as a terrorist. This is excellent, since in my followup post I've identified terror as the driving force behind Tony's 'gearing up' in high-tech armor. This movie really has an amazing amount of subtlety and depth for a Marvel movie. They really knocked it outta that park with this as a first entry to kick off the entire genre.
The fact that the hole goes so deep in his chest, like a Pringles can, makes it literally seem like his heart is missing, as if he didn't merely build an electromagnet and the arc reactor to power it, but in fact built himself a new heart from the technology of death and war. This is the symbol of his great change of heart, from warmonger to humanitarian and hero. It's important that the person he trusts to remove his first tech heart, the one he built in the cave, and replace it with the new model, is Pepper. She literally reaches into his chest and holds his heart in her hand. The only other person to do that was Yinsen, his guardian angel sent to transform him into a hero.
The reason it has to be armor is because after the explosion he feels vulnerable. I don't think he ever felt vulnerable before, as a wealthy and powerful CEO, and he had an armor-plated heart. The shrapnel of the Stark Industries missile is symbolically shards of his former cold inhuman heart clawing at his chest, at his new more vulnerable heart, and its threat is constant and ongoing. The shrapnel is his never-ending and very physical reminder of the sins he's guilty of, as well as his father's and those of the American war machine. He needs protection from the constant attack from within as well as any attack from physical enemies.
The armor is an improved version of the body armor that saved his life when the missile went off, but with added offensive capabilities. He turns himself into a walking weapon, a marriage of his genius with the very weaponry he once spread war with and let get into the hands of terrorists. He becomes a sort of living Jericho missile, but with a conscience (he no longer needs Christine or anyone else for that purpose).This is a reversal of the line "Kills the people he once saved" in the Black Sabbath song Iron Man. Again, some surprising depth of thought going into music, even though the song itself isn't used here.
And of course in Age of Ultron his neurotic need for protection against his former warmonger shadow-self expands massively and he feels the need to build a suit of armor around the world. He fears people of the kind he himself used to be, the warmongers who attack cold-heartedly and mercilessly. It's really his own shadow-self he fears so much, as if it stalks him constantly but invisibly, and he sees it in all his enemies.
His new hi-tech heart glows like a headlight at first (associates him with the racing car again), then when he inserts the other parts in front of it it's a ring shape like a halo. This seems to be a temporary state, then it glows up into a full headlight again. This is when he gets the MK 3 armor (or is it 2?) painted in yellow and red to match his sports car.
When Tony is working at the forge it's as if he's forging his new self—armed and armored and capable of hero-ing. Important that he does it the direct handmade way, hammering at the forge and sweating. Makes it all feel more heart-felt, more romantic. Not cold futuristic tech at this point. He advances to that later, but this humanizes the entire thing.
It's almost as if Yinsen should already be dead but is allowed to help Tony and sacrifice for him in order to turn him into a savior/guardian angel for humanity, from having been the worst mass murderer known to America. And Tony should be dead as well, except for the (divine?) intervention of Yinsen. There's a bit of The Crow going on here, as if Tony is allowed to remain alive only as long as he continues to fight the good fight and atone for his crimes.
Tony spouting the flamethrower seems to be bringing up the fires of Hell. His flamethrower is far more powerful than the ones used on him earlier and the entire scene behind him is nothing but a flaming inferno of suffering and death. He is become Death, but now he's using his weaponry against the right people. The incredibly intense fire in this scene, as well as the idea that Yinsen is alive only as Tony's guardian angel, and that then Tony becomes a guardian angel to the innocent people he used to sell out, makes me believe that there is an intentional reference to these things. It totally fits the overall tone of the movie and the themes. Of course it's intended to be taken only subliminally. No-one ever mentions any of these religious terms. But since it does seem they're put there deliberately, it strengthens my belief that his 'headlight' was also deliberately made to resemble a halo for a moment. Otherwise why go through all the effects work necessary to have it happen at all? I see it as his high-tech halo.
When he takes off, all the stockpiled Stark weaponry goes off at the same time in a massive fireball—Hell expanding exponentially to consume the evil terrorists who dared use his weapons against innocents (like Yinsen and his family, representatives of the slain), and Tony seems to ride the expanding perimeter of the blast, barely avoiding destruction himself. This reminds me uncannily of Ishmael at the end of Moby Dick, the only one thrown far enough out that when the ship sinks and creates a giant whirlpool he doesn't get sucked in with everybody else. And that was definitely the work of God or Fate.
This is a massive reversal of fortunes on every front. It's the biggest turning point after the inciting incident (the Stark missile exploding in his face). These really big turning points mark the ends of acts, so Act 1 draws to a close when he crashes into the desert and his improvised, single-use armor self-destructs around him. Wow, I just realized act 1 is literally bracketed between two explosions. Or rather the inciting incident and the first major turning point (marking the end of act 1) are both explosions. Cool.
Addendum:
Maybe the fact that Tony went to bed with Christine Everhart, his externalized conscience, means he's beginning to accept her criticisms of him, and this might be the beginning of his crisis. Once he opens himself up to taking those criticisms seriously, he becomes aware of how cold-hearted he's been, profiting on death and terrorism. Since he isn't aware of any sense of guilt it must all be repressed, internalized into the unconscious. Becoming aware of it is a massive shock to the system, he can no longer live with it, and that's why his iron heart in the form of the Stark missile symbolically leaves his body—he can't stand the idea that it's a part of him. So it separates, becomes a distinct thing that perfectly represents his inner self, and that's capable of destroying him right here and now.
Christine strikes me as almost an alternative Pepper. She's the only woman in the movie who holds a candle to her beauty and sex appeal, and she's also smart and principled. Almost a rival for Tony's affections, though his heart already does belong to Pepper, and Christine is little more than a one-night stand (and his externalized conscience).
Damn, as these ideas begin to merge and reveal their depth of meaning this gets better and better. These analyses do have a way of starting off rough and developing levels of greater depth. Something tells me after I finish the whole analysis a lot of things will click into place, and I'll probably have to go back and revise the original posts. Or jusr leave them as in-progress documents.
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