| abstract | - A brilliant engineer with Powered Armor and CEO of Stark Industries. After being held hostage by terrorists, and escaping, his world view and philosophy changes, shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of his company, and becoming the hero Iron Man.
* Adult Child
* The Alcoholic: Definitely has the tendencies, especially in Iron Man 2.
* Always Someone Better: In the second film, it seems Tony thinks his father was his Always Someone Better. Quite aside from Howard Stark's apparent lack of parenting skills, he's been "dead for almost twenty years...still takin' [Tony] to school".
* It's not given a lot of screentime, but Tony seems to think of Steve this way. Not hard to imagine why, since he grew up hearing stories about how great Captain America is from his father.
* Anti-Hero: Type III. Stark has such a large ego he's willing to use himself as a human guinea pig in his experiments, often with hilariously humiliating results—but the fact that he's doing it for the cause of justice means you can't help but root for him. His comic counterpart's alcoholism comes up in the sequel, where he became an even bigger jerk due to international recognition as Iron Man and the prospect of dying from palladium.
* The Atoner: Initially, he really didn't give much of a shit who was blowing up what with his toys, but after being held hostage by terrorists, and subsequently having his life saved by Yinsen, he became this.
* Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Tony's eccentric nature and constantly active brain makes him prone to zoning out of what he's supposed to be doing.
* Badass Normal: Aside from his Powered Armor, he's just an ordinary man. Well, a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, to be more specific.
* Badass Mustache: He's notably one of the few mainstream heroes in comics or movies that regularly sports a mustache.
* Bash Brothers: With War Machine.
* Berserk Button: Tony's get pushed whenever someone he thinks is a better person makes a sacrifice in order to save him. After the deaths of Yinsen in Iron Man and Coulson in The Avengers, he stops screwing around and immediately starts furiously kicking some ass.
* After Tony's shift from arms dealer to Technological Pacifist: Don't try to use his shiny tech toys to build bigger, deadlier weapons.
* Blood Brothers: With Captain America after earning each other's respect through fighting side by side. Steve represents the idealism and nobility that Tony has since lost, but deep down still respects and wishes to have again.
* Brilliant but Lazy
* Bunny Ears Lawyer
* The Cameo: Has one at the end of The Incredible Hulk.
* The Casanova: Implied to pretty much be this way though the first Iron Man movie, although as he matures over the films, he begins to develop into a more steady relationship with Pepper. By the time of The Avengers, they're officially a couple.
* Cloudcuckoolander: He certainly has some rather... eccentric behavior.
* 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.
* 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.
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* This is proven true later in the The Avengers when it's shown that the reactor basically makes Tony the only person unable to be controlled by Loki's scepter because it cuts direct access to his heart.
* The Cynic: Which is why he finds Steve Rogers' "outdated and irrelevant" idealism to be annoying.
* He is so cynical he made cold mockery of Agent Phil Coulson's Heroic Sacrifice against Loki rather than show any respect or grief for him, jeeringly dismissing him as an idiot for not waiting for backup. It's also pretty clear that he's far more upset about it than he lets on and is trying to play it off with his usual cynicism.
* Deadpan Snarker
* Disability Superpower: The arc reactor that powers Tony's Powered Armor is installed in Tony's chest in the first place as (roughly) a very fancy pacemaker. Remove the arc reactor and Tony's heart will very quickly give out.
* Fiction 500: Oh, yes. 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 the end of Iron Man 2, that garage now also 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 storeys 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.
* Foil: To Steve Rogers, playing the selfish cynic to Steve's old-fashioned idealist. For example, while both are shown to be dolls of the public (featured at big show events complete with dancing girls), Steve is made visibly uncomfortable with the spotlight and would rather be on the front lines, while Tony eats up the attention.
* Gadgeteer Genius
* Good Is Not Nice: Yes, Tony Stark works hard to keep the world safe, and his heart is in the right place. But he's also still a playboy, a glory hound, a drunkard, and an irresponsible jackass a lot of the time.
* He also has no problem blowing up people who are trying to kill him, notably in the middle section of Iron Man.
* Heterosexual Life Partners: With Rhodey.
* Also with Bruce Banner/Hulk in The Avengers movie.
* Honest Corporate Executive: At least after he gets back from Afghanistan.
* Insufferable Genius
* It's All About Me
* Jerkass: He starts out as one, but after realizing what his company has been dealing under the table while he wasn't paying attention, he decides to atone and become a hero by hunting down and destroying the stockpiles of villains.
* Jerk with a Heart of Gold]: However, while Tony may be a definite good guy now, he can still act like an arrogant and irresponsible drunkard at times.
* Jet Pack: On his Mark VII armor in The Avengers, to allow him to use both of his repulsors without having to use one to stay aloft in flight. It falls off into two engines into space when he loses power at the climax of The Avengers, but he can probably just replace it.
* Jumped At the Call: Tony may be living proof that becoming a hero can still be a lot of fun.
* 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.
* The Last Dance: In Iron Man 2 until he manages to find a replacement element (which he named "badassium") for the palladium core of his arc reactor that was poisoning him.
* The Lancer: Plays this role in The Avengers to Captain America, similar to the comics.
* Let's Get Dangerous: Many people, both foes and allies, have assumed that Tony's Cloudcuckoolander irreverence and Obfuscating Stupidity mean he's a Rich Idiot With No Day Job who can't take anything seriously, let alone pose a threat. These people were very wrong.
* Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: How he built the Mark I Iron Man armor.
* Lonely Rich Kid: Who grew up to be a...
* Millionaire Playboy
* Men Don't Cry / Sand in My Eyes: The blue light reactor that keeps Tony Stark alive ALWAYS shines through whatever shirt he is wearing at the time. The ONE time it does not glow through his shirt is when is struck silent with grief by the death of Agent Clouson. There may be no tears, but a mighty heart has been broken.
* The Nicknamer: Captain America is "Old Man". Thor is "Point Break". Hawkeye is "Legolas". Loki is "Reindeer Games" (due to the helmet). Loki's staff is "the Glowstick of Destiny".
* Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He is, in his own words, a "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist". With a suit of Powered Armor.
* Obfuscating Stupidity: He often acts dimwitted, but is shown to be incredibly on the ball, delivering Deadpan Snarker putdowns to people who irritate him and managing to build incredible machines out of whatever he has on hand. After one night of study he also 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.
* Omnidisciplinary Scientist: He seems to be an expert at high-energy physics, materials science, and aerospace engineering all at the same time. Granted, he does have an AI to help him.
* He's a quick study. After spending a night reading S.H.I.E.L.D.'s briefing packet, he can converse fluently with Nick Fury, Bruce Banner and the rest of the Avengers about the technical details of the Tesseract.
* Parental Abandonment: 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.
* 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.
* Playful Hacker: Among other things, he enjoys hacking other people's sound systems to play appropriate music for his dramatic entrances.
* The Pornomancer: He's the page image for a reason.
* Powered Armor
* Power Palms: Repulsors, his main weapons, are fired from the palms of his armor's gauntlets.
* Science Hero
* "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gets a pretty devastating one from Captain America, which he admittedly brought on himself.
* Relationship Upgrade: To Official Couple with Pepper as of the end of Iron Man 2. Heroes Want Redheads after all.
* Tall, Dark and Snarky
* 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 SHIELD wants to create weapons based on the Tesseract.
* Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Tony doesn't like Steve. At all. But there's nothing like a battle that bonds brothers together.
* Troll: Tony has an unfortunate habit of using sarcastic humor as an ice-breaker in interpersonal relationships, most tellingly in his tendency to give everybody goofy nicknames and being absolutely fine about humorously discussing personal traumas, such as with Captain Rogers' 70 year freeze and how he is a fan of how Banner "turns into an enormous green rage-monster."
* Him "jokingly" taunting Banner with a cattle prod stands out as a fine example of how immature he can be, and how far he's willing to go for a joke.
* Weaponized Exhaust: His primary weapon, the repulsor, wasn't designed to be a weapon, but rather a flight stabilizer. When he realized it worked as a weapon at full power, he incorporated it.
* "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tony's relationship with his father was strained, at best.
* Wham! Line
* The Wonka: In addition to creating the Iron Man suits, he has also built AI's that snark back at him.
* Workaholic: If it wasn't for Pepper, Jarvis, and Rhodey, Tony would've starved or overdosed on caffeine down in his workshop years ago.
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