This isn’t
a connection I would’ve thought to make (is it a big thing in the comics? I don’t know enough to know,) but ever since
Spider-Man was brought back into the MCU fold, his closest tie to the greater
franchise has been with Tony. While I do
get a little wary of Tony’s presence overwhelming Peter’s, the film have mostly
struck a good balance so far, and I enjoy their dynamic together (Tony-Peter-related
spoilers, including for Infinity War.)
Tony is
our lead-in to Spidey’s introduction to the MCU. The mere fact that Tony recruits Peter for Civil War suggests some interesting
things about Tony, both good and not-so-good.
First, there’s a suggestion that Tony brings in Peter mainly for his
webbing (which he’s seen in the YouTube videos Peter posts of Spider-Man,)
meaning he likes Peter’s relatively-efficient method of painless capture. This means that, despite all that’s gone down
so far between Tony and Team Cap, he still wants to bring them in without anyone
getting hurt. On the flip side, he does make the decision to bring a
15-year-old to a superpowered fight (not to mention transporting him to a
different country without telling his legal guardian.) Even though neither side wants to hurt the
other, and even though Tony equips Peter with a new suit that probably keeps
him safer than his old one, it’s still a dangerous situation to bring a kid
into.
Granted,
Peter doesn’t need Tony’s help to get into dangerous situations. He’s a teenage superhero – diving recklessly
into danger is his extracurricular activity.
But as the adult in the scenario, Tony does a pretty inconsistent job of
considering Peter’s safety. In Homecoming, Tony sort of sets himself up
as Peter’s mentor/benefactor, but in an extremely hands-off way. He outfits Peter with an even better new suit
but doesn’t give him any training on it, which is a problem that becomes much
worse when Peter figures out how to override his “training wheels” protocol and
unlocks all sorts of potentially-lethal features he doesn’t know how to
use. Tony positions Happy as a liaison
for Peter, but that mostly ends up being Peter texting into a void that never
answers back, leaving him frustrated and feeling like he has to do something
more to prove himself, at which point he’ll finally get the engagement he wants
from Tony.
Again, Peter
would be throwing himself into danger no matter what – I don’t want to pile on
Tony here. However, Tony’s combination
of action and inaction exacerbates the matter, and he comes to learn that it’s
not a good idea to give a 15-year-old a bunch of advanced tactical/weapons tech
and then leave him to his own devices.
And to Tony’s credit, he does try to be more cognizant of this in Infinity War. While he’s quick to accept Peter’s help in
the fight against Thanos’s followers in New York, he’s adamantly against Peter
having anything to do with the space ship.
When Peter (of course) doesn’t listen to that direction, Tony deploys
yet another new suit, the iron spider.
His plan is to use it to get Peter out of danger, first providing him
with oxygen in the thinning atmosphere and then literally attempting to
parachute him to safety, but when, once again, Peter ignores all attempts to
get him out of there and the space is too
far from Earth to send him back home, the iron spider suit at least keeps
him about as safe as he possibly can be in that situation.
Of
course, it isn’t enough. The iron spider
suit isn’t enough to save Peter from Thanos – staying on Earth wouldn’t be enough. Nothing Tony does can prevent Peter from
getting dusted by the Infinity Gauntlet, but that’s not exactly a comfort to
Tony. That image of Peter crumbling away
in his arms will haunt Tony, and even though we all know Tony’s going to move
hell and high water to get Peter and the others back, it’s still going to be a
hard one to shake.
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