Thor and Tony Stark’s Infinity Saga Stories Are Almost Perfectly in Sync Until ‘Endgame’
Marvel fans have talked a great deal about Tony Stark’s character arc, and how he went from a shallow, self-serving egotist to a hero who sacrificed himself for the greater good. However, some fans are also saying not to overlook Thor’s arc.
Upon reconsidering the MCU movies, fans noticed Thor and Iron Man essentially swapped outcomes. It’s not exactly like Disney’s Freaky Friday, with one viewing the world through the other’s eyes, but both heroes had endings that were happy and sad at the same time.
What happened to Iron Man and Thor?
Tony Stark’s story has been examined and re-examined many times by MCU fans, largely because he’s the prototype MCU hero. He starts out as a self-serving womanizer and all-around jerk who has a moment of clarity when he nearly dies after a mortar attack and decides to use his skills for good, and not just for lots and lots of profit.
Thor also started out as an egotist, although he arguably has a better excuse — unlike Tony, he’s an honest to goodness god. More than once across the MCU movies, Thor acts rashly and impulsively, only to cause trouble and be severely humbled. This theme saw its ultimate expression when Thor failed to go for Thanos’ head in Avengers: Infinity War.
Thor’s mistake was an honest one, but his failure so haunted him that he let himself go and fell into depression. He bucked up enough to acquit himself well in Avengers: Endgame, while Tony died lauded as a hero.
At the same time, Thor still felt wanting as he went off with the Guardians of the Galaxy, while Tony will not get to see his daughter grow up.
The iron hammer: How the heroes intersect
Fans noticed these parallels while discussing the characters on Reddit. Kicking off the conversation, one fan posted contrasting pics of Thor, one of him arrogantly yelling, and the other ready for battle.
Another fan responded, “They pretty much start from the same spot: brash, arrogant heirs who wantonly cause violence and destruction. And their arcs take a very similar path. Tony wants to rid the world of threats, of which he had a helping hand in causing. Thor wants to prove he is a capable leader by protecting Asgard from destruction, of which he has, previously, had a helping hand in causing.”
That fan pointed out that with both heroes, it was a matter of two steps forward and one step back, until in the end, Thor and Tony swap their “supposed” outcomes. Whereas the expected outcome might be that Thor dies and Tony perseveres, the opposite happens instead,
What do fans take away from the story?
One fan responded to the discussion by saying, Iron Man and Thor “started as opposites, even though they appear similar in their arrogance and destructive ways.
For Tony, his arrogance is due to the lack of affection from his father growing up, and trauma caused by his parents’ untimely deaths, leading to stunted emotional growth.”
On the other side of the coin, the fan observed, Thor “was so constantly basked in love and affirmation from his parents and pretty much everyone else in the kingdom, he became blind to his own shortcomings, shortcomings all too obvious to his brother who existed in his shadow. “
All this is enough to make one regret that Thor and Iron Man didn’t have more one-on-one time.
Their only extended interaction is the fight in the original Avengers. Imagine the movie that could have been with just those two. We almost certainly won’t get that movie, with Tony out of the picture, but at least there’s Thor: Love and Thunder to look forward to in a little less than two years.
