Comic Movie Billionare Throwdown: Why I’ll Pick Stark Industries Over Wayne Enterprises Any Day

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No one goes to see a Batman movie to see Bruce Wayne.

With Tony Stark, I could watch a whole movie about him. In fact, I’d pay to see a sequel to Swingers, where Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn return to Vegas and have an hour and forty-five minute time of their lives with Stark, sans Iron Man. That’s just how much fun he is.

The viability of a film character comes a lot from his respective actor. In Tony’s case, Robert Downey Jr. had down pat an approachable, cool, buddy-buddy guy who, despite his work, is always down for some fun.

Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, and Bale have each stepped into the loafers and smoking jacket of Bruce Wayne. From their collective interpretation, Wayne is a shlubby, neurotic member of the idle rich plagued with severe issues of victimization, violent bursts of anger, acute paranoia, and unhealthy obsessions.

Even if I knew he was Batman, hanging out with Bruce would be a major chore. Because I’d know he’s not being honest with me. He’s acting like how he thinks a spoiled rich jerk would act. You know he never feels comfortable until he’s in his basement by himself, wearing his black gimpy bat-suit and pouring over his computer screens. But he’s rich so he’s, “being eccentric”; if Wayne made my pay, he’d be called a creep.

With Stark, he has fun with his money beyond making a new suit with more “go.” He acts like anyone would act if they had that kind of money. Who can forget Tony’s private jet stripper pole? You know when he was buying a jet, the thought was going though his mind. “I’d like a twin engine Boeing 737. Something spacious, roomy, enough to host a few close friends…oh, and one other thing….” If they couldn’t to it? He’s Tony Stark, he’d build the pole in there himself. Don’t even get me started on the hiring process for stewardesses who know their way around a stripper pole.

Uh, guys? I asked for the pole like, right there. Never mind. Hand me my blowtorch, I'll do it myself.

Chances are you’ll probably get crazy wasted at one of Tony’s parties, but no worries. He’d either buy you a taxi to take you home, or just let you crash and have his A.I. Butler clean up. With Bruce, well, he’d probably just throw you out.

In fact, he actually did it. Jeez, what’s he going to do, make his 70-year-old butler clean up now?

And I’d be really really remiss if I didn’t talk about their decision to become a super-hero. At least with Tony, he started small. Sure, he built a big ol’ robo-suit to save his life, but I doubt when he got home he was thinking, “Being shot at in my big metal robo-suit was sweet, let’s do it again!” He first eighty-sixes his weapons development (baby steps) and takes another look at the suit, not really as a super-hero, but more as an engineer. He’s mostly interested in seeing if he can get this bird to fly again; the armaments just come afterward. It’s like the idea is on the tip of his tongue, but even after he goes all Robocop on the Ten Rings, it’s still a work in progress. Really, that’s who Tony is. He and Iron Man are a perpetual work in progress. Tony invents and then reinvents himself, and I wouldn’t have him any other way.

I could, at this point, become more introspective and thoughtful and talk about how Batman is pure, an incorruptible symbol of justice, and how that’s always been the center of Bruce. But nuts to that mess. In Batman Begins, Bruce finds himself after travelling around the world. What’s he wanna do? Continue the work of his parents? Become an active member of his community and fight the corruption of Gotham? Heck, no! The answer, the only sane answer, is a pair of bat ears, a big black cape, and a love of punching equaled by a disdain for due process.

Really now, this guy is going to keep me safe at night? The movies portray Bruce as barely holding on to his sanity. As if at any moment, he’ll turn into…well…Batman as written by Frank Miller. Yikes. I think I’ll take my chances with the police force. Sure they’re corrupt, but at least the odds are pretty good I won’t find them standing over my bed cracking their knuckles because I ran a red light.

All I did was jay walk I'm sorry arrrgh!

Tony Stark has been compared to Howard Hughes, and I think it’s a fair assumption. The rich, successful businessman/engineer who like to get his hands dirty. Bruce Wayne? I’d chalk him up as an over-privileged trust-fund brat who lives out his sick alpha-male power fantasies upon the faces of the lower class.

Least its a familiar role for Bale…..

Hey Alfred. You might want to call my lawyer. If you'll excuse me, I need to go return some tapes.

2 Comments

1. 

   Elena Nola

   August 16, 2011 at 10:23 am

   Oh my goodness, I LOVE this article! I agree with everything you point out. I am not overly fond of Batman anyway but while I can appreciate a good vigilante story what I hate is his whinging moral superiority. Drop the Joker off the building and save hundreds or thousands of lives. Wait, what–he’s unarmed so you can’t do it? Are you John Wayne or Bruce Wayne here?

   Also: now I want to see the Swingers sequel where they meet Tony Stark.

   Reply
2. 

   Anonymous

   August 16, 2011 at 4:23 pm

   On the other hand…here’s why I’ll pick Wayne Enterprises over Stark Industries any day.

   1) No one can appreciate a Batman movie without first understanding the trauma and conviction to wage war against crime from the point of view of a once helpless 8 year-old Bruce Wayne. This pretty much works in a similar manner to what happens with a 10-year-old Matt Murdoch ( a.k.a Daredevil ) or a middle-aged Frank Castle ( a.k.a Punisher ), except that Bruce stops his understanding short of the bottom to equate the penalty of death as a justifiable compensation for the loss of innocent life ( I am refering to the Punisher of course, since I am not aware of any killings perpetuated by Daredevil…as yet ). If this was real- life, you’d definitely want to pray that someone who suffered the same misfortune would turn out right during adulthood. Bruce Wayne has walked that line and is probably the only comic-book character ( at least in the normal arc of comic book continuity and except in the ” Elseworlds srories ” that DC time and again publishes ). Maybe the guy who wrote this column is more of a Tony Stark fan by nature…but he forgot to give a fair and full assessment of Bruce Wayne.

   2) If you had a buttload of money, the most typical move any shallow-minded fellow would do would be to hightail it to Vegas and blow it all partying with strippers till the cows come home – THAT IS, LIKE I SAID – IF YOU’RE TYPICAL…OR A TYPICAL BILLIONAIRE LIKE STARK. …BRUCE WAYNE ISN’T YOUR TYPICAL BILLIONAIRE… Yes, we’ve seen him rub shoulders partying with Gotham’s elite. But we’ve also seen him in the comic books, the cartoons and the movies dispense financial aid to foundations and hospitals. We’ve seen him readily shed his image of glamour and blend effectively with the social outcasts to perform anonymous and clandestine acts of charity to the less fortunate. THAT…is something Tony Stark…IS UNCAPABLE OF…

   3)As for the actors who play Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark? Well it’s easy to play Tony Stark – just get any troubled schmuck in Tinseltown who could elegantly sport a goatee and who has had his bout with drugs, alcohol and rehab issues a couple of times in real-life and he would relate and fit comfortably in the shoes of an alcoholic Tony Stark.
   To effectively do the same to Bruce Wayne – you’ll need to find actors who are ” wild cards ” by nature -
   actors who could evoke a laid back persona one moment and draw a ” darker ” semblance the very next…AT THE VERY LEAST. I said ” at the very least ” because if you want to take it one step further – then go find actors who have witnessed how frail they were when they witnessed the death of a loved one at the hands of a lunatic…if there are any.

   4) Finally…YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT ENTRUSTING YOUR SAFETY TO BRUCE WAYNE THAN TONY STARK!!? Dude…at least Bruce Wayne has been time-tested to walk the fine margin of sanity and never faltered from it. Stark? Didn’t we see him have a meanstreak in that scene in Iron Man 2 where he yelled at his own guests at his house party? …And this is coming from a guy who wears a heavily armed suit of armor after a couple shots of vodka? Well..GOODLUCK WITH THAT DUDE!

   Reply