Notes caused by rewatching some MCU canon
Or rather, really long stream of consciousness ramblings, with spoilers for everything. Before you embark on said ramblings, have a fun and fluffy fanfic rec, set post Winter Soldier and pre Age of Ultron, in which the team hangs out and enjoys some leftover weed. As you do.
Weird Science
Nick Fury and the Avengers: probably one of the areas where fanfic representation and canon diverges the most. Fury, if he shows up at all, gets to be the stern disapproving headmaster; whoever is the focus of the story gets to mouth off and commit acts of defiance, especially (but not solely) if it’s Tony. There isn’t a real divergence between relationships, i.e. no matter who the Avenger in question is, you could switch out the dialogue.
Meanwhile, canon: the three Avengers we see Fury interact with and respond to him enough to draw conclusions about their relationships are Tony, Steve and Natasha. (The brief interaction between Nick Fury and Clint Barton at the start of Avengers before Clint gets brainwashed is strictly order/report. Mind you, they still get more on screen canon than Clint and Coulson ever got, but hey.) Of these three, Steve is the one seriously arguing and disagreeing with Fury. Not from the get go; he treats Fury like his new superior in the army in Avengers. But in Winter Soldier, where his objection to the entire Project Insight project is there before Hydra ever comes into play, along with his objection to Fury’s „need to know“ type of orders (i.e. Natasha getting her own separate mission). His insistence at the end that SHIELD needs to be taken down in totem, not just „some bad apples“ is clearly not something Nick Fury himself wants, but, Fury being very much a practical man, goes along with since the priority then is to stop Pierce & Co. (This is why I have no problem believing, as I gather via fannish osmosis, that Fury also ordered Coulson to rebuild SHIELD. Someone who’s been a spy and spymaster all his life isn’t going to abandon the business on Steve Rogers‘ say so.) Note that none of this comes with personal hostility; Steve treats Fury with polite respect, and aside from the „greatest generation“ dig, Fury returns that. The disagreement between them is ideological. Otoh I also don’t think there is something like great sympathy, either. Just two very different men who are willing to work with each other when needed.
Otoh, Natasha’s reaction to Fury getting shot and supposedly dying is as emotional as we’re ever seeing her („Nick, don’t do this to me“). She’s deeply distressed, and later, when it turns out Fury’s alive, somewhat upset she wasn’t in the know about this earlier. It’s the kind of attachment that fanfic (at least early on, when it was focused on Natasha and Clint with Coulson as their handler) gave her for Coulson. Conversely, when Natasha is temporarily down, Fury reacts strongly as well. Now it might just be because Natasha is a top agent (he’s not thrilled about Coulson’s temporary death, either, after all), but as far as Natasha is concerned, you can definitely make a case that her boss is one of the few people she deeply cares about. Now her growth arc through this movie goes from „Agent Romanov is comfortable with anything“ to siding with Steve over Nick when it comes to taking down SHIELD, but that doesn’t mean the attachment is gone. It’s more of a delayed favourite-daughter-grows-up thing, I’d say.
Speaking of pseudo parental: the Avenger we see Nick Fury interact with through the most movies is Tony Stark, from the Iron Man tag scene to the Age of Ultron barn confession. And again, I find their interactions quite different from fanfic representation. Because Nick Fury, who not so coincidentally shows up after Obadiah Stane’s death, imo sets himself up as a mixture of Howard and Obadiah from the get go, as a sceptic though (very) occasionally indulgent and definitely (openly) manipulative father figure. And you can see Tony responding to that. (Disapproval = need to prove himself is also a big factor in the MCU version of his relationship with Steve, btw., I’ll get tot hat.) They’re actually ideologically not that far apart; Tony’s is distrustful enough of what Fury might hide in Avengers to hack into SHIELD’s systems, but the Phase 2 rationale per (complete with Fury’s explanation that it was triggered by Thor’s arrival and the realisation that „we are hilariously, ridiculously outgunned“ when it comes to potential space invasions) is exactly the same that, post sight of Chitauri space ships at the end of the movie, becomes Tony’s own driving motivation in Age of Ultron and certainly one of them all the way to Infinity War, where that greatest fear scenario finally plays out. (And that makes sense for someone who spent most of his life designing weapons.) Tony’s disagreements with Fury aren’t ideological, as Steve’s are, they’re about personal factors (Fury’s spying on him, different opinions on Howard etc.), and not only does he usually end up doing what Fury wants (the reverse psychology Fury employs with „Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not reccommended isn’t exactly subtle, ditto for Coulson’s bloody Captain America trading cards, but it definitely works on Tony), but in Age of Ultron, Fury ends up as the only one Tony actually confides in about the vision that Wanda caused him to have, and what the worst element of it was. Bruce solely gets the speech about „let’s be mad scientists together and make us superflous“, Steve gets „isn’t that the mission?“ (i.e. creating a world that no longer needs superheroes), but neither of them actually gets told about the Wanda-triggered vision, let alone what it entailed. (Most fanfic I’ve read assumes Tony told them off screen, and maybe he did, but there’s nothing in canon to indicate that. The rest of the Avengers get their mind-whammy by Wanda later. As far as we know, the only people knowing Tony had an encounter of the visionary kind in Strucker’s castle are Tony, Wanda… and Nick Fury.)
What I found fascinating about the barn scene upon rewatching is that Tony actually opens up there, complete with Fury correctly deducing the worst was not just that everyone else died in the vision/nightmare, but that Tony survived, and „you could have done more“. Also that this follows a Fury approach that again mixes the stern („and you didn’t even hesitate“ (to create a sentient super dangerous AI)) with the emotional/indulgent („just an old man who cares a lot about you“). It’s not that Tony is naive about Nick Fury (whom he memorably described to Steve as „he’s a spy, Captain - he’s the spy, and even his secrets have secrets“, but I think it’s both that he gets (and believes) Fury’s self justification (not least because it resembles his own) and that he’s hard-wired to respond to disapproving/occasionally approving father figures.
Again, that is not the dynamic fanfiction represents, and it’s a pity.
Speaking of Age of Ultron and the visions Wanda triggers in the Avengers: it’s worth noting that what Steve and Natasha see is the past (Natasha’s Red Room training), or, in Steve’s case, a might-have-been (making that date with Peggy in the Storch Club, the war being over, though the whole thing is just subtly and not so subtly off with some of the celebrating officers displaying gaping wounds), while what Thor and Tony see is the future, in both cases a future catastrophe, in both cases with an accusation of personal responsibility. Thor sees Heimdall telling him that „we are all dead“ and „do you not see that this is where your power leads, Odin’s son?“, Tony sees a complete space invasion with all the Avengers except him dead or dying and Steve telling him „you could have done more“ before dying as well. Since presumably Wanda neither has the gift of prophecy nor shared it, what she triggered was a „worst fear“ in everyone’s mind. That Natasha fears her past and the way she was used both mentally and physically makes sense; Steve’s vision is the most obscure (my own interpretation, given his statement at the end of the movie that the man who went into the ice wanted that Clint-on-the-farm life, but he’s not that man anymore, is that he’s afraid of facing that he’s no longer the self that could have lived that life with Peggy, and/or that he’s unable to function outside of a war/mission scenario anymore). Thor and Tony, who share the „arrogant princeling learns responsibility for others“ arc in their solo movies, fearing a future where they not only failed to live up to their self claimed protector roles but actively contributed to everyone’s doom makes equal sense. Though it’s probably significant that Thor gets told „this is what you lead us to“ while Tony gets told „you could have done more“; they have their parallels, but also their differences and Tony’s post-Afghanistan escalating-over-several-movies urge to „fix/prevent things“ is one of them. (Of course, Thor already saw himself as a protector pre-enlightenment; it’s just that he defines protecting differently post-humility learning.)
Of the three finished trilogies of solo movies, again it’s far easier to see the arcs for Thor and Tony than for Steve (and not just because Steve’s third solo movie is actually more of an Avengers than a Captain America movie). Thor starts out believing himself ready to rule, ignoring advice and disregarding the danger he causes for others, ends his first movie having learned not just to prioritize protecting others over his own glory (not just because he’s ready to sacrifice his life, he would presumably have done that before, too, but because when the Destroyer shows up and he’s still in mortal form, he focuses on getting the townspeople to safety and lets Sif and the Warriors Three, who are at this point more qualified, do the fighting - the old Thor would have insisted on doing it himself), but that he’s not ready to rule. In the second movie, he learns that his father’s judgment can be flawed and to put ethics over obedience, while also concluding that he doesn’t even want to rule. The third movie just piles it up (the sins of the past, the need to prioritize protecting over personal glory), and he ends up without a kingdom but with a people and with the maturity to rule. Now the first two Avengers happen in between the solo movies, but aside from Thor getting to know the Hulk/Bruce through them which needed to have happened for the third movie, there is no direct connection in terms of emotional and plot development.
Which isn’t the case for the three Iron Man movies and The Avengers. I’ve seen the criticism that each just repeats a „Tony screws up, needs to fix it“ tale, but imo that’s actually not what happens. The original Iron Man is a „face what you are and what you’ve done: do better“ story; or, as Yinsen puts it, „don’t waste your life“. The second one I still regard as the MCU’s attempt to do the Demon in a Bottle arc from the comics without actually making movie Tony an alcoholic, with limited success because „Tony is dying and acting extra hubristic and self destructive because of it“ is actually a different type of story than falling into alcoholism and getting sober. Also, neither of the movie’s two villains - Justin Hammer and Vanko - are actually Tony’s fault. The movie’s events demonstrate to him that „I privatized world peace“ is hubristic nonsense, and so is his conviction that the Iron Man technology couldn’t be reproduced, but bringing Vanko and Hammer down is something he’d also have had to do if he’d behaved with impeccably modesty post „I am Iron Man“ and had remained healthy. Flawed as it is, though, Iron Man 2 has several good things going for it especially in terms of longer continuity. Not least in terms of its supporting characters.
One of the reasons why I maintain James Rhodes fares best when it comes to the „hero’s best friend“ characters in the MCU is demonstrated here. The first two Thor movies do well by Jane, Darcy and Erik Solvig, but physical appearances aside, the Warriors Three are virtually undistinguishable from each other, and Sif never gets much beyond „warrior maiden“ in terms of characterisation, either. In the Captain America movies, Sam has a terrific introduction in The Winter Soldier, but in subsequent movies, his own non-Steve life and job seems to have disappeared. (If he’s still counselling other soldiers in the time frame of Age of Ultron and early in Civil War, we never hear about it.) If he disagrees with Steve on topics, we don’t hear about it, either. Meanwhile, Rhodey was none too thrilled by Tony’s decision to stop producing weapons in Iron Man, tries to mediate between Tony and officialdom early in Iron Man 2 but eventually when push comes to shove follows his orders and takes the suit (one of the reasons why his stance in Civil War was the logical follow-up) against Tony’s wishes, and in Iron Man 3 is seen to have continued his career within the military, with the shared rescue mission with Tony later being the exception caused by necessity, not the rule.
Something rewatching Iron Man reminded me of was that Tony at first when working on the Mark II seems to have intended to let Rhodey use it, rather than use it himself, which would, of course, have replicated the Howard Stark and Steve Rogers arrangement; it’s Rhodey’s reaction when Tony shows up in the hangar and says he’s working on something but not for the government that convinces him otherwise. (Otoh I really doubt that even if Rhodey had reacted differently, Tony would have been able to resist using the armor - and the chance to fly - himself in the long term, because that’s one of the key differences between father and son.) Iron Man 2 markes their strongest disagreement, and it’s not just about whether or not Tony should hand over the Iron Man technology to the US military, it’s also about Tony seemingly bent on self destruction for no reason (since Rhodey doesn’t know about the Palladium poisoning), and Rhodey responding to this in the very unfanfiction-way of not hugging it out but drawing lines.
In terms of Tony Stark’s general development, you could say Iron Man 2 marks the end of any idea of doing it all alone, and the start of the conviction he needs to work with others. Which is why Avengers and not Iron Man 3 coming in at this point in continuity needed to happen, and Iron Man 3 is very much written with Avengers in mind. One of the things that struck me during this particular rewatch round: the Tony and Steve arguments are pretty much unique to their relationship. By which I don’t just mean that Tony hits it off with Bruce from the get go and while not forgetting Natasha used to spy on him doesn’t appear to hold it against her (the „did you miss me, Agent Romanov?“ complete with musical intro greeting is pretty friendly), or that Steve gets along with basically all non-villains he ever meets, ideological disagreements with Nick Fury aside, but that this is very different from the comicverse and one of the reasons why fanfiction which just transfers their comicverse relationship to the movieverse just doesn’t work for me. (Conversely, the „Tony and Steve were never friends pre-Civil War and were working colleagues at best“ argument doesn’t work for me, either, I’ll get to why.) Part of it is Tony’s hangup about Howard’s hangup on Steve, to be sure, but the thing is, the initial antagonism is by no means one sided. Steve is antagonistic towards Tony in a way we haven’t seen him behave towards anyone else not a villain, other than pre-serum Steve who, lest we forget, gets into the initial fight Bucky has to rescue him from at the start of Captain America: The First Avenger not because an evil man is picking on him or he’s defending someone from an attack but because someone annoyed him by talking too loudly at the movies. I feel you, Steve, I hate that, too, but given that fanon tends to provide Steve exclusively with defending-the-weak reasons for getting into a fight, I find it worth pointing out the canonical exceptions.
Anyway, even taking into account the mindstone in Loki’s scepter amplifies everyone’s reactions during the big argument scenes, it intrigues me that it’s actually Steve, not Tony, who escalates things between them. Tony’s verbal digs up to this point („capsicle“ etc.) may be immature, but they’re not denigrating. It’s Steve who takes it to the next level with „fancy man in a suit, take that away and what are you?“, stating Tony’s Iron Man actions up to this point were all about ego, that he’s incapable of self sacrifice and rounding it off, just before the helicarier gets attacked, by telling Tony to get into the suit so they can fight. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Tony is an innocent woobie bullied by mean old Steve, au contraire. Not only dishes he out as well as he gets („all that’s special about you came out of a lab“), but he starts out patronizing at best when things are still relatively civil („there’s a lot Fury doesn’t tell you“) and is of course projecting on Steve from the get go. („This is the guy my father wouldn’t shut up about?“) Still, I repeat: Steve Rogers just doesn’t behave this way towards anyone else not on Team Black Hats. (Annoying cinema goers who talk during the news reels aside.) Meanwhile, Tony certainly has heard each of the criticisms Steve voices before. (Including in this movie; in the scene with Pepper and Coulson, there’s this bit - „I thought I was narcissistic, self-obsessed, don’t play well with others?“ „Now that I did know about“ (the last bit from Pepper).) But not from Captain America ™, national idol and Rebecca figure of the Stark household. (Forgive the literary and Hitchcock allusion. Steve would get that reference.) So naturally, he does from this point on what he’s wired to do with disapproving authority figures he actually respects; bicker with them and try to prove them wrong in order to get that approval after all.
As to why Tony gets under Steve’s skin so quickly that Steve is actually challenging him for a physical fight (which he probably wouldn’t have done sans mind stone amplifcation, but the wish to do so would still have been there): I don’t think it’s the money, the flash or the ego. Howard had all that, and Steve had no problem with Howard; even when he thought Howard might be flirting with Peggy, it was Peggy he challenged about it. But Steve at this point is just a few weeks apart from World War II, in a strange new world where most people he ever knew are dead, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Stark with his non-stop talk and incomprehensible jokes and irritating attitude came across as the embodiment of that present at the expense of the past. That, and everyone else, including Nick Fury, treats Steve with a certain respect from the outset. (The irony is that Tony is by no means immune to the Captain America aura; he later describes Steve in his conversation with Loki as „a legendary supersoldier who pretty much lives up to the legend.“) Meanwhile, Tony behaves like a brat, and one that simultanously happens to be the first public superhero since Steve himself. (Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne seem to have been secret superheroes in their SHIELD days.) It may have been an uncomplimentary reflection, like a parody of himself, that proves to be so enraging.
The rest of the movie demonstrates to Steve that Tony does not just talk the talk but does wallk the walk, but as opposed to fanfic which had them all living together immediately, the Avengers then go their separate ways, though Tony and Bruce remain in contact, as to Steve and Natasha (professionally, and then in Winter Soldier also as friends). Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Winter Soldier both are part of era between Avenger movies, and may arguably be the best of their respective trilogies. Iron Man 3 has Tony dealing with post Avengers PTSD and still with issues, but also having learned from the past; as opposed to Iron Man 2, he does tell Pepper what is going on with him, and later as soon as he can that he’s not dead, he’s aware of people outside his inner circle and not just when they’re victims in need of rescue (case in point: Tony telling the mother of the first exploding Extremis victim that her son wasn’t a terrorist and murderer, that this was something that was done to him; at this point, he already has the info he needs from the woman, and it’s something which imo pre-Afghanistan Tony would not have thought of doing, not in order to be cruel but simply because it would not have occured to him) , and the movie brings things full circle by putting him, well, not in a cave, but in a situation minus armor and money where he has to use his inventiveness - and the help of others.
(Sidenote: both post Iron Man 3 and post Winter Soldier, I remember some people grumbling about the lack of dialogue as to why Tony in the former and Steve in the later don’t consider calling the other Avengers for help. Leaving Doylist reasons aside, I did buy it on a Watsonian level - in Winter Soldier, Natasha is already with Steve, Clint could be compromised (again) and all SHIELD channels are suspect, Bruce would be of zero use in this particular situation, and as for Tony, not only has Natasha reason to know SHIELD might easily have infiltrated Stark Industries as she herself has done, but Steve, who in this movie refers to Tony in conversation with Nick Fury as „Stark“ and to Howard as „Howard“, presumably hasn’t seen him since New York and thinks of him mostly as Howard’s irritating son who turned out to be a brave man but still irritating. Meanwhile, Tony after his home in Malibu blew up and Pepper and himself nearly got killed thanks to his public challenge to the Mandarin has an excellent reason for wanting people not Pepper and Rhodey to believe he’s dead until that’s dealt with.)
Iron Man 3 ends with „I am Iron Man“ again, minus the post credit chat with Bruce, which is why even i fit wasn’t part of a franchise I didn’t have the impression that getting rid of the suits would actually lead to retirement at this point. Still, if we’d never seen Tony Stark again, it would have worked as a good ending point of his story. The Winter Soldier, otoh, was neither intended nor would have worked as an ending of Steve Rogers‘ story, but as it turned out, it was the last true Captain America solo movie. Not independent from what happened in Avengers - it can’t be, with Natasha as such a prominent character and Nick Fury also in an important supporting role - but it still is centred on Steve in a way the subsequent movie is not.
Steve starts out in a better place re: adjustment to the modern world, but still trying to carry over what he’s used to; he’s working with SHIELD because Peggy was a co-founder and because the command structure seems to be a modern equivalent of what he was used to (it’s interesting that he doesn’t seem to consider serving in the regular army, but in a way, he never did; in his first solo movie, he goes straight from playing Captain America as a role to doing special missions with the Howling Commandos). The uneasiness with SHIELD work is there even before the big reveal, and at the end of the movie, he’s truly in a new situation - for the first time no longer part of a large organisation and on his own, led by solely his own judgment. Steve started his movies in a very different situation from Thor and Tony, or Stephen Strange, for that matter; even Scott Lang and T’Challa, neither of whom do the „arrogance needs to learn responsibility“ arc, aren’t really a good comparison, because T’Challa both is responsible for a kingdom and said kingdom’s attitude towards a troubled world, and Scott who has screwed up in the past wants to do better.
By contrast, Steve is explicitly declared to be a good man from the start, who simply needs a chance to help others. Now, The First Avenger provides him with that chance in the most black and white situation of all - obviously, Nazis (and Hydra) bad, Allies good -, and avoids any reference to the murkier side of history (The Howling Commandoes are an integrated unit, racism in the US army doesn’t appear to exist, and no one mentions camps for Japanese-Americans, for example; also, Stalin might as well not exist, either, never mind the millions of Russians dying in WWII), but The Winter Soldier dumps him into a murky world, 70s political thriller style, where the methods and ethics of his own team are questionable even aside from the actively evil villains he’s fighting. It showcases Steve at his best, not because he’s ready to let Bucky kill him rather than fight him at the end of the movie’s big showdown, but because he does that only after ensuring that millions won’t die tageted by the helicarriers. For as long as this is still a danger, he does fight Bucky. Because there’s a big difference between being ready to give your own life in order to save a friend from brainwashing and being ready to sacrifice other people on the chance you might help your friend.
Similarly, for all that Winter Soldier showcases Steve’s increasing (justified) distrust of SHIELD’s shady methods, it also showcases his faith in people - both in the personal relationships he has (Natasha and Sam), and in general (his speech to the SHIELD agents, telling them what’s going on so they can make their choices). This is Steve still uniting the old ideal of serving the community, and believing in the community, with the new necessity of distrusting authority and relying on his own judgment.
Now, in a way, Civil War was the logical follow up on that. I mean, I get the complaints that it should have been Avengers 3, with Steve getting one more solo movie, which most fans wanted to be Captain America: The Search for Bucky. However, the problem with that premise is that while Steve and Sam hitting the road, finding Bucky and deprogramming him makes for an ideal fanfiction scenario, it’s not something that fills a movie of an action franchise, and it wouldn’t have said something about Steve Rogers in the present. Well, I suppose there could have been random Hydra villains also questing for Bucky so Steve, Sam and later Bucky could have fulfilled the action quota by fighting them off, but I’ve always had a problem with Hydra as villains. Insert my usual „Hydra makes no sense“ rant here. Alexander Pierce works for me in Winter Soldier as a villain because until his death with the ridiculous whispered „Hail Hydra“, he’s a classic „there by the grace of plot go they“ antagonist, textually inspired by Nick Fury and carrying Fury’s policies just that ruthless step further, holding up a mirror to him. Also, the casting of Robert Redford was genius, both because of Redford’s filmography as the hero of those 70s conspiracy thrillers and of him being just the actor who would have played Steve Rogers when young. He’s as American as Steve, not some fake-accented outsider villain. Meanwile, Red Skull, Strucker et all - well. I just can’t take them seriously. So no, I wouldn’t have wanted a solo movie with random Hydra villains after Bucky and Steve saving him.
Otoh, the problem with Civil War as a Captain America movie is that the one big decision Steve makes - to not sign the Accords -, while being a logical follow up to what happened in his previous solo movie, is something that he does fairly early on, and isn’t really shown wrestling with after the conversation with Tony in Berlin, while the other decision - to protect Bucky - isn’t really one, especially once it’s established Bucky was framed. The emotional heavy lifting of that movie is carried by other characters - Tony, Natasha, T’Challa - each of whom gets to wrestle with true emotional and ethical challenges. Which is okay for an ensemble movie, but not for the final part of a solo trilogy.
Now, Avengers: Age of Ultron happens before Civil War, and needs to. It does provide a bit of a disconnect to both Iron Man 3 and Winter Soldier in that Tony’s back in the suit and Steve is not questing for Bucky, but then Winter Soldier also ended establishing the need for Hydra clean up operations post fall of SHIELD (in dialogue between Sam, Steve and Fury), which is what we find our heroes doing at the start of Age of Ultron. It’s also our one look at them as an established, functioning team. (As opposed to the getting-together formation in Avengers.) Complete with hanging out together socially; Tony’s party with the lot of them goofing around with Thor’s hammer is practically out of fanfiction. Various relationships have altered since last we saw them (Natasha and Bruce started flirting to the great ire of many a fan, Steve and Tony have progressed to friendly teasing - „language“ - as opposed to petty bickering), and the fighting methods and powers have adjusted to each other and been integrated (Steve uses JARVIS for surveillance, Natasha can calm down the Hulk). (The party at Tony‘s, incidentally, also includes Rhodey and Sam, thus avoiding the question to where they are and providing continuity to those relationships as well.) However, as opposed to Avengers, which had Loki as the primary and Thanos as the background arc villain, Age of Ultron goes for something more complicated, with mixed success. The Maximoff twins are the initial antagonists, and are quickly characterized as redeemable/misguided with background trauma. Steve’s empathy for them and the parallel he draws to his own life - „what kind of a monster would let a German scientist experiment on them?“ - as well as his later appeal to and belief in them continue to showcase his ability to have faith in people, but my problem with these versions of Pietro and Wanda is that a lot about them either just feels sketched in or never gets followed up on. Starting with: how old are they supposed to be? Wanda in Civil War is referred to as „just a kid“ and Clint in „Age of Ultron“ also calls Pietro a kid someone will have to teach, but the actors come across as in their mid twenties. And it’s a big difference whether Wanda is, say, 17 (which I’ve seen in fanfic), barely two years older than Peter Parker, or, say, 24, not least considering the decisions she makes. Canon is clear that Wanda and Pietro volunteered to be experimented on by Hydra, but doesn’t tell us whether or not they knew what Hydra was. Canon tells us their initial trauma was surviving an attack that killed their parents and trapped them for nth hours with a Stark Industries built bomb, but while that certainly provides them with a revenge motive against Tony (presumably also against whoever was waging the war against Sokovia, using those weapons, but we never hear who that was - can we say Dooooooom?), it doesn’t work in terms of the other Avengers. And we never, neither in this one nor in subsequent movies, get a conversation between Tony and Wanda about this. Not to mention my frequently mentioned pet peeve, that while Civil War lets Wanda angst about something she didn’t intend to do and tried in fact to prevent - the deaths in Lagos -, and lets other people blame her for this, there is never any follow up on her part on the deaths of Johannesburg, which she is squarely and solely responsible for.
Seriously: Age of Ultron stages this quite unmistakably. Wanda mind-whammies the Avengers until Clint, who notices her approach in time and tazers her. Pietro then grabs her and brings her to safety. Since at this point the Avengers have been distracted enough from Ultron, which had been the twins‘ intention, Pietro suggests to withdraw. Wanda says: „No. I want the Big One.“ And then triggers the Hulk. Now, no matter whether she’s 17 or in her 20s, she must have known there is no way you can let loose the Hulk near a densely populated city with millions of people in it without causing at the very least mass injuries, and more likely than not many deaths. But at no point do we ever get any indication that Wanda feels responsible for this. (Co-responsible for helping Ultron, yes. But for Johannesburg? Crickets.)
There is some follow-up to it within the movie itself, on Bruce’s part. Something that startled me during my rewatch was both the massive anger Bruce displays in the lab scene when Steve shows up with Wanda in tow to (in vain) prevent the creation of another superbot. Also that he does unqestionable move to stop Steve & Co. from stopping the creation of Vision. But he does, which both the fans complaining Bruce doesn’t own up to his own part of the Ultron and Vision creations and the fans ignoring Bruce had a part there somehow never mention. True, Tony persuades him both times, but wheter it’s the loathing for Wanda due to the mindmessing („I could kill you now without even turning green“, and he does hold a knife on her throat) or the belief the second superbot with Jarvis in it is really their only chance to deal with Ultron, Bruce doesn’t stand by but is physically involved in the brief inter-Avengers-skirmisch that’s ended with Thor’s arrival. Incidentally, I therefore declare it my headcanon that this is one of the reasons why the Hulk managed to stick around for two years thereafter. Bruce gave in to his inner experimenting scientist (who caused the creation of the Hulk to begin with), and the result was nearly disastrous, plus there was the Natasha situation, so no more Dr. Banner for the next two years.
Now, Wanda and Pietro are only preliminary antagonists, and while Ultron is a main one, the movie makes it pretty clear that it’s going for a „our own demons“ tale, since Ultron is only the manifestation of Tony’s amplified-by-Wanda paranoia and control issues. The word „monster“ gets thrown around a lot in this film, notoriously by Bruce and Natasha (and it will never cease to irk me that people in their complaints about Natasha calling herself a monster ignore this is in response to Bruce calling himself a monster first), but also by Steve, with irony but still meaning it, referring to himself and the Maximoff twins when talking to Maria Hill (the quote I gave earlier, „what kind of a monster lets a German scientist“ etc.), and by Tony to Bruce in his „let’s be mad scientists, we’re monsters, own it“ speech. (Thor and Clint don’t call themselves monsters nor are called that by others, but Thor gets the Ragnarök vision where he is blamed for leading everyone to their deaths.) This is all very well thematically, but in practice Ultron is the direct result of Tony’s idea (yes, aided by Bruce and pushed by Wanda, but still Tony’s brainchild), which makes the subsequent disaster not reflective of Avengers as a group but of Tony as an individual. I’m not sure what kind of antagonist I’d have picked to reflect the group’s collective failings back on them, but Ultron-plus-Maximoffs doesn’t really work for me in this regard.
What does work for me, surprisingly enough, is the Steve and Tony relationship, still spiky but also quite insightful re: each other. Steve is amazingly zen about the initial realisation that Ultron is the result of Tony (and Bruce) having created an incredibly dangerous AI without telling anyone first, especially if you compare it to Thor’s outburst, and if you bear in mind he’s fresh from a movie where „create the weapon before the threat“ was just as bad an idea as he thought it would be. He is, however, also firm on his standpoint that this is a very bad idea (even if the result were not rampaging around). Note the lack of personal insults, as opposed to their previous encounter. For his part, Tony is defensive but also lacking in digs and insults, which in earlier times would have been his reaction not in spite of, but because of being aware the situation was his fault. „Isn’t that the mission?“ is asked as a serious question.
(And btw, these kind of moments is why every time I read a story where there is a variation of the phrase that Tony sees Steve solely as Steve, not Captain America, I go mentally „no, he doesn’t“. For good or ill, whether he’s angry or admiring, he always sees him also as Captain America. That question isn’t asked of Steve Rogers, fellow team member, it’s asked of The Original Superhero, The One Who Created The Job. And Steve responds in that way, too, see: „And if we fail?“ „Then we’ll do that together, too.“)
There, is, of course, the layer of irony added through later events here that Steve while chiding Tony (again, mildly, compared with the verbal sling match from Avengers with far less a reason) about keeping things from him is sitting on the ticking time bomb of the Bucky-killed-Howard-and-Maria information. I don’t know whether or not Marvel editorial fiat already provided that information back when Joss Whedon was writing the script, but Winter Soldier made it pretty clear (at the very least, that Hydra did it, if not Bucky personally), via AI!Zola showing Steve the article of the Starks‘ deaths while boasting that things could be arranged. Now, do I think, leaving Doylist aspects aside, that Steve was aware of a certain double standard when pointing out withholding information is bad? Not really, not at that moment, because at that point, they had other worries. In general, though, I think his main reason for never talking about said information was the one he gives at the end of Civil War - it was easier for him not talk about it at all.
You could also interpret it thus: while Tony is on an outward trajectory - from wanting to make up for his merchant-of-death years and justifying his survival in Afghanistan by being a one man people saving and weapons destroying commando to fighting with others doing same to fighting invading aliens to somehow preventing world/universe ending doomsday scenarios - Steve is on an inward trajectory - from enlisting against a world threatening menace to trying to do the right thing in a murky world to saving his nearest and dearest (and also the world), but the priorities are changing. In Infinity War, what Steve does with Vision and the Wakandans is very different from what Steve does both in Winter Soldier (where he only stops fighting Bucky once other people are no longer at risk) and Age of Ultron (where he says the Avengers might have signed up for giving their lives but the Sokovians did not, and they wouldn’t leave as long as a single Sokovian was still in danger when they’re trying to evacuate everyone). Trying to find an alternative to killing Vision along with destroying the mindstone was justified for as long as there were other options, and they could play for time. However, as soon as T’Challa lowers the barrier, it’s basically every Wakandan soldier’s life versus Vision’s. Who is ready to die to save the others. It’s all very well to declare „we’re not trading lives“, but in essence, that’s what Steve does here. (Not alone. T’Challa could just as well have refused, of course.)
In Age of Ultron, these two trajectories are still in balance with each other. Steve at the end starting again with the new group of Avengers (with solely Natasha as the other ongoing team member) while Tony withdraws into another attempt at non-superhero life (though he still funds the team) also highlights something else: from all his repeated attempts at enlisting at the start of The First Avenger through all the subsequent movies he’s in, Steven never does really consider quitting heroics. Sam early in Winter Soldier says „you could do whatever you like“, but while Steve ponders whether SHIELD is really the right fit for him, I don’t think we ever see him considering taking a „civilian“ job instead. He has a very firm sense of what and who he is, what he’s good at, and he sticks with that. Thor, as mentioned before, goes through some changes of mind re: what being a ruler means, whether he’d be good at it, whether he should do it at all, but is pretty much on an „education of a king“ arc throughout his three movies and ends up as the ruler he did not yet know how to be when waiting his not-quite-crowning in the very first scene he had as an adult. Tony is the most erratic of the three in that while he’s clear on some of what and who he is, he keeps redefining and changing what he thinks he should be. Not to mention what the right and wrong thing to do is beyond the obvious basics (saving lives = good).
Again, to clarify: I don’t subscribe to the interpretation of Tony as a mass of guilt and self loathing from pretty much Afghanistan onward that is partly spillover from the comics, imo, and partly the general tendency to go big with any given canon trend. Not least because that undersells the ongoing ability to enjoy his life, a lot of comportmentalization, and ongoing ego (though in a different way than is pre-Afghanistan self had). Oh, and his capacity for vengefulness and ruthlessness connected to same. I don’t think Tony lost any sleep over, say, the Ten Rings members he torched on his way out of captivity, or any of the supposed Mandarin’s and really Killian’s people he killed. (And if Trevor Slattery hadn’t been an actor from Croydon but the actual Mandarin, would you have bet on him staying alive?) But by the end of Age of Ultron, we’re definitely getting into serious guilt department, not least because as opposed to anything that was the result from his merchant-of-death days, Ultron was directly connected to his existence as Iron Man, it was the brainchild of Tony-the-superhero, not playboy billionaire Tony Stark. Which directly flows into Civil War, even without Miriam, mother of Charlie Spencer, making the point explicit, and the conclusion that he does need an exterior structure to maintain accountability and prevent further disaster. Note: as opposed to the comics version of Civil War, Tony does not become the leader of the pro-Reg movement and campaigns for it as the result. The only person whom he tries to persuade to sign on to the Accords is Steve, in Berlin. Everyone who is pro Accords (i.e. Rhodey, Vision and Natasha) is so unprompted by Tony. (Peter Parker is a separate issue; Peter and Scott Lang on the side of Team Cap are the two people who are enlisted strictly on hero worship of the people who do the asking, not because anyone provides detailed explanations about the issue and aks for their opinions on same.) I mention this because I've seen the question "he might believe he needs it, but what gives him the right to decide for everyone else?" coming up. He doesn't. The Accords in Civil War are presented as a UN pitched and enacted resolution, not something Tony has either the power to cause or prevent. What he does lead (and recruit for) is the fight at the air port, which comes after Steve and Sam have gone on the run with Bucky, whose liberty or imprisonment (or death, since Ross originally wants to send the troups after them before Tony insists he'll do it), not the Accords, are the issue at that point.
In the big debate scene early in Civil War, I find it interesting, if frustrating that Steve at this point of their relationship can read Tony well enough to correctly interpret his silence (I.e. that he’s already made up his mind to sign the Accords), but otoh does not engage with Rhodey’s argument (that the Accords are backed by 130 something nations at the UN and dismissing them out of hand is incredibly arrogant) and hardly with Natasha’s (becoming involved with the Accords means „one hand still on the wheel“ i.e. having some limited control over the situation). The closest Steve comes to changing his own mind re: Accords is later, in his conversation with Tony in Berlin („I’m not saying it’s impossible“), but this is in direct response to Tony suggesting signing on could help with the Bucky situation (lawyer, psychiatric evaluation), and he backs off the idea again the moment Tony mentions that Wanda is basically under the luxury form of house arrest. Now, here’s the thing. Ignoring Doylist reasons (i.e. who the two main characters of the movie are), why doesn’t Steve talk about this wretched Accord (and now also Bucky) situation with either a) Ross (a jerk, but also as the Secretary of Defense the highest ranking US pro-Accord person), b) T’Challa (did just try to kill Bucky, is the son of the non-US politician who pushed the Accord most visibly, might not listen to a „he says he got framed“ plea but should at least hear it), c) Natasha (friend, tries to help him)? I’m tempted to go for my headcanon of „Tony is the darker side of the modern world to him“ again. Not least because by the end of the Berlin conversation, Steve for the first time since Avengers goes for an intentional verbal blow again, not just with „Every time I think you…“ but with his rejection of Tony’s earlier Roosevelt-related pen gift („best not break up the set).
That conversation remains one of my favourite scenes of the movie because in a way, it’s a quick rerun of their entire relationship so far, ups and downs. There is the friends aspect; Tony actually tells him about the Pepper situation, and incidentally demolishes the fanon of his parents‘ marriage as something loveless („Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and Mom always made it work“) even before we get the flashback to Howard going „please help my wife“ a moment before his death. Steve commiserates re: Pepper and manages to sound his most 1940s-like in a while („I’m so glad Howard settled down, because I only knew him as young and single“). We get the needling. („Yes, well, sometimes I want to punch you in your perfectly formed face, but I don’t.“) We get the serious discussion of a dire situation. And we get saying-just-the-wrong-thing when Tony overdoes his case pleading by bringing up Wanda which ends the one moment in the film where Steve might have been ready to compromise right then and there, followed up by, see above, return of the verbal blow.
One more thing: when I’m not watching the movie and am out of the moment, I’m not sure I buy the Wanda thing as the issue that pushes a for a moment wavering Steve back to his original stance. I mean, hearing she’s not supposed to leave the Avengers compound in an incendiary situation does not sound like a reveal that the Accords are no good or compromise an ethics betrayal or whatnot. But I buy it when I watch the scene itself.
(This being said, it also ties with my earlier complaint that Civil War solely and exclusively ties the public having issues with Wanda, and Wanda angsting and feeling guilt, to the Lagos incident where she was well intentioned, instead of her past with either Hydra or Ultron or both. Granted, I’m assuming the people at large weren’t told new Avengers member Scarlet Witch got her powers via Hydra and worked for Ultron before turning against him, let alone sicced the Hulk on Johannesburg. But at a guess, Ross knows. And it would make far more sense for him to bring it up than go on about Lagos. Also, if Tony and Wanda had at least once scene where she brings up her day with a Stark made bomb and the corpses of her parents and he brings up the vision she triggered in him, Bruce and Johannesburg… never mind.)
Rewatching also reminded me that the parameters shift - when Steve, Bucky and Sam go on the lam, the Accords (or not) are no longer an issue. Bucky’s freedom is, but also the supposed plan of Zemo’s to use the other frozen supersoldiers. And then of course in the last reel the stakes get changed again. With the reveal that Zemo never intended to use the other Winter Soldier candidates, isn’t Hydra, either, but simply, as Wanda and Pietro did at the start of Age of Ultron, wants personal revenge, the stakes are no longer „fate of the world/the country/the region“, even, but very specifically „life of Bucky Barnes“ and „Rogers-Stark-relationship“. Also, this is another case of eyes (or memory) of the beholder striking. Chances are a story tagged „Team Iron Man“ will render the ensuing fight to „Steve leaves Tony with broken suit to die in a bunker in Siberia“ ignoring the broken suit and reactor were the results of Tony trying his best to kill Bucky and Steve trying to prevent that, while stories or meta tagged „Team Captain America“ will focus on the Rift (as in, the prison, not the argument) and/or ignore the part where Tony shows up in Siberia in the first place to help Steve after having followed up the information about Zemo (thus inadvertendly refuting the earlier voiced Steve and Sam opinion that even if they told him re: Zemo, he either wouldn’t listen or couldn’t do anything with the information) and skip directly to the Tony trying to kill Bucky without caring about the brainwashing part. Usually whether or not you think Tony also was trying to kill Steve (as opposed to trying to get around Steve to kill Bucky) also depends on whom you sympathize more with.
Now, again, eye of the beholder, but my own impression was both that Steve did not try to kill Tony (breaking the arc reactor was a finite way of disabling the suit and thus ending the fight, since sans Iron Man armor Tony had no way of fighting one supersoldier, let alone two) and that Tony’s lethal intentions were limited to Bucky, though I also think he was absolutely ready to hurt Steve in the course of said action. Tony Stark: person who responds to Happy almost dying courtesy of the Mandarin, or so he thinks, by wanting to murder said man and inviting him to his doorstep. Something else Thor and Tony have in common is that they’re quite capable of wanting their vengeance, and wanting it lethal. Steve, not so much, but then he’s had not yet someone to avenge on a concrete person when the rest of the world wasn’t also at stake. Still, he does not strike me as the vengeance-wanting type; Steve’s flaw when it comes to other people dying seems to me more the widening capacity to accept deaths or injuries of people he doesn’t know. (See: Wakandan soldiers versus Vision.)
Mind you: I think if Tony had had time to rationalize the information about his parents‘ death, the entire Siberia fight would not have happened, and I hear the scriptwriters are with me there, saying in an interview that if Tony had found out at the start of the movie, then by the end he’d have had accepted Bucky was a victim, too, hence the need for him to find out in the worst possible way and react immediately. Hence also the concluding letter by Steve, apologizing for the withholding of said information.
That is yet another thing where fanfiction often strikes me far less interesting than canon. Either the letter isn’t enough or was patronizing or what not (because fandom wants its groveling), or, on the other end of the extreme, Tony the heartless potential Bucky killer and enlister of teenagers didn’t deserve it at all. Meanwhile, yours truly thought the apology was just that, an apology for something that deserved apologizing for, also a demonstration of how Steve’s idea of who Tony Stark was had changed (the acknowledgment that re: accords they both tried to do the right thing - quite different from the „I’ve known men worth ten of you“ dissing from Avengers) while maintaining his own standpoint, and Steve managing to get it right and spectacularly wrong with the whole „the Avengers are your family more than mine“ - err, you mean the best buddy from MIT days who’s currently learning to walk again and the android partly created by Tony? Since with Bruce and Thor being off world, the rest of the gang is currently with Steve and such a (well meant) statement is just rubbing it in. As for „I always was a loner“ etc., that’s a neat demonstration of Steve’s self image and the image everyone else (minus Bucky) currently alive has of him completely clashing. How much or little the scriptwriters believe it is another matter. Steve Rogers, as presented on screen, has an almost magical ability to make people like him, more post serum, to be sure, but also pre-serum. Skinny Steve impresses Erskine with his inner goodness and wins over Peggy; post-serum Steve gets rejected only once more by a crowd, by the depressed soldiers who don’t like his show as it clashes with their reality, but once he does actual heroics, he’s depicted as being admired and well-liked by non-villains forever more. Which isn’t to say one can’t believe he feels lonely; there’s the entire man-out-of-time factor early on. But he’s actually pretty good in finding company, and not just in terms of people he’s working with. (It’s Steve who addresses Sam during their run, for example, with the repeated „on your left“ joke, and it’s also Steve who initializes conversation with posting-as-his-neigbour Sharon.) Anyway, Steve: neither alone nor aloner by the end of Civil War.
Steve leaving the shield behind can be seen as a return to being Steve Rogers over Captain America (and thus ending his trilogy of movies coming full circle in the opposite way to Tony and Thor), except that it is clearly not meant as an ending of superheroing, or the group leadership role he’s taken up ever since the Howling Commandos days. What he does, by the end of the third film, seem to have given up on in opposition to what young Steve Rogers wanted is the „serve my country“ part - the superheroism for him now being defined as a global thing. Which makes it, again, regrettable that Steven never really engages with the „backed by 130 something countries“ part of the Accords. (And of course IW presents such an universal threat that this would be no longer an issue even if we didn’t get Ross at his strawman worst in the sole scene bringing up the Accords at all.) Also that Black Panther, for all its other virtues, doesn’t, given T’Challa’s father was one of the originators and Wakandan citizens dying in Lagos one of the motivations. (T’Challa coming to the conclusion that vengeance isn’t worth it at the end of Civil War does, after all, have nothing to do about whether or not he thinks the Accords in general are a good idea.)
Basically: by the end of this particular trilogy, we’re also at the end of the questions the Accords (which were not the Superhuman Registration Act from the comics) raised but didn’t really answer re: how far you could push the concept of superheroics in a multinational world with non-evil issues about it, and are back to a break-up of individuals. Or, like Bruce Banner puts it: like the Beatles. Yes, Bruce, exactly like that, complete with fandom and the group splitting into partisanship, the Accords and Bucky both qualifying as Yoko as the person/issue which/who gets the blame when they’re really more the trigger, and the (non) communication through letters thereafter. Though the Lost Weekend has nothing on Thanos when it comes to higher circumstances demanding a reunion, I’ll admit.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1292311.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Weird Science
Nick Fury and the Avengers: probably one of the areas where fanfic representation and canon diverges the most. Fury, if he shows up at all, gets to be the stern disapproving headmaster; whoever is the focus of the story gets to mouth off and commit acts of defiance, especially (but not solely) if it’s Tony. There isn’t a real divergence between relationships, i.e. no matter who the Avenger in question is, you could switch out the dialogue.
Meanwhile, canon: the three Avengers we see Fury interact with and respond to him enough to draw conclusions about their relationships are Tony, Steve and Natasha. (The brief interaction between Nick Fury and Clint Barton at the start of Avengers before Clint gets brainwashed is strictly order/report. Mind you, they still get more on screen canon than Clint and Coulson ever got, but hey.) Of these three, Steve is the one seriously arguing and disagreeing with Fury. Not from the get go; he treats Fury like his new superior in the army in Avengers. But in Winter Soldier, where his objection to the entire Project Insight project is there before Hydra ever comes into play, along with his objection to Fury’s „need to know“ type of orders (i.e. Natasha getting her own separate mission). His insistence at the end that SHIELD needs to be taken down in totem, not just „some bad apples“ is clearly not something Nick Fury himself wants, but, Fury being very much a practical man, goes along with since the priority then is to stop Pierce & Co. (This is why I have no problem believing, as I gather via fannish osmosis, that Fury also ordered Coulson to rebuild SHIELD. Someone who’s been a spy and spymaster all his life isn’t going to abandon the business on Steve Rogers‘ say so.) Note that none of this comes with personal hostility; Steve treats Fury with polite respect, and aside from the „greatest generation“ dig, Fury returns that. The disagreement between them is ideological. Otoh I also don’t think there is something like great sympathy, either. Just two very different men who are willing to work with each other when needed.
Otoh, Natasha’s reaction to Fury getting shot and supposedly dying is as emotional as we’re ever seeing her („Nick, don’t do this to me“). She’s deeply distressed, and later, when it turns out Fury’s alive, somewhat upset she wasn’t in the know about this earlier. It’s the kind of attachment that fanfic (at least early on, when it was focused on Natasha and Clint with Coulson as their handler) gave her for Coulson. Conversely, when Natasha is temporarily down, Fury reacts strongly as well. Now it might just be because Natasha is a top agent (he’s not thrilled about Coulson’s temporary death, either, after all), but as far as Natasha is concerned, you can definitely make a case that her boss is one of the few people she deeply cares about. Now her growth arc through this movie goes from „Agent Romanov is comfortable with anything“ to siding with Steve over Nick when it comes to taking down SHIELD, but that doesn’t mean the attachment is gone. It’s more of a delayed favourite-daughter-grows-up thing, I’d say.
Speaking of pseudo parental: the Avenger we see Nick Fury interact with through the most movies is Tony Stark, from the Iron Man tag scene to the Age of Ultron barn confession. And again, I find their interactions quite different from fanfic representation. Because Nick Fury, who not so coincidentally shows up after Obadiah Stane’s death, imo sets himself up as a mixture of Howard and Obadiah from the get go, as a sceptic though (very) occasionally indulgent and definitely (openly) manipulative father figure. And you can see Tony responding to that. (Disapproval = need to prove himself is also a big factor in the MCU version of his relationship with Steve, btw., I’ll get tot hat.) They’re actually ideologically not that far apart; Tony’s is distrustful enough of what Fury might hide in Avengers to hack into SHIELD’s systems, but the Phase 2 rationale per (complete with Fury’s explanation that it was triggered by Thor’s arrival and the realisation that „we are hilariously, ridiculously outgunned“ when it comes to potential space invasions) is exactly the same that, post sight of Chitauri space ships at the end of the movie, becomes Tony’s own driving motivation in Age of Ultron and certainly one of them all the way to Infinity War, where that greatest fear scenario finally plays out. (And that makes sense for someone who spent most of his life designing weapons.) Tony’s disagreements with Fury aren’t ideological, as Steve’s are, they’re about personal factors (Fury’s spying on him, different opinions on Howard etc.), and not only does he usually end up doing what Fury wants (the reverse psychology Fury employs with „Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not reccommended isn’t exactly subtle, ditto for Coulson’s bloody Captain America trading cards, but it definitely works on Tony), but in Age of Ultron, Fury ends up as the only one Tony actually confides in about the vision that Wanda caused him to have, and what the worst element of it was. Bruce solely gets the speech about „let’s be mad scientists together and make us superflous“, Steve gets „isn’t that the mission?“ (i.e. creating a world that no longer needs superheroes), but neither of them actually gets told about the Wanda-triggered vision, let alone what it entailed. (Most fanfic I’ve read assumes Tony told them off screen, and maybe he did, but there’s nothing in canon to indicate that. The rest of the Avengers get their mind-whammy by Wanda later. As far as we know, the only people knowing Tony had an encounter of the visionary kind in Strucker’s castle are Tony, Wanda… and Nick Fury.)
What I found fascinating about the barn scene upon rewatching is that Tony actually opens up there, complete with Fury correctly deducing the worst was not just that everyone else died in the vision/nightmare, but that Tony survived, and „you could have done more“. Also that this follows a Fury approach that again mixes the stern („and you didn’t even hesitate“ (to create a sentient super dangerous AI)) with the emotional/indulgent („just an old man who cares a lot about you“). It’s not that Tony is naive about Nick Fury (whom he memorably described to Steve as „he’s a spy, Captain - he’s the spy, and even his secrets have secrets“, but I think it’s both that he gets (and believes) Fury’s self justification (not least because it resembles his own) and that he’s hard-wired to respond to disapproving/occasionally approving father figures.
Again, that is not the dynamic fanfiction represents, and it’s a pity.
Speaking of Age of Ultron and the visions Wanda triggers in the Avengers: it’s worth noting that what Steve and Natasha see is the past (Natasha’s Red Room training), or, in Steve’s case, a might-have-been (making that date with Peggy in the Storch Club, the war being over, though the whole thing is just subtly and not so subtly off with some of the celebrating officers displaying gaping wounds), while what Thor and Tony see is the future, in both cases a future catastrophe, in both cases with an accusation of personal responsibility. Thor sees Heimdall telling him that „we are all dead“ and „do you not see that this is where your power leads, Odin’s son?“, Tony sees a complete space invasion with all the Avengers except him dead or dying and Steve telling him „you could have done more“ before dying as well. Since presumably Wanda neither has the gift of prophecy nor shared it, what she triggered was a „worst fear“ in everyone’s mind. That Natasha fears her past and the way she was used both mentally and physically makes sense; Steve’s vision is the most obscure (my own interpretation, given his statement at the end of the movie that the man who went into the ice wanted that Clint-on-the-farm life, but he’s not that man anymore, is that he’s afraid of facing that he’s no longer the self that could have lived that life with Peggy, and/or that he’s unable to function outside of a war/mission scenario anymore). Thor and Tony, who share the „arrogant princeling learns responsibility for others“ arc in their solo movies, fearing a future where they not only failed to live up to their self claimed protector roles but actively contributed to everyone’s doom makes equal sense. Though it’s probably significant that Thor gets told „this is what you lead us to“ while Tony gets told „you could have done more“; they have their parallels, but also their differences and Tony’s post-Afghanistan escalating-over-several-movies urge to „fix/prevent things“ is one of them. (Of course, Thor already saw himself as a protector pre-enlightenment; it’s just that he defines protecting differently post-humility learning.)
Of the three finished trilogies of solo movies, again it’s far easier to see the arcs for Thor and Tony than for Steve (and not just because Steve’s third solo movie is actually more of an Avengers than a Captain America movie). Thor starts out believing himself ready to rule, ignoring advice and disregarding the danger he causes for others, ends his first movie having learned not just to prioritize protecting others over his own glory (not just because he’s ready to sacrifice his life, he would presumably have done that before, too, but because when the Destroyer shows up and he’s still in mortal form, he focuses on getting the townspeople to safety and lets Sif and the Warriors Three, who are at this point more qualified, do the fighting - the old Thor would have insisted on doing it himself), but that he’s not ready to rule. In the second movie, he learns that his father’s judgment can be flawed and to put ethics over obedience, while also concluding that he doesn’t even want to rule. The third movie just piles it up (the sins of the past, the need to prioritize protecting over personal glory), and he ends up without a kingdom but with a people and with the maturity to rule. Now the first two Avengers happen in between the solo movies, but aside from Thor getting to know the Hulk/Bruce through them which needed to have happened for the third movie, there is no direct connection in terms of emotional and plot development.
Which isn’t the case for the three Iron Man movies and The Avengers. I’ve seen the criticism that each just repeats a „Tony screws up, needs to fix it“ tale, but imo that’s actually not what happens. The original Iron Man is a „face what you are and what you’ve done: do better“ story; or, as Yinsen puts it, „don’t waste your life“. The second one I still regard as the MCU’s attempt to do the Demon in a Bottle arc from the comics without actually making movie Tony an alcoholic, with limited success because „Tony is dying and acting extra hubristic and self destructive because of it“ is actually a different type of story than falling into alcoholism and getting sober. Also, neither of the movie’s two villains - Justin Hammer and Vanko - are actually Tony’s fault. The movie’s events demonstrate to him that „I privatized world peace“ is hubristic nonsense, and so is his conviction that the Iron Man technology couldn’t be reproduced, but bringing Vanko and Hammer down is something he’d also have had to do if he’d behaved with impeccably modesty post „I am Iron Man“ and had remained healthy. Flawed as it is, though, Iron Man 2 has several good things going for it especially in terms of longer continuity. Not least in terms of its supporting characters.
One of the reasons why I maintain James Rhodes fares best when it comes to the „hero’s best friend“ characters in the MCU is demonstrated here. The first two Thor movies do well by Jane, Darcy and Erik Solvig, but physical appearances aside, the Warriors Three are virtually undistinguishable from each other, and Sif never gets much beyond „warrior maiden“ in terms of characterisation, either. In the Captain America movies, Sam has a terrific introduction in The Winter Soldier, but in subsequent movies, his own non-Steve life and job seems to have disappeared. (If he’s still counselling other soldiers in the time frame of Age of Ultron and early in Civil War, we never hear about it.) If he disagrees with Steve on topics, we don’t hear about it, either. Meanwhile, Rhodey was none too thrilled by Tony’s decision to stop producing weapons in Iron Man, tries to mediate between Tony and officialdom early in Iron Man 2 but eventually when push comes to shove follows his orders and takes the suit (one of the reasons why his stance in Civil War was the logical follow-up) against Tony’s wishes, and in Iron Man 3 is seen to have continued his career within the military, with the shared rescue mission with Tony later being the exception caused by necessity, not the rule.
Something rewatching Iron Man reminded me of was that Tony at first when working on the Mark II seems to have intended to let Rhodey use it, rather than use it himself, which would, of course, have replicated the Howard Stark and Steve Rogers arrangement; it’s Rhodey’s reaction when Tony shows up in the hangar and says he’s working on something but not for the government that convinces him otherwise. (Otoh I really doubt that even if Rhodey had reacted differently, Tony would have been able to resist using the armor - and the chance to fly - himself in the long term, because that’s one of the key differences between father and son.) Iron Man 2 markes their strongest disagreement, and it’s not just about whether or not Tony should hand over the Iron Man technology to the US military, it’s also about Tony seemingly bent on self destruction for no reason (since Rhodey doesn’t know about the Palladium poisoning), and Rhodey responding to this in the very unfanfiction-way of not hugging it out but drawing lines.
In terms of Tony Stark’s general development, you could say Iron Man 2 marks the end of any idea of doing it all alone, and the start of the conviction he needs to work with others. Which is why Avengers and not Iron Man 3 coming in at this point in continuity needed to happen, and Iron Man 3 is very much written with Avengers in mind. One of the things that struck me during this particular rewatch round: the Tony and Steve arguments are pretty much unique to their relationship. By which I don’t just mean that Tony hits it off with Bruce from the get go and while not forgetting Natasha used to spy on him doesn’t appear to hold it against her (the „did you miss me, Agent Romanov?“ complete with musical intro greeting is pretty friendly), or that Steve gets along with basically all non-villains he ever meets, ideological disagreements with Nick Fury aside, but that this is very different from the comicverse and one of the reasons why fanfiction which just transfers their comicverse relationship to the movieverse just doesn’t work for me. (Conversely, the „Tony and Steve were never friends pre-Civil War and were working colleagues at best“ argument doesn’t work for me, either, I’ll get to why.) Part of it is Tony’s hangup about Howard’s hangup on Steve, to be sure, but the thing is, the initial antagonism is by no means one sided. Steve is antagonistic towards Tony in a way we haven’t seen him behave towards anyone else not a villain, other than pre-serum Steve who, lest we forget, gets into the initial fight Bucky has to rescue him from at the start of Captain America: The First Avenger not because an evil man is picking on him or he’s defending someone from an attack but because someone annoyed him by talking too loudly at the movies. I feel you, Steve, I hate that, too, but given that fanon tends to provide Steve exclusively with defending-the-weak reasons for getting into a fight, I find it worth pointing out the canonical exceptions.
Anyway, even taking into account the mindstone in Loki’s scepter amplifies everyone’s reactions during the big argument scenes, it intrigues me that it’s actually Steve, not Tony, who escalates things between them. Tony’s verbal digs up to this point („capsicle“ etc.) may be immature, but they’re not denigrating. It’s Steve who takes it to the next level with „fancy man in a suit, take that away and what are you?“, stating Tony’s Iron Man actions up to this point were all about ego, that he’s incapable of self sacrifice and rounding it off, just before the helicarier gets attacked, by telling Tony to get into the suit so they can fight. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Tony is an innocent woobie bullied by mean old Steve, au contraire. Not only dishes he out as well as he gets („all that’s special about you came out of a lab“), but he starts out patronizing at best when things are still relatively civil („there’s a lot Fury doesn’t tell you“) and is of course projecting on Steve from the get go. („This is the guy my father wouldn’t shut up about?“) Still, I repeat: Steve Rogers just doesn’t behave this way towards anyone else not on Team Black Hats. (Annoying cinema goers who talk during the news reels aside.) Meanwhile, Tony certainly has heard each of the criticisms Steve voices before. (Including in this movie; in the scene with Pepper and Coulson, there’s this bit - „I thought I was narcissistic, self-obsessed, don’t play well with others?“ „Now that I did know about“ (the last bit from Pepper).) But not from Captain America ™, national idol and Rebecca figure of the Stark household. (Forgive the literary and Hitchcock allusion. Steve would get that reference.) So naturally, he does from this point on what he’s wired to do with disapproving authority figures he actually respects; bicker with them and try to prove them wrong in order to get that approval after all.
As to why Tony gets under Steve’s skin so quickly that Steve is actually challenging him for a physical fight (which he probably wouldn’t have done sans mind stone amplifcation, but the wish to do so would still have been there): I don’t think it’s the money, the flash or the ego. Howard had all that, and Steve had no problem with Howard; even when he thought Howard might be flirting with Peggy, it was Peggy he challenged about it. But Steve at this point is just a few weeks apart from World War II, in a strange new world where most people he ever knew are dead, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Stark with his non-stop talk and incomprehensible jokes and irritating attitude came across as the embodiment of that present at the expense of the past. That, and everyone else, including Nick Fury, treats Steve with a certain respect from the outset. (The irony is that Tony is by no means immune to the Captain America aura; he later describes Steve in his conversation with Loki as „a legendary supersoldier who pretty much lives up to the legend.“) Meanwhile, Tony behaves like a brat, and one that simultanously happens to be the first public superhero since Steve himself. (Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne seem to have been secret superheroes in their SHIELD days.) It may have been an uncomplimentary reflection, like a parody of himself, that proves to be so enraging.
The rest of the movie demonstrates to Steve that Tony does not just talk the talk but does wallk the walk, but as opposed to fanfic which had them all living together immediately, the Avengers then go their separate ways, though Tony and Bruce remain in contact, as to Steve and Natasha (professionally, and then in Winter Soldier also as friends). Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Winter Soldier both are part of era between Avenger movies, and may arguably be the best of their respective trilogies. Iron Man 3 has Tony dealing with post Avengers PTSD and still with issues, but also having learned from the past; as opposed to Iron Man 2, he does tell Pepper what is going on with him, and later as soon as he can that he’s not dead, he’s aware of people outside his inner circle and not just when they’re victims in need of rescue (case in point: Tony telling the mother of the first exploding Extremis victim that her son wasn’t a terrorist and murderer, that this was something that was done to him; at this point, he already has the info he needs from the woman, and it’s something which imo pre-Afghanistan Tony would not have thought of doing, not in order to be cruel but simply because it would not have occured to him) , and the movie brings things full circle by putting him, well, not in a cave, but in a situation minus armor and money where he has to use his inventiveness - and the help of others.
(Sidenote: both post Iron Man 3 and post Winter Soldier, I remember some people grumbling about the lack of dialogue as to why Tony in the former and Steve in the later don’t consider calling the other Avengers for help. Leaving Doylist reasons aside, I did buy it on a Watsonian level - in Winter Soldier, Natasha is already with Steve, Clint could be compromised (again) and all SHIELD channels are suspect, Bruce would be of zero use in this particular situation, and as for Tony, not only has Natasha reason to know SHIELD might easily have infiltrated Stark Industries as she herself has done, but Steve, who in this movie refers to Tony in conversation with Nick Fury as „Stark“ and to Howard as „Howard“, presumably hasn’t seen him since New York and thinks of him mostly as Howard’s irritating son who turned out to be a brave man but still irritating. Meanwhile, Tony after his home in Malibu blew up and Pepper and himself nearly got killed thanks to his public challenge to the Mandarin has an excellent reason for wanting people not Pepper and Rhodey to believe he’s dead until that’s dealt with.)
Iron Man 3 ends with „I am Iron Man“ again, minus the post credit chat with Bruce, which is why even i fit wasn’t part of a franchise I didn’t have the impression that getting rid of the suits would actually lead to retirement at this point. Still, if we’d never seen Tony Stark again, it would have worked as a good ending point of his story. The Winter Soldier, otoh, was neither intended nor would have worked as an ending of Steve Rogers‘ story, but as it turned out, it was the last true Captain America solo movie. Not independent from what happened in Avengers - it can’t be, with Natasha as such a prominent character and Nick Fury also in an important supporting role - but it still is centred on Steve in a way the subsequent movie is not.
Steve starts out in a better place re: adjustment to the modern world, but still trying to carry over what he’s used to; he’s working with SHIELD because Peggy was a co-founder and because the command structure seems to be a modern equivalent of what he was used to (it’s interesting that he doesn’t seem to consider serving in the regular army, but in a way, he never did; in his first solo movie, he goes straight from playing Captain America as a role to doing special missions with the Howling Commandos). The uneasiness with SHIELD work is there even before the big reveal, and at the end of the movie, he’s truly in a new situation - for the first time no longer part of a large organisation and on his own, led by solely his own judgment. Steve started his movies in a very different situation from Thor and Tony, or Stephen Strange, for that matter; even Scott Lang and T’Challa, neither of whom do the „arrogance needs to learn responsibility“ arc, aren’t really a good comparison, because T’Challa both is responsible for a kingdom and said kingdom’s attitude towards a troubled world, and Scott who has screwed up in the past wants to do better.
By contrast, Steve is explicitly declared to be a good man from the start, who simply needs a chance to help others. Now, The First Avenger provides him with that chance in the most black and white situation of all - obviously, Nazis (and Hydra) bad, Allies good -, and avoids any reference to the murkier side of history (The Howling Commandoes are an integrated unit, racism in the US army doesn’t appear to exist, and no one mentions camps for Japanese-Americans, for example; also, Stalin might as well not exist, either, never mind the millions of Russians dying in WWII), but The Winter Soldier dumps him into a murky world, 70s political thriller style, where the methods and ethics of his own team are questionable even aside from the actively evil villains he’s fighting. It showcases Steve at his best, not because he’s ready to let Bucky kill him rather than fight him at the end of the movie’s big showdown, but because he does that only after ensuring that millions won’t die tageted by the helicarriers. For as long as this is still a danger, he does fight Bucky. Because there’s a big difference between being ready to give your own life in order to save a friend from brainwashing and being ready to sacrifice other people on the chance you might help your friend.
Similarly, for all that Winter Soldier showcases Steve’s increasing (justified) distrust of SHIELD’s shady methods, it also showcases his faith in people - both in the personal relationships he has (Natasha and Sam), and in general (his speech to the SHIELD agents, telling them what’s going on so they can make their choices). This is Steve still uniting the old ideal of serving the community, and believing in the community, with the new necessity of distrusting authority and relying on his own judgment.
Now, in a way, Civil War was the logical follow up on that. I mean, I get the complaints that it should have been Avengers 3, with Steve getting one more solo movie, which most fans wanted to be Captain America: The Search for Bucky. However, the problem with that premise is that while Steve and Sam hitting the road, finding Bucky and deprogramming him makes for an ideal fanfiction scenario, it’s not something that fills a movie of an action franchise, and it wouldn’t have said something about Steve Rogers in the present. Well, I suppose there could have been random Hydra villains also questing for Bucky so Steve, Sam and later Bucky could have fulfilled the action quota by fighting them off, but I’ve always had a problem with Hydra as villains. Insert my usual „Hydra makes no sense“ rant here. Alexander Pierce works for me in Winter Soldier as a villain because until his death with the ridiculous whispered „Hail Hydra“, he’s a classic „there by the grace of plot go they“ antagonist, textually inspired by Nick Fury and carrying Fury’s policies just that ruthless step further, holding up a mirror to him. Also, the casting of Robert Redford was genius, both because of Redford’s filmography as the hero of those 70s conspiracy thrillers and of him being just the actor who would have played Steve Rogers when young. He’s as American as Steve, not some fake-accented outsider villain. Meanwile, Red Skull, Strucker et all - well. I just can’t take them seriously. So no, I wouldn’t have wanted a solo movie with random Hydra villains after Bucky and Steve saving him.
Otoh, the problem with Civil War as a Captain America movie is that the one big decision Steve makes - to not sign the Accords -, while being a logical follow up to what happened in his previous solo movie, is something that he does fairly early on, and isn’t really shown wrestling with after the conversation with Tony in Berlin, while the other decision - to protect Bucky - isn’t really one, especially once it’s established Bucky was framed. The emotional heavy lifting of that movie is carried by other characters - Tony, Natasha, T’Challa - each of whom gets to wrestle with true emotional and ethical challenges. Which is okay for an ensemble movie, but not for the final part of a solo trilogy.
Now, Avengers: Age of Ultron happens before Civil War, and needs to. It does provide a bit of a disconnect to both Iron Man 3 and Winter Soldier in that Tony’s back in the suit and Steve is not questing for Bucky, but then Winter Soldier also ended establishing the need for Hydra clean up operations post fall of SHIELD (in dialogue between Sam, Steve and Fury), which is what we find our heroes doing at the start of Age of Ultron. It’s also our one look at them as an established, functioning team. (As opposed to the getting-together formation in Avengers.) Complete with hanging out together socially; Tony’s party with the lot of them goofing around with Thor’s hammer is practically out of fanfiction. Various relationships have altered since last we saw them (Natasha and Bruce started flirting to the great ire of many a fan, Steve and Tony have progressed to friendly teasing - „language“ - as opposed to petty bickering), and the fighting methods and powers have adjusted to each other and been integrated (Steve uses JARVIS for surveillance, Natasha can calm down the Hulk). (The party at Tony‘s, incidentally, also includes Rhodey and Sam, thus avoiding the question to where they are and providing continuity to those relationships as well.) However, as opposed to Avengers, which had Loki as the primary and Thanos as the background arc villain, Age of Ultron goes for something more complicated, with mixed success. The Maximoff twins are the initial antagonists, and are quickly characterized as redeemable/misguided with background trauma. Steve’s empathy for them and the parallel he draws to his own life - „what kind of a monster would let a German scientist experiment on them?“ - as well as his later appeal to and belief in them continue to showcase his ability to have faith in people, but my problem with these versions of Pietro and Wanda is that a lot about them either just feels sketched in or never gets followed up on. Starting with: how old are they supposed to be? Wanda in Civil War is referred to as „just a kid“ and Clint in „Age of Ultron“ also calls Pietro a kid someone will have to teach, but the actors come across as in their mid twenties. And it’s a big difference whether Wanda is, say, 17 (which I’ve seen in fanfic), barely two years older than Peter Parker, or, say, 24, not least considering the decisions she makes. Canon is clear that Wanda and Pietro volunteered to be experimented on by Hydra, but doesn’t tell us whether or not they knew what Hydra was. Canon tells us their initial trauma was surviving an attack that killed their parents and trapped them for nth hours with a Stark Industries built bomb, but while that certainly provides them with a revenge motive against Tony (presumably also against whoever was waging the war against Sokovia, using those weapons, but we never hear who that was - can we say Dooooooom?), it doesn’t work in terms of the other Avengers. And we never, neither in this one nor in subsequent movies, get a conversation between Tony and Wanda about this. Not to mention my frequently mentioned pet peeve, that while Civil War lets Wanda angst about something she didn’t intend to do and tried in fact to prevent - the deaths in Lagos -, and lets other people blame her for this, there is never any follow up on her part on the deaths of Johannesburg, which she is squarely and solely responsible for.
Seriously: Age of Ultron stages this quite unmistakably. Wanda mind-whammies the Avengers until Clint, who notices her approach in time and tazers her. Pietro then grabs her and brings her to safety. Since at this point the Avengers have been distracted enough from Ultron, which had been the twins‘ intention, Pietro suggests to withdraw. Wanda says: „No. I want the Big One.“ And then triggers the Hulk. Now, no matter whether she’s 17 or in her 20s, she must have known there is no way you can let loose the Hulk near a densely populated city with millions of people in it without causing at the very least mass injuries, and more likely than not many deaths. But at no point do we ever get any indication that Wanda feels responsible for this. (Co-responsible for helping Ultron, yes. But for Johannesburg? Crickets.)
There is some follow-up to it within the movie itself, on Bruce’s part. Something that startled me during my rewatch was both the massive anger Bruce displays in the lab scene when Steve shows up with Wanda in tow to (in vain) prevent the creation of another superbot. Also that he does unqestionable move to stop Steve & Co. from stopping the creation of Vision. But he does, which both the fans complaining Bruce doesn’t own up to his own part of the Ultron and Vision creations and the fans ignoring Bruce had a part there somehow never mention. True, Tony persuades him both times, but wheter it’s the loathing for Wanda due to the mindmessing („I could kill you now without even turning green“, and he does hold a knife on her throat) or the belief the second superbot with Jarvis in it is really their only chance to deal with Ultron, Bruce doesn’t stand by but is physically involved in the brief inter-Avengers-skirmisch that’s ended with Thor’s arrival. Incidentally, I therefore declare it my headcanon that this is one of the reasons why the Hulk managed to stick around for two years thereafter. Bruce gave in to his inner experimenting scientist (who caused the creation of the Hulk to begin with), and the result was nearly disastrous, plus there was the Natasha situation, so no more Dr. Banner for the next two years.
Now, Wanda and Pietro are only preliminary antagonists, and while Ultron is a main one, the movie makes it pretty clear that it’s going for a „our own demons“ tale, since Ultron is only the manifestation of Tony’s amplified-by-Wanda paranoia and control issues. The word „monster“ gets thrown around a lot in this film, notoriously by Bruce and Natasha (and it will never cease to irk me that people in their complaints about Natasha calling herself a monster ignore this is in response to Bruce calling himself a monster first), but also by Steve, with irony but still meaning it, referring to himself and the Maximoff twins when talking to Maria Hill (the quote I gave earlier, „what kind of a monster lets a German scientist“ etc.), and by Tony to Bruce in his „let’s be mad scientists, we’re monsters, own it“ speech. (Thor and Clint don’t call themselves monsters nor are called that by others, but Thor gets the Ragnarök vision where he is blamed for leading everyone to their deaths.) This is all very well thematically, but in practice Ultron is the direct result of Tony’s idea (yes, aided by Bruce and pushed by Wanda, but still Tony’s brainchild), which makes the subsequent disaster not reflective of Avengers as a group but of Tony as an individual. I’m not sure what kind of antagonist I’d have picked to reflect the group’s collective failings back on them, but Ultron-plus-Maximoffs doesn’t really work for me in this regard.
What does work for me, surprisingly enough, is the Steve and Tony relationship, still spiky but also quite insightful re: each other. Steve is amazingly zen about the initial realisation that Ultron is the result of Tony (and Bruce) having created an incredibly dangerous AI without telling anyone first, especially if you compare it to Thor’s outburst, and if you bear in mind he’s fresh from a movie where „create the weapon before the threat“ was just as bad an idea as he thought it would be. He is, however, also firm on his standpoint that this is a very bad idea (even if the result were not rampaging around). Note the lack of personal insults, as opposed to their previous encounter. For his part, Tony is defensive but also lacking in digs and insults, which in earlier times would have been his reaction not in spite of, but because of being aware the situation was his fault. „Isn’t that the mission?“ is asked as a serious question.
(And btw, these kind of moments is why every time I read a story where there is a variation of the phrase that Tony sees Steve solely as Steve, not Captain America, I go mentally „no, he doesn’t“. For good or ill, whether he’s angry or admiring, he always sees him also as Captain America. That question isn’t asked of Steve Rogers, fellow team member, it’s asked of The Original Superhero, The One Who Created The Job. And Steve responds in that way, too, see: „And if we fail?“ „Then we’ll do that together, too.“)
There, is, of course, the layer of irony added through later events here that Steve while chiding Tony (again, mildly, compared with the verbal sling match from Avengers with far less a reason) about keeping things from him is sitting on the ticking time bomb of the Bucky-killed-Howard-and-Maria information. I don’t know whether or not Marvel editorial fiat already provided that information back when Joss Whedon was writing the script, but Winter Soldier made it pretty clear (at the very least, that Hydra did it, if not Bucky personally), via AI!Zola showing Steve the article of the Starks‘ deaths while boasting that things could be arranged. Now, do I think, leaving Doylist aspects aside, that Steve was aware of a certain double standard when pointing out withholding information is bad? Not really, not at that moment, because at that point, they had other worries. In general, though, I think his main reason for never talking about said information was the one he gives at the end of Civil War - it was easier for him not talk about it at all.
You could also interpret it thus: while Tony is on an outward trajectory - from wanting to make up for his merchant-of-death years and justifying his survival in Afghanistan by being a one man people saving and weapons destroying commando to fighting with others doing same to fighting invading aliens to somehow preventing world/universe ending doomsday scenarios - Steve is on an inward trajectory - from enlisting against a world threatening menace to trying to do the right thing in a murky world to saving his nearest and dearest (and also the world), but the priorities are changing. In Infinity War, what Steve does with Vision and the Wakandans is very different from what Steve does both in Winter Soldier (where he only stops fighting Bucky once other people are no longer at risk) and Age of Ultron (where he says the Avengers might have signed up for giving their lives but the Sokovians did not, and they wouldn’t leave as long as a single Sokovian was still in danger when they’re trying to evacuate everyone). Trying to find an alternative to killing Vision along with destroying the mindstone was justified for as long as there were other options, and they could play for time. However, as soon as T’Challa lowers the barrier, it’s basically every Wakandan soldier’s life versus Vision’s. Who is ready to die to save the others. It’s all very well to declare „we’re not trading lives“, but in essence, that’s what Steve does here. (Not alone. T’Challa could just as well have refused, of course.)
In Age of Ultron, these two trajectories are still in balance with each other. Steve at the end starting again with the new group of Avengers (with solely Natasha as the other ongoing team member) while Tony withdraws into another attempt at non-superhero life (though he still funds the team) also highlights something else: from all his repeated attempts at enlisting at the start of The First Avenger through all the subsequent movies he’s in, Steven never does really consider quitting heroics. Sam early in Winter Soldier says „you could do whatever you like“, but while Steve ponders whether SHIELD is really the right fit for him, I don’t think we ever see him considering taking a „civilian“ job instead. He has a very firm sense of what and who he is, what he’s good at, and he sticks with that. Thor, as mentioned before, goes through some changes of mind re: what being a ruler means, whether he’d be good at it, whether he should do it at all, but is pretty much on an „education of a king“ arc throughout his three movies and ends up as the ruler he did not yet know how to be when waiting his not-quite-crowning in the very first scene he had as an adult. Tony is the most erratic of the three in that while he’s clear on some of what and who he is, he keeps redefining and changing what he thinks he should be. Not to mention what the right and wrong thing to do is beyond the obvious basics (saving lives = good).
Again, to clarify: I don’t subscribe to the interpretation of Tony as a mass of guilt and self loathing from pretty much Afghanistan onward that is partly spillover from the comics, imo, and partly the general tendency to go big with any given canon trend. Not least because that undersells the ongoing ability to enjoy his life, a lot of comportmentalization, and ongoing ego (though in a different way than is pre-Afghanistan self had). Oh, and his capacity for vengefulness and ruthlessness connected to same. I don’t think Tony lost any sleep over, say, the Ten Rings members he torched on his way out of captivity, or any of the supposed Mandarin’s and really Killian’s people he killed. (And if Trevor Slattery hadn’t been an actor from Croydon but the actual Mandarin, would you have bet on him staying alive?) But by the end of Age of Ultron, we’re definitely getting into serious guilt department, not least because as opposed to anything that was the result from his merchant-of-death days, Ultron was directly connected to his existence as Iron Man, it was the brainchild of Tony-the-superhero, not playboy billionaire Tony Stark. Which directly flows into Civil War, even without Miriam, mother of Charlie Spencer, making the point explicit, and the conclusion that he does need an exterior structure to maintain accountability and prevent further disaster. Note: as opposed to the comics version of Civil War, Tony does not become the leader of the pro-Reg movement and campaigns for it as the result. The only person whom he tries to persuade to sign on to the Accords is Steve, in Berlin. Everyone who is pro Accords (i.e. Rhodey, Vision and Natasha) is so unprompted by Tony. (Peter Parker is a separate issue; Peter and Scott Lang on the side of Team Cap are the two people who are enlisted strictly on hero worship of the people who do the asking, not because anyone provides detailed explanations about the issue and aks for their opinions on same.) I mention this because I've seen the question "he might believe he needs it, but what gives him the right to decide for everyone else?" coming up. He doesn't. The Accords in Civil War are presented as a UN pitched and enacted resolution, not something Tony has either the power to cause or prevent. What he does lead (and recruit for) is the fight at the air port, which comes after Steve and Sam have gone on the run with Bucky, whose liberty or imprisonment (or death, since Ross originally wants to send the troups after them before Tony insists he'll do it), not the Accords, are the issue at that point.
In the big debate scene early in Civil War, I find it interesting, if frustrating that Steve at this point of their relationship can read Tony well enough to correctly interpret his silence (I.e. that he’s already made up his mind to sign the Accords), but otoh does not engage with Rhodey’s argument (that the Accords are backed by 130 something nations at the UN and dismissing them out of hand is incredibly arrogant) and hardly with Natasha’s (becoming involved with the Accords means „one hand still on the wheel“ i.e. having some limited control over the situation). The closest Steve comes to changing his own mind re: Accords is later, in his conversation with Tony in Berlin („I’m not saying it’s impossible“), but this is in direct response to Tony suggesting signing on could help with the Bucky situation (lawyer, psychiatric evaluation), and he backs off the idea again the moment Tony mentions that Wanda is basically under the luxury form of house arrest. Now, here’s the thing. Ignoring Doylist reasons (i.e. who the two main characters of the movie are), why doesn’t Steve talk about this wretched Accord (and now also Bucky) situation with either a) Ross (a jerk, but also as the Secretary of Defense the highest ranking US pro-Accord person), b) T’Challa (did just try to kill Bucky, is the son of the non-US politician who pushed the Accord most visibly, might not listen to a „he says he got framed“ plea but should at least hear it), c) Natasha (friend, tries to help him)? I’m tempted to go for my headcanon of „Tony is the darker side of the modern world to him“ again. Not least because by the end of the Berlin conversation, Steve for the first time since Avengers goes for an intentional verbal blow again, not just with „Every time I think you…“ but with his rejection of Tony’s earlier Roosevelt-related pen gift („best not break up the set).
That conversation remains one of my favourite scenes of the movie because in a way, it’s a quick rerun of their entire relationship so far, ups and downs. There is the friends aspect; Tony actually tells him about the Pepper situation, and incidentally demolishes the fanon of his parents‘ marriage as something loveless („Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and Mom always made it work“) even before we get the flashback to Howard going „please help my wife“ a moment before his death. Steve commiserates re: Pepper and manages to sound his most 1940s-like in a while („I’m so glad Howard settled down, because I only knew him as young and single“). We get the needling. („Yes, well, sometimes I want to punch you in your perfectly formed face, but I don’t.“) We get the serious discussion of a dire situation. And we get saying-just-the-wrong-thing when Tony overdoes his case pleading by bringing up Wanda which ends the one moment in the film where Steve might have been ready to compromise right then and there, followed up by, see above, return of the verbal blow.
One more thing: when I’m not watching the movie and am out of the moment, I’m not sure I buy the Wanda thing as the issue that pushes a for a moment wavering Steve back to his original stance. I mean, hearing she’s not supposed to leave the Avengers compound in an incendiary situation does not sound like a reveal that the Accords are no good or compromise an ethics betrayal or whatnot. But I buy it when I watch the scene itself.
(This being said, it also ties with my earlier complaint that Civil War solely and exclusively ties the public having issues with Wanda, and Wanda angsting and feeling guilt, to the Lagos incident where she was well intentioned, instead of her past with either Hydra or Ultron or both. Granted, I’m assuming the people at large weren’t told new Avengers member Scarlet Witch got her powers via Hydra and worked for Ultron before turning against him, let alone sicced the Hulk on Johannesburg. But at a guess, Ross knows. And it would make far more sense for him to bring it up than go on about Lagos. Also, if Tony and Wanda had at least once scene where she brings up her day with a Stark made bomb and the corpses of her parents and he brings up the vision she triggered in him, Bruce and Johannesburg… never mind.)
Rewatching also reminded me that the parameters shift - when Steve, Bucky and Sam go on the lam, the Accords (or not) are no longer an issue. Bucky’s freedom is, but also the supposed plan of Zemo’s to use the other frozen supersoldiers. And then of course in the last reel the stakes get changed again. With the reveal that Zemo never intended to use the other Winter Soldier candidates, isn’t Hydra, either, but simply, as Wanda and Pietro did at the start of Age of Ultron, wants personal revenge, the stakes are no longer „fate of the world/the country/the region“, even, but very specifically „life of Bucky Barnes“ and „Rogers-Stark-relationship“. Also, this is another case of eyes (or memory) of the beholder striking. Chances are a story tagged „Team Iron Man“ will render the ensuing fight to „Steve leaves Tony with broken suit to die in a bunker in Siberia“ ignoring the broken suit and reactor were the results of Tony trying his best to kill Bucky and Steve trying to prevent that, while stories or meta tagged „Team Captain America“ will focus on the Rift (as in, the prison, not the argument) and/or ignore the part where Tony shows up in Siberia in the first place to help Steve after having followed up the information about Zemo (thus inadvertendly refuting the earlier voiced Steve and Sam opinion that even if they told him re: Zemo, he either wouldn’t listen or couldn’t do anything with the information) and skip directly to the Tony trying to kill Bucky without caring about the brainwashing part. Usually whether or not you think Tony also was trying to kill Steve (as opposed to trying to get around Steve to kill Bucky) also depends on whom you sympathize more with.
Now, again, eye of the beholder, but my own impression was both that Steve did not try to kill Tony (breaking the arc reactor was a finite way of disabling the suit and thus ending the fight, since sans Iron Man armor Tony had no way of fighting one supersoldier, let alone two) and that Tony’s lethal intentions were limited to Bucky, though I also think he was absolutely ready to hurt Steve in the course of said action. Tony Stark: person who responds to Happy almost dying courtesy of the Mandarin, or so he thinks, by wanting to murder said man and inviting him to his doorstep. Something else Thor and Tony have in common is that they’re quite capable of wanting their vengeance, and wanting it lethal. Steve, not so much, but then he’s had not yet someone to avenge on a concrete person when the rest of the world wasn’t also at stake. Still, he does not strike me as the vengeance-wanting type; Steve’s flaw when it comes to other people dying seems to me more the widening capacity to accept deaths or injuries of people he doesn’t know. (See: Wakandan soldiers versus Vision.)
Mind you: I think if Tony had had time to rationalize the information about his parents‘ death, the entire Siberia fight would not have happened, and I hear the scriptwriters are with me there, saying in an interview that if Tony had found out at the start of the movie, then by the end he’d have had accepted Bucky was a victim, too, hence the need for him to find out in the worst possible way and react immediately. Hence also the concluding letter by Steve, apologizing for the withholding of said information.
That is yet another thing where fanfiction often strikes me far less interesting than canon. Either the letter isn’t enough or was patronizing or what not (because fandom wants its groveling), or, on the other end of the extreme, Tony the heartless potential Bucky killer and enlister of teenagers didn’t deserve it at all. Meanwhile, yours truly thought the apology was just that, an apology for something that deserved apologizing for, also a demonstration of how Steve’s idea of who Tony Stark was had changed (the acknowledgment that re: accords they both tried to do the right thing - quite different from the „I’ve known men worth ten of you“ dissing from Avengers) while maintaining his own standpoint, and Steve managing to get it right and spectacularly wrong with the whole „the Avengers are your family more than mine“ - err, you mean the best buddy from MIT days who’s currently learning to walk again and the android partly created by Tony? Since with Bruce and Thor being off world, the rest of the gang is currently with Steve and such a (well meant) statement is just rubbing it in. As for „I always was a loner“ etc., that’s a neat demonstration of Steve’s self image and the image everyone else (minus Bucky) currently alive has of him completely clashing. How much or little the scriptwriters believe it is another matter. Steve Rogers, as presented on screen, has an almost magical ability to make people like him, more post serum, to be sure, but also pre-serum. Skinny Steve impresses Erskine with his inner goodness and wins over Peggy; post-serum Steve gets rejected only once more by a crowd, by the depressed soldiers who don’t like his show as it clashes with their reality, but once he does actual heroics, he’s depicted as being admired and well-liked by non-villains forever more. Which isn’t to say one can’t believe he feels lonely; there’s the entire man-out-of-time factor early on. But he’s actually pretty good in finding company, and not just in terms of people he’s working with. (It’s Steve who addresses Sam during their run, for example, with the repeated „on your left“ joke, and it’s also Steve who initializes conversation with posting-as-his-neigbour Sharon.) Anyway, Steve: neither alone nor aloner by the end of Civil War.
Steve leaving the shield behind can be seen as a return to being Steve Rogers over Captain America (and thus ending his trilogy of movies coming full circle in the opposite way to Tony and Thor), except that it is clearly not meant as an ending of superheroing, or the group leadership role he’s taken up ever since the Howling Commandos days. What he does, by the end of the third film, seem to have given up on in opposition to what young Steve Rogers wanted is the „serve my country“ part - the superheroism for him now being defined as a global thing. Which makes it, again, regrettable that Steven never really engages with the „backed by 130 something countries“ part of the Accords. (And of course IW presents such an universal threat that this would be no longer an issue even if we didn’t get Ross at his strawman worst in the sole scene bringing up the Accords at all.) Also that Black Panther, for all its other virtues, doesn’t, given T’Challa’s father was one of the originators and Wakandan citizens dying in Lagos one of the motivations. (T’Challa coming to the conclusion that vengeance isn’t worth it at the end of Civil War does, after all, have nothing to do about whether or not he thinks the Accords in general are a good idea.)
Basically: by the end of this particular trilogy, we’re also at the end of the questions the Accords (which were not the Superhuman Registration Act from the comics) raised but didn’t really answer re: how far you could push the concept of superheroics in a multinational world with non-evil issues about it, and are back to a break-up of individuals. Or, like Bruce Banner puts it: like the Beatles. Yes, Bruce, exactly like that, complete with fandom and the group splitting into partisanship, the Accords and Bucky both qualifying as Yoko as the person/issue which/who gets the blame when they’re really more the trigger, and the (non) communication through letters thereafter. Though the Lost Weekend has nothing on Thanos when it comes to higher circumstances demanding a reunion, I’ll admit.
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