Iron Man had a hard time dealing with being a superhero and was constantly haunted by it, and his relationship with Spider-Man ended up making him a hypocrite – here’s why. The Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2008 with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, which introduced Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and set the tone for the subsequent movies, as well as the basis for the formation of the Avengers. Since then, Marvel Studios has produced over 20 movies and is still expanding, both with movies and TV shows.

Iron Man served as the leader of the first three phases of the MCU, collectively known as the Infinity Saga, where he went through all types of trouble: from being kidnapped to saving the world from an alien attack and even seeing his team dividing into two factions. Along the way, Tony found a young hero to mentor: Peter Parker (Tom Holland), an amateur hero from Queens who got a major upgrade thanks to Tony and joined his team in Captain America: Civil War. Tony’s arc came to an end in Avengers: Endgame, leaving Spider-Man as his successor, but that only makes Iron Man a hypocrite.

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As mentioned above, Tony struggled with his superhero duty through most of his arc in the MCU. During the first act of Iron Man, Tony realized that he had been using his intelligence, money, and power for the wrong purposes, and did his best to make up for that by building (and improving) the Iron Man armor and serving as a hero. More often than not, Tony found himself haunted by his past, his current actions, and his duty as Iron Man, which along with a lot of trauma from both his family background and everything he went through as Iron Man (particularly Loki's attack in The Avengers) almost brought him down a couple of times, and he ended up passing the superhero duty to an even less equipped young man.

An image of Spider-Man and Iron Man smiling in Avengers: Infinity War

By the time Holland’s Spider-Man made his debut in the MCU, he had already been fighting crime with a suit and equipment made by him at home, and while no one can deny that he definitely has what it takes to be a hero, he’s still pretty immature, especially when compared to the rest of the MCU heroes. Spider-Man has the potential to be a great leader, but he’s not ready to take that role just yet, and Iron Man did exactly what he fought against for so long. By making him his successor, Tony Stark is also passing that burden to young Peter Parker, who is a lot younger and inexperienced than Tony was when he became Iron Man, thus making him vulnerable to the same fears and struggles he went through, though potentially worse as he has seen even bigger disasters than he did.

In fact, Spider-Man’s problems have already begun, as in the mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Quentin Beck a.k.a. Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) left a video message in which he framed Spider-Man for a lot of disasters around the world and revealed his true identity. Although Iron Man’s hypocrisy will make Spider-Man’s journey in the MCU all the more interesting, it seems a bit cruel that he passed on that burden and the demons that come with it to a young hero like Spider-Man.

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