Of Irony and Iron Man

*(Author's note: Contains Iron Man 2 spoilers)

Reality Bites

There's a scene early on in the film Reality Bites where Winona Ryder's over-achieving character is asked to define "irony" and fails to produce a workable definition. Needless to say she doesn't get the job and later Ethan Hawke's slacker character totally nails defining it.

That's irony right there, folks.

"It's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning." - Troy Dyer

Irony Bites

It took me three months to figure out that the very thing that was keeping me alive was also slowly killing me.

After surviving two decades of dedicated self-abuse the irony alone should kill me.

I'd spent the majority of the past three months flying around the world on top secret "missions," going to places and talking to people that our government could not or would not accesss. The Iron Man suit and persona had given me enough power along with my own highly visible status as a billionaire CEO that I had managed to negotiate a treaty that the world's major super powers were on the verge of signing. The treaty would act as a de facto peace agreement. In essence I had managed to do the unthinkable: I'd privatized world peace.

And now I was more popular than ever before. Women wanted me. Men wanted to be me. Children played games pretending to be me. International political players and policy makers either loved, feared or respected me and I wasn't about to be picky about which they chose as long as I was getting the job done.

I'd been on the cover of every magazine from Newsweek to Paula Deen's Home Cooking (Kids around the world want to know what Iron Man eats to stay strong, y'all!) and I'd appeared on every talk show from Leno to Oprah and had made the rounds on every political and social analysis show that cable and network had to offer.

America loved me! Hell, the whole world loved me...

Which was why it was so inconvenient to find out that the palladium used to power my arc reactor (which powered my suit and also kept the shrapnel in my heart from killing me) was not only in drastically short supply but it was also slowly poisoning me.

Why didn't I find another element to power the reactor, you might ask?

I had in fact tried everything and anything and I could find and nothing. Nada. Zip. Not one God damned element or atom at my disposal was a workable replacement.

Life may be a cabaret, old chum... but reality does actually - when you get right down to it - bite.

Legacy

And so, on the eve of the signing of the East-West world peace treaty, I sat on my deck with a bottle of my favorite 25 year old single-malt and contemplated my own mortality.

How would I be remembered when I was gone?

Sure I'd done a lot of amazing things during my all-too-brief lifetime. I'd invented things that made the world a better place, not to mention a lot more fun. I'd put a dent in world hunger and helped bring about world peace. No small achievements there. I had partied with the best and brightest, provided endless fodder for the paparazzi and made love to countless beautiful women- some more than once. My reputation had ranged from infamous to famous and hit every stop in between. I'd even managed to make a few good friends along the way.

So how would I be remembered when my brief candle had gone out?

I thought about my dad - the Legendary Howard Stark - a man among men at a time when men were really men and Martinis were never made with vodka instead of gin.

Before my father's life came to a premature halt (thanks to a drunk driver, sure - but I now knew in my heart of hearts that Stane had been behind my parent's deaths) he was a real leader, a Captain of Industry who always had one eye on the Future. That's how Dad always said it. You could actually hear the capital F.

Dad really believed that the world of tomorrow would be a better world thanks to technology. He never stopped trying, regardless of set-backs and disappointments. Dad never lost faith. He was always thinking a step ahead and reaching for the Future he was sure was just beyond his fingertips and would one day be firmly within his grasp. And it wasn't enough for him to be making plans and working to create the world of tomorrow. Part of the reason he founded Stark Industries (and later created the Stark Expo) was to inspire and encourage those who shared his vision - the engineers and inventors and forward thinking leaders in the worlds of industry, technology and design – and he tasked them to help craft and create an amazing Future for all to share.

So that was Dad's legacy. He left me some mighty big shoes to fill.

As night bled the very last of the daylight from the sky I reached for the bottle beside my chair only to realize that it was empty and I was shit-faced. Again.

Some Legacy.