For the record...

[letterblade]

My pet Iron Man slash theory.

Obadiah? (First off. Dude. Obadiah. Best name ever. And he was an awesome never-quite-guessed him villain. Got a little mwahahaha! once he got his suit, but still. The scene where he, well, steals Tony's heart away was nail-bity shouldn't-be-hot awesome.) I think he was sleeping with Tony's dad. The man who gave him the atomic bomb. That's a whole lot of twisted affection right there.

What wacky things this does to his attitude towards Tony...I'm not enough in his head yet. Need to see movie again. May attempt to write something when I do.

Also, for the record, I am one of the (seemingly) few who was fairly impressed by Pepper. I mean, good god, compared to what passes for a female lead in, say, Spiderman? Pepper's smart, in control of herself (unlike Mary Jane, who's a codependent wreck who marries the first guy who stands still long enough while moping after the other, and maybe the other, and probably that guy on the street corner because she has no clue what to do with herself), has a bitch of a job and does it well (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANTS UNITE!), is never taken hostage or made a victim (unlike Mary Jane, who seems to lead her natural life screaming in villainous clutches), runs like the devil in spike heels, and generally acts like a clever and collected person who's in way over her head and makes a damn good show despite it. So, yeah, she isn't Not Interested in Tony--but if I understand the comics canon correctly (er, Wikipedia) and they stick to it, he isn't going to be her one and only great love interest. Yeah, she has to be organized and reliable enough for herself and her boss, but, face it, that's just blunt realism--something this movie likes to do when it can. And yeah, she isn't out there fighting, just running around backing up Tony, but. Well. I consider myself a brave person, but when guys are duking it out in nigh-invincible metal armor, I'd stay the fuck back myself. Only sensible. Unless there was a rocket launcher and I knew how to use it. (Even then I'm not sure it would do any good. But at least I'd be doing something besides scurrying about waiting to be told what might be useful.)

So clearly in the next movie Pepper needs to learn how to use rocket launchers.

I guess what this boils down to is--no, Pepper isn't a female hero, so any complaints about her not being a hero are justified. I don't necessarily expect to see that in this movie or sequels; it's a very high-testosterone military sort of superheroing. (This is not to say there shouldn't be, but I don't expect it.) But she's a darn good female sidekick. And sure, yeah, I'd like to see a female hero with a male sidekick too, but how the fuck could they do that and stick to canon? Different movie. And different character.

Pepper != Wonder Woman. But, within the same category of character, Pepper >>> Mary Jane.

Comments

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

If you were to write Obediah/Daddy Stark, that would be seven different flavors of awesome.

I agree with your comments on Pepper. It saddens me (and also surprises me more than it probably should) to hear that she is disliked. One of the great successes of her character, I think, was that she showed that a women could be competent and capable and active in this genre without putting on a tight outfit and fighting the bad guys hand-to-hand. And that was really cool and really necessary.

As I said in my own (much briefer) reaction to the movie: Tony = Doctor; Pepper = Companion. So, clearly, rocket launchers are a must in the foreseeable future.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

But the problem is, she *isn't* active, she's reactive. I commented on that in my review (http://tavella.livejournal.com/140761.html) -- one of Tony's *waldos* has more unprompted initiative than she does.

She's quite competent in her reactions, but total lack of agency.

[mattador.livejournal.com]

Going and getting SHIELD rather than just reporting back to Tony seemed active- but I know what you mean, otherwise. I think, like Tony, she gets better as the movie goes along. By her reactions to Tony's romances, I don't think she's reactive because the writers messed up- I think her passivity is a flaw, and both she and the move recognize it and work to fix it- like her awesome verbal smackdown of Tony at the end.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

But she didn't go and get SHIELD. That's what I expected to happen from what people said before the movie, but she walks downstairs after getting the download and the SHIELD guy is there going "can I get that debrief now?" I mean, it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to realize at that point that you shouldn't leave out the fact that Stane is *funding* the terrorists that SHIELD wants to know about. If she had the initiative to think "Tony's not going to like it, he wants to solve his own problems, but this is too big, we need to bring in the government _now_", and call them up, it would have helped a _lot_ to fix the character.

But I agree, the fact that they had her realize that a relationship would be a bad, bad idea and _why_ salvaged the character for me. But it's Hollywood -- I have no confidence in that lasting.

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

Point taken. Her role in the movie was problematic, but she was still a solid character for someone in that role - and I agree completely about her common sense overcoming her affection for Tony. I thought that was played very well.

[firebirdgrrl.livejournal.com]

I also liked Pepper, very much:)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

I think Pepper kicked butt, myself. Being an executive assistant to somebody like Tony Stark is a stressful, thankless, difficult job, and people don't appreciate that enough, in movies or real life. As for being interested in Tony, everybody is interested in Tony. He's hot and a horrible flirt. Hell, the armor is interested in Tony! But like you said, Pepper's in control of herself, and she's professional. She makes him back off because it'd mess her up, and then later? She picks on him about it. :D

And at the end, when she was running around in those killer spikes with the SHIELD guys, and then she stuck it out to blow up the generator when Tony asked her to? Yeah, nobody's going to convince me Pepper's not the most awesome thing in 4-inch heels.

I don't think Pepper has ever picked up anything more menacing than a pistol in the comics, but on the other hand, she has done things like use Tony's equipment to shut down a bad guy's armor or deflect space lasers from cutting up lower Manhattan.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

blow up the generator when Tony asked her to

But that's it to me -- she was just basically a remote control arm for him, downloading stuff as he asked, flipping switches and pushing buttons as he asked. Even with SHIELD -- it's not like *she* had the initiative to contact them, the guy was right there.

The one thing I did like about her is that they had her realize how and why a relationship would be bad -- her entire life is consumed with Tony, while even though he's fond of her, he forgets she exists as soon as she's out of the room. Because his life is filled with much, much more. Sure, Tony would be perfectly happy to add sex to the list of services she provides him (scheduling, emotional support, laundry), but it's a terrible, terrible power basis for a relationship.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Well, she was doing all that while two guys in power armor were trying to kill each other and raining glass on her head from 30 feet above. She didn't have to stay; that took courage.

And I liked the bit when she ran into the SHIELD guy on the way out, and her response, because it came off as so very much a normal person's response to her situation. She knew she was in immediate danger, but she kept herself together and kept her head and made all the right choices to get out of the situation safely--including latching onto the SHIELD guy with a "Thank god, you'll get me out of here safely," but also, "Hah, you're just the person I need to take that bastard down right now."

Pepper is a normal person, both in the comics and the movie, but she's the kind of normal person who'd be a hero in an emergency, safely getting kids off a burning bus or calming people down while some nutcase with a gun was stalking around the halls.

[tragical-mirth.livejournal.com]

Pepper ends up marrying the guy that Jon Favreau plays on screen for, like, a minute (Happy Hogan).

I liked Pepper much better in the movie than I do in the comic book. She annoys the crap out of me in the comic book.

[miraba.livejournal.com]

I thought Pepper was quite awesome. I also thought her freckles were quite adorable.

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

From Wikipedia: "Some time later, a ruthless rival, Obadiah Stane, manipulates Stark emotionally into a serious relapse."

And oh yeah: Obadiah has a son, Ezekiel (seeing a theme here?), who is also a villain. He's focused on body-upgrades, not suits: "No matter how high tech or evolved, even with Extremis, the Iron Man armor is still a guy in a suit, if you get between the man and the suit you can undo it."

I can't say I mind the idea of separating Stark from his suit.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

THERE IS NO SLASH THAT NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN BETWEEN STARK/STANE BECAUSE THE SLASH EFFING WROTE ITSELF. Seriously, from that first magazine cover that had Stark and Stane smoulderingly looking over their shoulders at each other, the slash just leapt off that screen.

Having said that, I'd totally read your Stark/Stane.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

I did like Pepper quite a lot. She's got a thankless job, which is running all the parts of Tony Stark's life that he needs but doesn't actually have any interest in for him.

She's clever enough to grab the SHIELD agent, cool enough to bluff her way through Stane's leaning on her when she was stealing data, and quite immune to Tony's charms. It's rather refreshing.

[jade-pen.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree. (About the Pepper comments, mind.) She's not a heroine at all, but she's a solid character and she was definitely one of the best female leads I've seen in comic book inspired games. She had talents and used them, yet she knew just how limited she was. I think that's good enough for any character, really.

Though I have to point out that she was, in fact, Interested in Tony. Just never got the chance to act on it. Which, in my humble opinion, was a good thing.