Lies, Fake Quotes and N*zis
Yelpjunny's second Chapter begins with a falsified quote.
"People criticize Tony for attempting deliberate murder but praise Steve for stopping him? How does that make sense!
Also, Tony wasn’t under mind control in Age of Ultron. Mind control alters brain functions, but Tony just had a bad dream and acted on it of his own free will—just like he freely chose to try to kill Bucky. PTSD isn’t an excuse to create Ultron or try to kill someone. Authoritarianism and murder are still wrong, no matter the context. Hitler had PTSD too—does that mean he gets a free pass?"
I do not truly know what happened here, but it appears Yelpjunny edited and tweaked a comment of mine to make it look like I was condemning Steve for saving Bucky.
I would not do this. As a card-carrying Bucky fan, I am totally in favour of Steve saving him.
Let us address the rest of her statements.
Steve stopping Tony from killing Bucky wasn’t an endorsement of Bucky’s actions under HYDRA
Of course it wasn't. Nobody except a Tony fan could reasonably claim it to be.
it was about preventing an emotional, heat-of-the-moment execution. Praising Steve for upholding restraint while acknowledging Tony’s human, emotional response isn’t contradictory; it’s about recognizing context.
There is no such thing as an "emotional heat-of the moment" execution. An execution is a deliberate act. There is no exception to this: one cannot execute a person accidentally or in the heat of the moment.
This line may have been a Freudian slip on Yelpjunny's part. A giveaway that they know Tony's attempt to kill Bucky was in fact, intentional and had deliberation behind it, instead of an emotional reaction.
If Tony had been acting in the heat of the moment, he would not have resisted multiple attempts to stop him, or had the foresight to block exits in order to prevent his intended victim from escaping. (See Chapter One of my other meta for a more detailed examination of the scene in question)
Tony’s anger was understandable, but revenge killings are not justice.
Tony knew that, they all knew that. Which is why the Director and Writer of Civil War expounded on what Tony did, and revealed that attempting to murder Bucky was not simply revenge-killing, it was a cruel, sadistic and merciless act intended to "punish" Steve
It is also why hardcore Tony fans do not simply have to condone revenge-killing, they will also claim that Tony's atempt to murder Bucky was a "justified" reaction to having a secret kept from him.
Their morality is so badly twisted, they think murder is acceptable because Tony felt "betrayed" and because Steve kept a secret.
The Scarlet Witch-induced vision wasn’t "just a bad dream." It was a vivid, emotionally manipulative experience designed to exploit Tony’s deepest fears. Wanda didn’t just target Tony—she used the same psychological tactics on all the Avengers except Clint.
So? Emotional manipulation still is not mind control. Even the MCU recognizes the distinction between mind control and simple physchological manipulation. In the Black Widow movie, Yelena draws a clear distinction between the Mind Control serum used on ehr and the other Widows to supress their free will, and what was done to Natasha Romanoff, which was described as "pyschological conditioning"- essentially indoctrination.
As another user pointed out as well, there is a clear distinction between what the other Avengers did and what Tony did. All of them had visions based on their worst fears, but only Tony chose to immediately *ACT* on that vision by taking Loki's sceptre.
The fact he had been talking about using the Mind Stone to build an AI even before his vision suggests that this act was premeditated and deliberate. He was going to do it anyway. Wanda did not make him do it...
Notably, she messed with Banner’s mind so severely that he Hulked out and which caused to go a rampage in Johannesburg, an event with bad consequences - like the kind that was calling for Banner's arrest.. If Wanda’s actions were significant enough to push someone as rational as Bruce into such destruction, it’s clear Tony wasn’t acting entirely on "free will.
This is the most dishonest part of the analysis. It is well-attested in the MCU that Bruce Banner turning into Hulk has nothing to do with him being "rational" and everything to do with emotion. He doesn't have to be mind-controlled to Hulk out. He just has to become angry or scared: and when he turns into Hulk, he doesn't have much in the way of self-control.
While Tony made his own choices, dismissing Wanda’s role and the impact of her powers oversimplifies the situation.
Making a choice requires free will. To say that Tony was "making a choice" but wasn't acting according to free will is an absurd contradiction designed to exonerate Tony of all responsibility for building Ultron. As shown above, he was already planning to do it before he even clapped eyes on the Maximoff twins.
This, coupled with the fact that he lied to Thor about what he planned to do with sceptre and hid his activities from the rest of his team is a clear indictation he was exercizing free will every step of the way.
Furthermore, Wanda has demonstrated that she’s fully capable of mind control. In WandaVision, she held an entire town hostage, forcing the residents to play out her fantasies against their will. While her powers in Age of Ultron weren’t applied to the same degree, her ability to influence and manipulate others was still significant.
Ah yes, Wandavision. Tony fans who are try to utilize this show to "prove" that Tony wasn't in control of his actions in AoU are forgetting some important context. Namely, Wanda herself was not aware of what she was doing for most of the show.
She suffered a total mental collapse and basically started to believe her own fantasies were real, unaware of the fact that her powers were warping reality around that. It wasn't that her "powers weren't being applied to such an extent" in AoU, it is rather that she *did not know* the extent of her own powers. She herself was not aware of her own Chaos Magic and its ability to bend reality.
It’s unfair to discount the impact of her interference while holding Tony fully responsible for actions driven by her meddling.
As above: Tony's actions in Age of Ultron were not "driving by Wanda's meddling". He was already planning to do something, and he saw the Mind Stone as a means to achieve his goal. The vision Wanda planted in his head just made him believe he needed to do it even more quickly.
Blaming Tony for creating Ultron or acting out of fear after Wanda’s manipulations ignores the broader context of what happened. Wanda’s actions weren’t harmless—they caused chaos and suffering, and Tony’s reaction was only one example of the fallout. Understanding Tony’s perspective doesn’t excuse all his actions, but it provides necessary nuance.
What was Tony's reaction? On watching the scene immediately following the one in which Ultron "wakes" and escapes from the Avengers Tower, we see the other Team members reacting with fear and terror. They are shocked, and scared of what Ultron might do. (Rightfully so).
Bruce Banner, horrified says "we built a murderbot!"
Tony's reaction is the opposite. He laughs in Bruce's face. When rebuked for thinking the situation is funny, he says, "don't you see why we need this?". He mocks and scorns the fear, anger and terror of his team mates at the potential conequences of what he has done.
This reaction proves tht Tony was not only fully in control of his actions, but that they were rooted in pure arrogance and hubris. Not fear.
PTSD isn’t a "get out of jail free card," but it provides critical context for why someone might behave irrationally.
As above, Tony was acting entirely rationally when he created Ultron- his actions were rooted in arrogance and hubris. Just like trying to murder Bucky was a wholly rational act rooted in malice.
As such, any mention of his PTSD can onlybe read as an excuse. I mentioned in my last chapter why it is grossly offensive and even outright harmful to real people to use conditions such as PTSD as an excuse for any character's bad behaviour. The fact that there is no narrative evidence Tony even has PTSD make Tony fans using it as a get out of jail free card even worse.
Comparing Tony Stark to Hitler is an offensive false equivalency. Hitler systematically orchestrated genocide with deliberate, calculated intent. Tony, on the other hand, made flawed decisions fueled by trauma, fear, and manipulation. The two are incomparable in intent, scale, and morality.
Tony created Ultron with deliberate, calculated intent.
His intent might not have been genocide, but it is not unreasonable to deduce that he knew large-scale death would be a result. His own words in Age of Ultron and other movies bear this out.
When contronted by Steve Rogers on building Ultron he talks about "ending the war" to which Steve replies "Every time somebody tries to end a war before it starts, innocent people die". Steve's comments are logical, and have a historical precedent, rooted in his experieces in WW2
Tony's attitude in Age of Ultron is part of a consistent pattern. He thinks that large-scale death and "collateral damage" is an acceptable price to pay for his version of "world peace".
Just like how in Iron Man I he compared being an arms dealer to "having a bigger stick" than one's opponent, or compared himself to a Nuclear Deterrent in Iron Man II.
Tony's intent in building Ultron was to bring "peace at any cost" and he was utterly indifferent to what that price might be in terms of human life and suffering.