Because frankly, I'm pissed off.
I've been sitting on this for a long time because Avengers: Endgame is a big pop culture event with big implications for a big franchise and I didn't want to put any spoilers out there. If you still haven't seen it, beware that spoilers lay ahead for this and a few other pieces of media, but they're all old enough that you have had plenty of time to get caught up. Okay? Okay.
Internet, friends, we need to talk about Avengers: Endgame.
But before that, let's talk about Arrow.
I fucking love Arrow. Arrow is my all time favourite TV show. Ever. Serious. No hyperbole. It is amazing and if you don't like it you are, frankly, wrong. Don't @ me.
In season 4 of Arrow, leading lady, hacker, tech genius, and everybody's favourite gal in the chair, Felicity Smoak, is paralysed from the waist down in a shooting and becomes wheelchair bound. There had long been parallels between Felicity and the comic book character Oracle, and this was just one more delightful nod to the character.
Felicity lived with her disability for less than a season. By the end of season 4, another member of Team Arrow, the tragically named Mr Terrific, has invented a sciencey cure for her paralysis that gets her up and walking again. They revisit this once in season 5, and then it is never mentioned again. Her disability is a subplot that basically goes nowhere and does nothing. She is miraculously cured by comic-book-science and it is a joyous day for her and everybody. And, you know, why not? Superhero stories are power fantasies, and why not explore the fantasy of living with a disability and then being miraculously cured and never having to worry about it again?
Why not, indeed.
Internet, friends, we need to talk about Avengers: Endgame.
But before that, let's talk about Batgirl.
I never cared much for the OG Batgirl, Barbara Gordon. I mean, I had nothing against her, I just wasn't interested. No, the first Batgirl I was interested in was Casandra Cain. For those who don't read comics, Cassandra Cain (who you may see in the upcoming Birds of Prey movie) was a girl raised by an assassin to be a living weapon. And because... Well, because comic book reasons, this meant she was mute. The only way she understood communicating was fighting.
Cassandra Cain, aka The Best Batgirl, was introduced in a big event called No Man's Land in which she left her adoptive assassin father and joined up with Batman & Friends and became the second Batgirl. So awesome was she, that after No Man's Land, she was given her own series. In less than a year of comics, through the magic of comic-book-magic, her muteness was cured. And for a couple of issues, she struggled to fight, but then she relearned how to fight. Now she could talk and fight. Huzzah for Cassandra, right? Another power fantasy wish fulfilment. Your psychological scarring can be miraculously cured by touching a random metahuman with random metahuman brain powers. I mean, sure, it was a defining trait of Cassandra Cain, her muteness, a major part of who she was and her backstory, but now she can have speech bubbles. Yay!
Yaaaay...
Oh, and the reason we needed a replacement Batgirl is because Barbara Gordon, aka OG Batgirl, aka The Second Best Batgirl I guess, aka Babs was shot by the Joker and paralysed from the waist down in an over-rated comic that way too many people love and not nearly enough of them seem to understand called The Killing Joke. This is going to sound weird but stay with me: literally the only good thing to come out of The Killing Joke is that Barbara Gordon's paralysis. Because shortly after this, she headlined a new comic series called Birds of Prey, and Babs took on the name Oracle and became everybody's other favourite gal in the chair. And now she was always in a chair. A wheel chair. And she did tech things. And gave guidance and intel to other heroes. And helped train the second and third Batgirls. Oh, and she still kicked arse.
For real, there's this scene very early in the Birds of Prey run where Babs is attacked by some throw-away thugs and still in her wheelchair, armed with a pair of batons, beats the shit out of them all. It's great. Oracle is great. Birds of Prey was great. I fucking love it and it's on comixology and you should go read it.
Ahem.
So you might remember that in my history of the Flash I talked about a big DC Comics event and relaunch called the New 52. It basically sucked. And one of the biggest suckages of them all was that Barbara Gordon was restored to being Batgirl. In the confusion that was the vague editing of Batman canon, Babs had still been shot, still been Oracle, and then been cured through some kind of comic book science-magic. This was important because the DC powers that be couldn't just erase The Killing Joke from the Batman history. It's a Big Deal Comic (for some reason). But they also wanted Babs back in her Batgirl cowl and to be the one true only Batgirl. And because the retconning was all a bit vague, exactly what parts of the Oracle story remained were vague, essentially now unseen, off-panel events. For all intents and purposes, Oracle, the biggest and most recognisable disable character, who had remained a significant part of both the Batman & Friends story and the wider DC Universe story, had been erased.
Because, you know, it's a power fantasy, isn't it? Yaaay. Superman can fly. And Oracle gets cured. Power...
Right?
Because that's the power fantasy that people with a disability must have, right? That they be cured. Regular folks without any disability, their power fantasy is flying, or having robot armour, or shooting lasers from their butt. But the gal in the chair, always in the chair, what more could she possibly want than to be able to walk? Surely she wouldn't want to, say, imagine herself being in the wheelchair and still kicking arse. Surely...
Internet, friends, we need to talk about Avengers: Endgame.
But first, let's talk about Me Before You.
Me Before You is a novel written in 2012 and then adapted to a film released in 2016. There's only two things you need to know about this story:
1. 'Me Before You' is a love story between a man with a disability, Will Traynor, (it's paralysis again) and an able-bodied woman. The man has decided, before meeting, that he would rather be dead than wheelchair bound, and even after falling in love, he decides that he would still rather be dead and now it would not only be better for him, it would be better for his lover, because as long as he is in a wheel chair, he can't live a full life, and as long as she is with him in a wheel chair, she can't live a full life.
2. FUCK THIS WHOLE THING. FUCK ALL OF IT. IT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE.
Why do I bring this up?
Because - and this shouldn't be a stunning or controversial statement - there aren't a lot of roles in our media for people with disabilities. When they do come up, they tend to be... narrow. People with disabilities are the stars of inspiring stories about how even though they have an impairment, they can do things regular people do. Or they're stories of how they miraculously overcome their disability and are cured. Or they're villains. For realz, there are a shocking number of villains who have disabilities. And a shocking number of them are faking it because nobody would suspect a person with a disability of being a villain.
People with disabilities don't get to be heroes. They are society's inspiration porn and their disability is all they are. Or they are our villains. Or their story of disability is temporary. Temporary because they are cured, or they die. This is such a recognised trend that it has its own Bechdal like tool of examination. The Fries Test. I recently learned about this in preparing to write this blog, it was invented by the author Kenny Fries. The Fries Test asks the questions: "Does the work in question include more than one disabled character? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk about anything other than their disabilities? Are the characters killed or cured by the end of the story?"
For a long time, Babs - Oracle - stood alone as a successful character who lived with her disability and who was the hero of the story. No issue of Birds of Prey I've read passes the Fries Test, but that obviously doesn't negate how significant Oracle was or mean her stories were bad, or even weren't about her. Birds of Prey might have been a team up title, but Babs had just as much - maybe more - focus than the other characters. And because of this, Oracle was important to people. Nobody else had her success, were as important as she was. And look, I can't say for certain, but I suspect that part of her appeal is that unlike similarly impaired characters like Dr Mid-Nite or Daredevil, nothing about the Oracle superhero persona negated her disability. It was always there, and it didn't stop her being awesome, being a hero, kicking arse and taking names.
But then something happened.
Suddenly, Babs wasn't alone.
Internet, Friends, we need to talk about Avengers: Endgame.
But first we need to talk about Iron Man. MCU Iron Man. We're not going to talk about the comics. They're not relevant right now.
If you haven't read it, go back a few posts and read my review of Iron Man 3 for why that movie is important. But to supplement that, let's quickly recap the Marvel Cinematic Universe Iron Man story.
Iron Man 1 & 2: The big theme here is Tony Stark, Iron Man, crawling out from the shadow of his father, making himself something distinct, something more, atoning for the crimes he has been complicit in through his company and his family name. In Iron Man 1, this means becoming Iron Man, ceasing his company's production of arms, and using the Iron Man identity to undo the harm those weapons have done in the name of profit. He completes this journey in Iron Man 2 when he finally accomplishes something his father could not, and defeats a villain who is motivated by the actions of Tony's father.
Avengers: Iron Man nearly dies. He flies into space, carrying a nuke, saving New York and all his buddies, and in doing so nearly dies. And in his final moments, he's unable to get a call through to Pepper, the woman he loves, and he sees the threat waiting beyond Earth, the invasion force coming for Earth, a foe far beyond what the Avengers have faced so far. He survives, but he is scared by the experience, and he is scarred by it. This sets up the rest of Iron Man's story.
Iron Man 3: Tony Stark is suffering PTSD after the events of the Avengers. It causes him nightmares, it causes him panic attacks and heightened anxiety, it causes him to fixate on his Iron Man suit and to cope by building more suits as a distraction. And in the end he learns to find some measure of peace through his relationships, and through being Tony Stark and not Iron Man.
Avengers: Age of Ultron: Still suffering, Tony Stark decides he wants to build an AI controlled robot army to fight the coming invasion. It goes poorly. Not much development for Tony because it's an ensemble film but he does make it clear that he knows the Avengers won't be enough, and he is still frightened.
Tony Stark is not cured at the end of Iron Man 3, he just learns to cope. Let's make something abundantly clear here: as of the end of Avengers, Iron Man has a disability. His PTSD is severe and it cripples him. He lives with this disability. And make no mistake, just because he's not in a wheel chair, just because he doesn't have a prosthetic, just because it is invisible, does not make it not a disability. But he learns to live with it, to manage it, even though he is not cured of it.
And sometimes there is no cure. There is no cure for people who have been paralysed. There is no cure for severe mental illness like bi-polar or schizophrenia. For people with depression, they will spend their whole lives with depression. It might be treated and managed, but it is not gone. It's not a virus or an infection you can kill. There is no cure for Tony's PTSD. And even though he is living with it, managing it, it haunts him, it drives him, it's the reason much of Age of Ultron happens.
And all of this is awesome. This is the kind of power fantasy everybody else gets, so why not people living with disability and severe - one might say disabling - mental illness? Finally, some representation. Finally, a hero they can see themselves in.
Civil War: I can't even. Look, I can't. Not right now. This blog is already massive and dealing with a big topic. Civil War is a whole other thing, part of another big narrative problem with the MCU that needs its own blog to dissect. As far as Iron Man goes, it's a Captain America film, it's an ensemble piece, Iron Man doesn't move or develop much from where we left off in Age of Ultron, he's still trying to prepare for the worst, still trying to live as the best and most heroic version of himself, still motivated by his PTSD and the whole arms manufacturing thing.
Avengers: Infinity War: Oh look, Tony Stark was right. The Avengers weren't enough. Everything goes to shit.
And finally...
Internet, Friends, we need to talk about Avengers: Endgame.
So let's talk about it.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is big. I don't mean that in the sense that it includes many individual pieces of media, I mean that in the sense that it is an unstoppable monolithic franchise that looms over all pop culture, commanding our attention like almost nothing in cinema before it. No amounts of Harry Potters and Lords of The Rings and Batmans and Hunger Games can compete. The MCU is popular with basically every demographic and its audience satisfaction rate makes it immune to basically all professional criticism. It has made an unfathomable amount of money.
And right at the centre, from the very beginning, the character who started it all, the character everybody recognised, the character everybody loved, the character who proved it could all work was Iron Man. He showed up in the most movies, he had the biggest and most developed character arc, and even though more and more beloved characters, he remained the face of the franchise. Doubt me? Go look at the posters for the Avengers films. You will find him near the centre of every one. You will find he takes up a decent chunk of the poster. The only character who comes close to getting his level of focus is Captain America, except in the first Avengers film where Cap is quietly tucked away at the back. And on the Captain America: Civil War poster where he shares equal space with Iron Man.
In a big deal franchise, Iron Man is THE big deal character.
And he's a hero.
And he's a person with a disability.
And. They. Fucking. Killed. Him.
If you read my Iron Man 3 review, you'll understand why I consider Iron Man 3 to be a hugely important film not just in the franchise but in the genre itself. Iron Man the character is important for much the same reason, for the same reason Oracle was important. Representation matters, and there is nowhere near enough representation for people with disabilities in media, especially in superhero power fantasy stories.
But there's only one happy ending available to characters with disabilities. They get cured. But Tony Stark didn't get cured. His anxiety, his fear, was proven true, and then he died. He almost had a happy ending, but he gave it up for everybody. It was him before them. He gave his life so that the rest of the Avengers, the whole world, could live their life.
In 'Me Before You' this idea of disability being a burden is very much textual. It's there on the screen. You can't get around it. In Avengers: Endgame, it's meta-textual. You need to understand that nothing exists in a vacuum. Iron Man's death, within the text, has nothing to do with his disability, but in the wider landscape of our culture, he is one more character, one more person with a disability, who meets one of very few resolutions available to such people. It's all connected.
And Iron Man is the kind of character we're tragically short of in our pop culture. He's a hero, he's a power fantasy, and his disability, his mental illness was part of him, and was a part of him to the end, without being cured by comic-book-science-magic, without being compensated-for by powers. For all those nerds who want their super hero power fantasy, he's a character that an under-represented and poorly-represented group could identify with. We needed PTSD Iron Man. And for a few years, we had him. But in the end, he doesn't get a happy ending. He doesn't even get an original ending. He gets to sacrifice himself for other people's happy ending. This is why I brought up 'Me Before You' amongst a bunch of super hero stories, Iron Man and Will Traynor meet the same fate.
Captain America gets a happy ending.
Thor's story continues.
Hawkeye's story continues.
Gamora returns to the Guardians.
Iron Man, the hero with a disability, dies.
And he dies pointlessly.
Seriously. Let's look at that scene. Iron Man gets the gauntlet, all the infinity stones, and he snaps his fingers to erase Thanos and his army from the universe, but the strain on his mortal body is too much and he dies. Look, there's nothing out of character about Tony Stark taking a risk or show boating, but he has a family, a home, a CHILD that he plans to return to, something he says he'd choose over the whole world without a second thought. Also, he's a pretty smart guy. Would it really not have occured to him to say, give the gauntlet to The Hulk, who we know can use it? Or to the super powerful, Thanos-butt-kicking Captain Marvel who has proven more powerful than all of them? Or to Thor who is pretty sure he can do it? Tony has a genius solution to every problem except how to hand a weapon to somebody else.
That's why he never shared his weapons with anybody else. Nobody else got an Iron Man suit.
Oh wait... No, he does do that. Nevermind.
But let's say, for argument's sake, that this wasn't an option. It was now or never. He had to use the stones.
Why doesn't Doctor Strange, who is an actual medical doctor, who is standing less than a stone's throw away, rush in and try to do some doctoring? Maybe, I don't know, use his time control powers to reverse the damage. He has the time stone, again.
In fact, they have a complete set of infinity stones, and two or three people able to use them safely. Are you telling me the stones can erase half the living creatures in the universe from existence but can't fix up some third degree burns and internal bleeding? Is that beyond their infinite power?
Look, what's important here is that his death is not justified. It's cheap drama. The narrative of his death falls apart under any scrutiny unless you're willing to twist yourself in knots to justify it, but I'm not willing. I'm pissed off that for a while, we got a person with a disability as the face of the modern era's biggest multi-media franchise, and they couldn't come up with a better ending for him than 'Me Before You'.
Oh wait, they did come up with a better ending. It was him retiring and living out his days with his family in peace, at last finding the solace he craved. You know, the happy ending Captain America is inexplicably handed in the stupidest most clumsy way possible - but again, another digression we don't have time for.
So Tony Stark did have a better ending, a worthy ending, but it was taken away in favour of that same tragic ending so many of our characters with disabilities get. What a fucking waste.
We can do better representing people with disabilities.
We owe them better.
They deserve better.
And, now I think about it, so did Iron Man.
