The fact that Stark is Iron Man has garnered a substantial amount of attention since both Stark and Iron Man are quite famous.
Stark's reputation, however, isn't exactly stellar. The military has driven a smear campaign against him, painting him as an unscrupulous arms dealer who stands atop a mountain of corpses and oceans of blood, an utterly irresponsible playboy, an utterly indulgent villainous billionaire. If there were a star rating system for reputations, Stark's would probably hover somewhere between half a star and one star.
But Iron Man's reputation is quite good, not just because he saves people in New York, but also because he has been on the front lines for several major events threatening New York. Many of the public have seen him, heard of his deeds, and quite a few have become fans of his impressive mecha suit.
Before the incident, Iron Man even had his own fan website, with many doing charity work in his name. There were also quite a few fans who would wait on rooftops, capturing images of Stark zooming across the New York City skyline.
Therefore, when the identities of Stark and Iron Man merged, the largest-scale superhero scandal in history ensued.
Generally, when people like a certain figure, they tend to imbue them with their own fantasies. Iron Man's fans were no exception. They speculated that he must be a rich man due to his expensive mecha suit. Most fans presumed he was one of the few young billionaires devoted to charitable work.
Some speculated he might be the heir to the Osborn family since old Osborn had a penchant for charity. Others thought he might be the boss of the largest construction company in America. They even suspected that he could be the heir to a certain oil company. But they were certain that he could never be Tony Stark.
The day the news was announced, the background image on Iron Man's fan site was replaced with a bloody red hue. The site administrator claimed a great disappointment, Iron Man would no longer be the hero in his heart.
At the same time, many claiming to be Iron Man fans sparked an online controversy, producing videos and sorrowfully narrating their process of withdrawing from fandom.
Many accounts started lengthy analysis of Stark's motives: some claimed he was whitewashing his reputation using small acts of kindness, others said he was fooling the public, and some even accused him of satisfying his own vanity—a majority read like a litany of grievances.
This public smear campaign was at least ten times stronger than the last. Stark seemed to have been painted with the label of hypocrisy. Brought down this way, even Iron Man's status was toppled from its pedestal.
Normally, given Stark's character, he would have been raving mad and intent on retaliating by this point. But now, he locked the doors of his laboratory; worldly affairs had nothing to do with him. He refused to listen to their slander.
Throughout history, all types of drama have involved a concept known as counterplay. If the opposing party refuses to play along, then you may end up being the only clown in the play—as is the case for the military.
The issue with public attacks is that once the hype dies down, people start to forget. Thus, the best approach to handling public sentiment is not to clarify or respond, but to play dead.
Stark had an epiphany in this regard. You can curse as much as you like, but as long as I don't listen, watch, or feel your presence, all public sentiment has nothing to do with me.
This attitude by Stark exceeded many people's expectations. Pepper had already prepared to clean up his mess, and Obadiah's staff had prepared several public relations plans. After three days of intense public scrutiny coordinated by the military, Stark was still as stable as a mountain, not once stepping out of his laboratory. It was like performing to a blind audience.
When the first plan failed, another quickly replaced it. The military sought the Osborn Group, hoping to entice them with benefits to join their side against Stark.
However, they didn't even get through the doors of the Osborn Group.
Although Osborn is a businessman, he never forgot the slight from the military when they chose Stark over his biological technology firm. Additionally, his current collaboration with Stark on the Eternal Life Factor project was flourishing. Even if he lost his mind, he would not go begging again to the military.
With the Osborn Group unwilling to cooperate, the military had limited choices. Coincidentally, both the boss of the Life Foundation, Drake, and Riot had been locked up in the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "black site." Taking advantage of this, the military intended to take over the Life Foundation's businesses and support a new proxy.
After much effort, they eventually found a suitable proxy who inherited a portion of Drake's reputation and claimed to be a scientist working for public welfare. This was supposed to make Stark appear even more malevolent.
However, just two days after he took office, Eddie, using his own connections, exposed the Life Foundation's detailed data on their experiments using homeless people. Just like that, the Life Foundation was over.
Despite lacking competence, the military was tenacious—they sought to partner with Hammer Arms Industry, or rather, Hammer Arms Industry was like a dog the military had raised, ready to heed their commands.
Hammer Arms Industry was eager to show off to the military in order to get more orders. But compared to big shots like Stark or Osborn, they didn't seem to be much of a match.
So, Hammer Arms Industry chose a different path. They started to search for any potential scandals about Stark and, lo and behold, they found one.
A few days ago, a car explosion occurred in the underground garage of Stark Building. The incident didn't cause much of a stir as no one was injured. The only occupant of the car was not Stark or any of the employees of Stark Building–only JARVIS was inside.
Most people thought it might have been an accident due to a car test, but Justin Hammer, the boss of Hammer Industries, keenly observed that it might have been a deliberately staged accident.
He thought that the accident was caused by some crazed fan fallen out with Stark, but instead, he caught a big fish.
Ivan Vanko, who claimed to be Stark's enemy, told Justin Hammer that his father and Stark's father developed the Ark Reactor together. But in the end, Stark's father claimed the research results and his father was unfortunate enough to fall victim.
The authenticity of this story was hard to prove as it had been too long. Still, for Hammer Arms Industry and the military, it was like finding a treasure. The fact that it could not be proven made it even more exploitable.
Stark turned a deaf ear to the defamatory comments about himself and immersed himself in his lab work. But the military gambled that he wouldn't ignore the stories slandering his father, so the story quickly spread.
The military exaggerated Howard's deeds by tenfold. In the story, all of Howard's research achievements were denied, and triumphs were attributed to Ivan Vanko's father stolen by the villainous Howard.
The only thing retained was Howard's failed hovercar demonstration, which was taken as a revelation of his true capability.
"It seems they've successfully pinpointed your weakness," Shiller and Steve said in the Stark Building's lab as they were playing a game of checkers. Meanwhile, Stark pretended to focus on some materials at another test bench.
"Actually, it makes sense," Shiller went on. "By portraying your father as a joke, your previous attempts to prove yourself better than Howard now seem rather clownish."
"For the record, I didn't use any mind-reading technique; this is an issue that a clear-headed person could see. You've always tried to emphasize how intellectually superior you are to Howard, but whenever someone calls him a fool, you'd still get angry. If I'm not mistaken, you must be wondering why you're angry."
"But I can give you the answer right away: it's because you don't actually hate..."
"Enough!" Stark shot up from his seat.
He quickly stepped out from behind the test bench and walked over to the table where the two were playing checkers. Then he stopped abruptly, contemplating whether arguing with these two was beneath him.
Then he extended a hand and said, "Alright, I'll host a Stark Industries Expo to show them Stark's latest achievements."
"I'll tell them that any Stark is a thousand times smarter than that bunch of idiots."
"I know Ivan has an Ark Reactor. I know he came up with some ridiculously stupid idea to use it. He actually made a..."
"Do you know what kind of people are least welcome in my rehabilitation center?" Shiller suddenly interrupted Stark.
Stark asked, "What kind of people?"
"Spoilers."