How much of Dark Reign to AvX is Tony Stark's fault?

[jackolover]

I was just going back to Secret Invasion and seeing how the POTUS and Thor put the blame squarely on Starks shoulders for the Skrulls fiasco, and wondering are they right? There has been argument that because Stark put all his eggs in one basket that's why the Skrulls were so easily able to destroy the Earths infrastructure. But really, the Skrulls were going to figure a way to do that even is SHIELD was in charge, so I don't see it as a deal breaker for Stark.

And then there is the bigger question of if Stark didn't take up the case of the Pro-registration side in the Civil War, that the whole series of status quo changes would never have happened either, resulting in the current situation of Avengers vs X-Men. But what if AVX happened before CW? Would it have gone any better than it did after the Heroes lost and had to attack the X-Men as government goons rather than free vigilantes? I don't see it. I think Stark did the best he could do under the circumstances and that the way things panned out with the Initiative, WWH, SI, Dark Reign, Siege, HA, FI, and AVX are not the fault of Tony Stark, and that he's been hung out to dry.

Does anybody feel Stark has a case to answer? I saw Stark standing on his lonesome after SI, a little despondent and alone, and thinking, why is everyone laying this all on Tony? To this day, it's Stark who has been marginalized as the villain of this period in Marvel history.

[XPac]

You can argue that some were too hard on Stark, and he did try his best.

But ultimately he did make some bad mistakes, and as the guy that's in charge he gets the lion's share of the credit when things go right, and the lion's share of the blame when things go wrong. It's not unlike say the US president... when a war goes badly or the economy goes south, all the fingers point to the president. And whether or not that's completely fair, that's just how it works.

Power comes with a price.

[Exo]

We've been over this before and the short answer is, no. Might as well ask yourself how much of anything, before Tony took office, was Nick Fury's fault. Or Steve's fault during his Heroic Age.

To this day, it's Stark who has been marginalized as the villain of this period in Marvel history.

Since when did "failing" equate villain of the century?

[Telos]

I never understood why Tony was blamed for Secret Invasion. Yes, he failed to detect the Skrulls, but so did everyone else. What made him so much more culpable? Chances are the Skrulls would have successfully infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. even without the Superhuman Registration Act (which was pushed through by congress, not Stark).

[MrStytch]

Tony's not responsible for the Dark Reign. That was Osborn, the public and the government. He's never really gone out of his way to help mutants, either, though, so I can see why the X-Men might not trust him in particular among the Avengers. A lot of the criticisms Cyke levelled at Cap in A Vs X #1 [no help with Decimation, only coming to the X-Men when he needs something] are things that fall at Tony's feet.

[XPac]

I never understood why Tony was blamed for Secret Invasion. Yes, he failed to detect the Skrulls, but so did everyone else. What made him so much more culpable? Chances are the Skrulls would have successfully infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. even without the Superhuman Registration Act (which was pushed through by congress, not Stark).

I think Starks biggest fault in Secret Invasion was networking practically the entire defense grid of the planet together with Stark Tech to the point where the Skrulls could literally drop disable all of earths defenses from a single computer terminal.

Stark tech had a flaw which Ultron used, and the Skrulls piggy backed on the idea. Cho did something similar as well... so by the time SI came about this had already happened twice. After happening 3 times, eventually Stark needs to be held accountable to some degree at least for that. And he's double responsible both as the guy in charge of SHIELD and as the guy which supplied the tech.

I think Stark ended up thinking like a business man rather than as a soldier, and it came with a price. Networking everything together probably made things cheaper and run more effeciantly, but the "all your eggs in one basket" mentality clearly had a downside. And we saw that multiple times during his run as top cop.

[DimitriKalashnikov]

Civil War was the New Warriors fault.

Secret Invasion was Tony's.

Dark Reign was the US Government's.

Siege was Loki's.

Fear Itself was Odin's.

AvX you can argue that it is either Cable's fault or Wanda's.

[carabas]

Secret Invasion was Tony's

I think the blame would be more accurately placed on the invading army of Skrulls.

[Alan2099]

Civil War was the New Warriors fault.

Not really. It was a combination of the villain that actually blew up and killed people, the heroes that decided they wanted to hunt down other heroes instead of villains, and the marvel public which were acting extremely fickle and stupid even by their standards.

[The Black Guardian]

Civil War was the New Warriors fault.

No. It was the guy running Damage Control's fault. Then Nitro's. Then the 300 or so million American ingrates. The New Warriors were heroes.

Secret Invasion was Tony's.

Nope. That one's on the Skrulls, and them alone.

AvX you can argue that it is either Cable's fault or Wanda's.

No. Cyclops'.

[mikekerrIII]

Since when did "failing" equate villain of the century?

Not of the Century, but when you get into gulags, human experimentation, kidnapping and Political terrorism villain o seems to apply. Good intentions or not his methods were vile.

[Dragonfirexl]

Tony does have alot to answer for but alot of it wasnt his fault, Civil War would of been alot worse if Tony opposed it alongside Cap, War World Hulk was actually Mieks fault he let the ship blow up, Secret Invasion falls on the head of the entire Illumnatti, Dark Reign rests soley on the shoulder of the President of the United States, Siege is Loki and Osborns fault, Fear Itself is on Odin.

AvX is on the lack of diplomacy between Scott and Steve, also the lack of understanding the Avengers have on the Phoenix Force, as well as on Unit for not giving Hope all the facts.

[EuphemismForSex]

None of it.

Dark Reign was the result of the entire world going insane and allowing Norman Osborn into power. Hell, they started it long before then when they allowed Osborn into the Thunderbolts initiative after he had a freak out over Spider-Man's identity.

Totally legit characterization of the world.

[Exo]

Not of the Century, but when you get into gulags, human experimentation, kidnapping and Political terrorism villain o seems to apply. Good intentions or not his methods were vile.

I don't remember seeing Tony send people into forced labor camps. I'm guessing what you intended to say was: he threw a bunch of people (who were clearly in defiance of the law) into prison, in which case: you must hate America.

Human experimentation, again; America.

Kidnapping? Does that go with point one? Do I need to repeat myself about America?

Political terrorism? Yeah, you must really hate the country you live in.

[mikekerrIII]

Tony does have alot to answer for but alot of it wasnt his fault, Civil War would of been alot worse if Tony opposed it alongside Cap, War World Hulk was actually Mieks fault he let the ship blow up, Secret Invasion falls on the head of the entire Illumnatti, Dark Reign rests soley on the shoulder of the President of the United States, Siege is Loki and Osborns fault, Fear Itself is on Odin.

AvX is on the lack of diplomacy between Scott and Steve, also the lack of understanding the Avengers have on the Phoenix Force, as well as on Unit for not giving Hope all the facts.

WWH hulks prime driver was Stark kidnapping Hulk and expecting it to work, even when tolkld is would not, As Namor said the Hulk Came back as he aways f does and he came back mad.

The CW would not be have been half as bad idf Tony had at least tried to act withing the bounds of morality and Law while enforcing an evil law that is hard but not impossible

Dark Reign comes directly from Tony fighting with the government to be able to use Super-villians to hunt Heroes. Without that action from him and Reed there would have been no Dark Riegn

In The secret Avngers he was not evil just incredibly incompetent, If he had used the basic rules of military computer systems the Skrull didn't have any chance of taking down SHIELD. Conneting critical systems together and allowing remote programing have been considered foolish since before the internet was developed. That was not evil just incredibly stupid