In retrospect, I don't think the Iron Man film had enough gravitas. The " fun playing with toys " aspect of the character falls apart in any interpretation considering the fact that his toys are responsible for more death and destruction than almost any individual super-villain. If Spider-Man is constantly ashamed of unintentionally setting in motion the chain of events that killed his uncle, imagine how Tony Stark, a man whose day job included manufacturing land mines, would feel. I realize that it was a summer action movie, and wasn't meant to be a total downer ( though the Dark Knight proves that you can dark superheroes successfully, even to summer movie audiences ), but the Iron Man armor is as much a symbol of everything wrong Tony did with his life as it is of everything right.

But then again, almost all good superheroes have incredibly tragic backstories. Batman watched his parents murdered when he was a child. Spider-Man, in addition to his origin tragedy, barely keeps his professional and personal lives together due to his compulsion to do the right thing. The Hulk had an abusive childhood that manifests itself in a destructive form he must constantly try to keep in check. The X-Men is a collection of pariahs who have been an analogy for almost every form of bigotry humanity has come up with. Daredevil; no comment.

I'm not saying that superheroes should descend into wangsty territories, but unless you're writing on the level of 80's Saturday Morning Cartoons, it's nearly impossible to write these characters in a light-hearted fashion and have it be convincing.