Iron Man's New Villain — an Open Source Terrorist

An anonymous reader writes "In a recent interview on Comic Book Resources about his new continuation of the Marvel comic-book series 'Invincible Iron Man,' Matt Faction provides information about the the new series (debut will be May 7). The villain is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane (the villain of the new Iron Man movie opening on May 2). Whereas Obadiah was a ruthless billionaire who fought as the Iron Monger, Zeke 'rejects the strategies of his father as being the crude tactics of Attila the Hun.' Instead, he will be 'a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist.' As the author puts it, 'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.' The concept has gone over well on the CBR forums."

Comments

People! Not everything is terrorism!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Since 9/11, every goddamned thing is considered terrorism. Shoot a gun downtown? Terrorism. Drink someone's milkshake? Terrorism. Ship cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. Yep, terrorism.

No! It's not! There are proper terms here, and by calling any crime terrorism you insinuate that the crimes are perpetrated by terrorists. That's giving a whole lot of credit to idiot criminals.

Installing Linux on the computers of unwitting Windows users may be a dumb plot, but it's hardly terrorism. If it were, every goddamned user on Slashdot would be a terrorist for trying to wrest Windows from Granny's warm, wet hands.

I'd like to see this OSS terrorist face the CEO of Nerv (from that other forgettable hacker movie a few years back). Geek Terrorist. Coming soon to a basement near you!

Re:People! Not everything is terrorism!

[arivanov]

Wait for large terrorist act that scares the crap out of the nation

The Burning of the Reichstag?

Pass draconian terror laws suspending civil rights and allowing torture ("But just for terrorists!")

The protection of the state laws voted by Germany in 1934, Bulgaria, Hungary and other German allies in the 1934-1939 interval?

Extend definition of terrorism to include any activity you want to persecute; if met with complaint, answer "Why do you hate Freedom so much?"

Yavol, mein Fuhrer!!!

...

Dictatorship!

Zich Heil!!!

meh

[wizardforce]

'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.'

he seems to be operating under the assumption that Windows *is* the desktop. Even in that case, he is disasterously wrong. Linux isn't out to destroy Windows as in the words of Linus himself: "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

Re:meh

[TuringTest]

After I RTFA, is more like he assumes that Iron Man is Windows. He uses the Windows/Linux comparison as a metaphor of the kind of fight than Tony Stark will have to face in this story arc:

He's the open source to Stark's closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He's a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile. That absolutely flies in the face of Tony's received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He's a much smarter, more mobile and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.

Re:meh

[hey!]

Here's an elementary principle of story telling: you can't get your hero to win against impossible odds, if the villain is stupider and weaker than he is. It follows that a hero must be at a disadvantage when facing his enemies.

Part of the Marvel formula, of course, is the neurotic, conflicted hero. Following the principle of heroic disadvantage, it follows that it helps to give the villain clarity. And there is nothing that promotes clarity like a mad, Utopian vision. What makes the vision mad is not its lack of feasibility; what makes it mad is that getting there requires subverting the things the vision is supposed to accomplish. Dr. Doom is certain that if he makes decisions for people, they'll be better of in the end. In practice that means enslaving them. Real life examples include right wing terror groups who rob banks in the cause of non-interference with individual liberty, or left wing extremists who run kidnapping and extortion rackets in the name of human dignity.

Heroes in comic book universes tend to be conservative. Not necessarily politically so, but they always act to preserve the status quo. In part, this is determined by the need to reset the universe story after story after story. The superhero might not know what he wants, but whatever it is, it does not involve change. Superman does not fight to make America a better place, he fights to preserve the "American way". Batman crusades against crime, but in his wealthy playboy alter ego he does not crusade for education, which would ultimately be more effective.

Tony Stark, arguably, has the worst plan for using his super abilities of any comic book hero.

Stark's super-ability is engineering. A physically super-powered character like Spider-man can only accomplish things that require him to be on the spot; Stark's potential super-deeds can be mass produced. Even a moderately talented engineer could do hundreds of times more for humanity than Spider-man, and Stark is not an ordinary engineer; he is prodigiously talented. He could use his unique engineering prowess to cure heart disease, or to provide mobility to paralysis victims. Instead he chooses to pursue a quixotic crusade against villainy which could be left to dozens, if not hundreds of other costumed superheroes. He's brought himself down from the level of engineering genius to the level of a mere superhero. Instead of designing mass producible solutions to humanity's problems, he designs combat technologies that threaten humanity when they are reproduced. Indeed he spends a great deal of superhero energy trying to put the technology transfer genie back in the bottle.

In short, in the comic book universe it is never the superheroes who have a vision of a better world. It is the supervillains who are agents of change. Their vision, of course, is insane, otherwise they'd be super-philanthropists, not super-villains. But if it weren't for supervillains, superheroes wouldn't have the imagination to put their powers to any productive uses. Superman, by spending an hour a day or so on a super-treadmill, could provide enough power for Metropolis to shut down all it's coal fired power plants, improving the economic life and health of everybody in the city. Instead he wastes his out of costume time playing absurd games with secret identities.

Re:Open Source Terrorism?

[compact_support]

Still, we have ATi (AMD) specifications at least. For many users, closed drivers are as good as no drivers.

Re:Open Source Terrorism?

[fractoid]

For a few ideological zealots, closed source drivers are as good as, or worse than, no drivers. For "many users", closed source drivers make the product work and thus are fine.

Re:Open Source Terrorism?

[totallyarb]

Apartheid is always going to be a touchy subject, so I have to watch my words here, but... Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. That his cause was noble is beyond doubt, and his leadership of the post-Apartheid South Africa was magnificent, but the fact remains that he was the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, which carried out bombings of civilian targets and which was therefore a terrorist organisation.

They say that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, and I agree with the parent post that we have to be very sceptical whenever somebody uses the term "terrorist" because they usually have an agenda in doing so. But we also have to be careful not to condone acts that are genuinely terrorism just because we don't think the perpetrators are bad people. The world isn't made up of saints and sinners, and sometimes even good people cross a line.

Re:Open Source Terrorism?

[DavidShor]

Then please, give me a definition of terrorism that does not make the US military a terrorist organization(And remember not to use intent! Governments do not have feelings, and the slain do not care about the motivations of their killers).

Once you do this, then explain how the US would not be a state sponsor of terror, based on our confirmed historical support of right-wing paramilitaries in Nicaragua, and our more recent involvement funding warlords in Somalia, and violent separatist groups in Iran.

For extra-credit, justify the US's refusal to prosecute perpetrators the My Lai massacre, or our WW2 era concepts of total war, or even better, the African National Congress's tendency to or Irgun.

After you finish with the mental acrobatics necessary to do such a thing, then apply these new and broad standards to Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Mahdi army.

The point? Things are not black and white, and we do not possess any moral high-ground upon which to condemn others. Terrorism is just a tactic, one used for good and bad. And at the same time, a tactic that kills far less people then organized war.