The latest episode of VisionQuest revealed that Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark indirectly inspired hatred in another villain. Something that has unfortunately become a habit for the superhero, even beyond the grave, and has had catastrophic consequences for his allies and the world.
Now, while Tony Stark didn't have a direct hand in creating any of these villains, with one exception, he was instrumental in their origin. Whether it was buying out their technology, unintentionally driving them out of business, or simply mocking them, he was, in one way or another, a catalyst for their fall.
10 Villains Tony Stark Directly and Indirectly Created
1. Whiplash
To be completely fair to Tony Stark, Ivan Vanko's vendetta against him started long ago, when his father, Anton Vanko, was accused of espionage by Tony's father, Howard Stark. Fired, disgraced, and deported back to Russia alongside his son, Anton died poor and bitter as he watched the son of the man he despised announce himself to the world as Iron Man.
Although it probably didn't help that Tony Stark had to rub Vanko's defeat at the racetrack in his face, even giving him advice on how to improve his arc reactor, which he applied in their final battle in Iron Man 2.
2. Aldrich Killian
Before Tony Stark had his epiphany in that cave, he was an uncaring and selfish playboy through and through. At the height of his ego in Iron Man 3, he deliberately blew off Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian, making him wait on a rooftop on New Year's, where Killian contemplated taking the short way down.
He channeled his resentment toward Tony into founding the think tank AIM, where he pursued the creation of Extremis alongside Rebecca Hall's Maya Hansen. However, without Tony's help, they couldn't complete their work; hence their worlds colliding once again.
3. Ultron
With the help of Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner, the two created Ultron, intended as a peacekeeping program to address future global threats. However, thanks to the Mind Stone's influence and Ultron taking a peek at the horrors of the internet, he decided to end all of humanity.
It could also be argued that Ultron had inherited several of Tony Stark’s distinct mannerisms, including his worst traits. His drive to upgrade humanity for the future was twisted into Ultron's obsession with them evolving through extinction. Tony's darkest impulses manifested in metal.
4. Wanda & Pietro Maximoff
It would be easy to blame Jeff Bridges's Obadiah Stane for selling Stark Industries missiles off the books to the people who killed the parents of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Still, Tony admitted he was naive about where his weapons were going in Iron Man, acknowledging his fault as a matter of ignorance.
Although the twins thankfully don't remain villains for long in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it unfortunately comes at the cost of Pietro's life, saving Clint Barton and a child. After losing Vision in Avengers: Infinity War, in her grief, Wanda sadly returned to villainy in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
5. Helmut Zemo
Since Tony Stark was the one who helped create Ultron, all of his atrocities fell upon him, including the destruction of Sokovia. While Daniel Brühl's Zemo and his family lived outside of the city, that didn't mean the debris was from the Avengers blowing it up.
While Zemo's hatred wasn't exclusive to Iron Man, but to all superheroes, it was still Stark's fault for allowing Ultron to get out of control. An action that still has reverberating consequences today, such as Ultron's continued villainy in VisionQuest.
6. Vulture
Sadly, despite his best intentions, Tony Stark's elevation of the Department of Damage Control to an official U.S. government executive department nearly led Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes to financial ruin. Technically speaking, Stark's actions would also lead to the Shocker and the Tinkerer, two more villains Peter Parker had to deal with in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Using this pilfered technology, Toomes and his crew were able to reverse engineer it to commit thefts undetected by Iron Man or the Avengers. Thankfully, Spider-Man was able to stop him before he hijacked a plane full of arc reactors, and by the end, it seemed like Toomes might have turned over a new leaf after keeping Peter's secret.
7. Damage Control
By far one of the most unexpected consequences of Tony's legacy in the MCU has been the founding of the DODC, originally meant to act as cleanup crews in the aftermath of superhero-related battles, but since Ms. Marvel has moved on to arresting superpowered individuals themselves.
The department, led by Tramell Tillman's William "Bill" Metzger, abandoned all pretense and became a fully villainous organization, kidnapping and experimenting on superpowered people until giving them a fatal brain aneurysm, like in the tragic case of Sara Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
8. Mysterio
After Tony Stark flippantly belittled Jake Gyllenhaal's neurotic Quentin Beck and his technological achievement in the opening of Captain America: Civil War, going so far as to call it BARF (short for Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing), Beck had more than enough reason to hate Stark. What better revenge than becoming a greater hero than Iron Man ever was through deception?
But the worst repercussion of Stark unintentionally driving Beck to villainy was what he did to Peter Parker's life at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, when he revealed his secret identity to the world. Something that Peter had to continue struggling through for four years in Brand New Day.
9. Jocasta
In VisionQuest Episode 6, "Deadlock," it was revealed that Dr. Josephine Carrington's business partners at Markridge Biotech betrayed her and quietly sold her artificial intelligence source code, Proto One, to Stark Industries. Her technology, meant to help the ailing, sold to a weapons manufacturer, infuriated her.
Driven by revenge, Jocasta transferred her consciousness into a synthetic body and systematically hunted down her former colleagues. Together with Ultron, the two plan on unleashing a nanobot virus upon the world, taking control of every human being on the planet.
10. Doctor Doom
When Tony Stark invented time travel in Avengers: Endgame, it set off a domino effect that has impacted the entire Multiverse Saga. Even Tony realized it when a Thanos from another timeline jumped into theirs, telling Chris Evan's Steve Rogers, "You messed with time. It tends to mess back."
Of course, Rogers will no doubt be more directly at fault for Doctor Doom becoming the villain in Avengers: Doomsday, since it's rumored that his staying with Peggy Carter in another timeline caused an Incursion that killed Doom's family. However, Rogers wouldn't have had that opportunity if Tony hadn't given it to him.
