Some viewers thought Iron Man looked pretty familiar, or should we say superior, when The Simpsons decided to parody the Avengers with their latest episode. "Bart the Bad Guy" aired on Sunday and the Vindicators (the Avengers clones in this episode) have a version of Tony Stark that looks like Superior Iron Man edition of the Characters. Magnesium Man is at the center of the poster that the show put out on Twitter and it wasn't long before fans started chiming in on the parody on social media. For what its worth, the episode manages to parody the Disney corporation despite The Simpsons residing firmly under that large umbrella now.
Even more interesting is that the Superior Iron Man was not exactly received very warmly upon its introduction about five years ago. The arc took Stark to San Francisco to be the kind of tech-figure that really makes sense for that kind of character. Still, so much change so soon, along with the Superior Spider-Man, made fans more than a bit uneasy. Add those factors to the idea of the moral grey area of releasing Extremis as an app and you have a fanbase ready to absolutely explode at those kinds of changes. Former Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso told Mashable about the transformation back in 2014.
"What we're doing here is a little different — it's Tony Stark, the one and only Tony Stark — and in the aftermath of the Axis event, he will surrender to his id and his legendary ego," Alonso said. "You'll see Tony in a new place spiritually and intellectually."
"Yes, this is Tony," he added. "What you're seeing in Superior Iron Man is a Tony Stark who's seen both his worst and best impulses all let loose. It is Tony, but he's going to be in a zone now where he's never been. He's more ambitious, cunning, egotistical ... all of those quantities are unharnessed. He has a vision for the world. I like to think his position is defensible — controversial, but defensible."
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