Before he became the iconic Marvel superhero known as Iron Man, the MCU’s Tony Stark was a successful arms dealer whose company built destructive weapons that were then sold to the highest bidder, regardless of their moral standing or intended use of them. But in a comic story that inspired the live-action iteration of the character, it’s shown that the MCU choosing to skip one of Tony’s darkest pre-Iron Man inventions was a wise decision to help sympathize with the film series’ most popular hero.

Making his live-action debut in 2008’s Iron Man, the MCU’s Tony Stark was a flippant genius with visions of grandeur made worse by Tony’s penchant for collecting money first and asking questions never — resulting in his kidnapping in Afghanistan during a showing of his latest military-grade weapon.

Forced to create the Iron Man suit to escape confinement, the trajectory of the MCU’s Tony took much from 2010’s six-issue Iron Man: Extremis series, with the same basic plot beats adapted into the film, save for one: Tony’s comic counterpart sold long-range nuclear delivery devices rather than a cluster bomb.

Tony Stark Sold Long-Range Nuclear Bomb-Enabled Weapons in Marvel Comics

Iron Man: Extremis – Directors Cut #1 – 2010 (Warren Ellis and Adi Granov)

A dark and disturbing fact that would have made Tony a far less sympathetic character in the MCU, this weapons deal reveal comes about in the first issue of Iron Man: Extremis during an interview with a documentarian looking to paint Tony and his arms dealer persona into a corner. Asking about a “supergun” that had a “half-mile long barrel intended to lob tactical nuclear devices some four hundred miles,” it’s shown that the comic version of Tony, though still ignorant to his pre-Iron Man contributions to death and war, was involved in far worse dealings than his MCU self.

Changing Tony’s ex-weapons dealer image into something that feels more immoral, this new device isn’t the Jericho cluster bomb seen in the MCU but instead is a machine of instant genocide, the creation, approval, and sale of which would have made it harder for the MCU’s Tony to be vindicated. And although the Extremis tech from this miniseries was used by the villain Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3 — the comic-accurate detail of Tony essentially being fine with helping militaries throw devastating nuclear devices at one another was toned down for the film, keeping Tony’s actions somewhat justifiable and redeemable.

Tony Stark Selling Nuclear Bomb-Equipped Devices Would Have Made Him Darker but More Interesting in the MCU

Though Tony ended up bucking his arms dealer persona shortly after becoming Iron Man and realizing the cost of his company’s actions in both the live-action and comic space, if the MCU had shown Tony selling these even more devastating weapons before changing course, it would have led to a more interesting and dark character, yet one with a much less clear path to redemption. Tony Stark did a lot he regretted before becoming Iron Man, so it’s probably best that the MCU changed this little detail to keep the character in a better moral standing.

Iron Man: Extremis – Director’s Cut is available from Marvel Comics.