Iron Man: Tony Stark’s MIT Backstory Doesn’t Make Sense

Tony Stark’s MIT credentials in the first Iron Man movie don’t make sense. In 2008, Marvel Studios launched their own cinematic universe with the Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau film. Deemed a big risk for Kevin Feige and his team, their faith in the character and the movie paid huge dividends as it became the solid foundation to the overly successful MCU that fans know today.

Dubbed the gold standard in the franchise’s origin stories, Iron Man set the tone and formula for the rest of MCU. It effectively established Tony’s backstory before that fateful day that he was abducted in Afghanistan that would lead him to assume the mantle of Iron Man. The movie did a great job catching people up about how he is as a person in varying ways, but nothing as efficient as the award ceremony publicity video they played during a gala celebration the genius, billionaire. It revealed his childhood, the death of his parents, his rise to fame and his dynamic with Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) which gave the public an idea how their relationship would develop in the movie. The said clip emphasized just how cerebral Tony is, highlighting his inventions at a young age, as well as his impressive academic record.

To cap off Tony’s outstanding educational background, the Iron Man clip revealed that at age 17, he graduated summa cim laude from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is obviously impressive and is a testament to Tony Stark’s intelligence, but there’s just one problem – MIT doesn’t give out Latin Honors, or any class ranking for that matter. Apparently, the Cambridge-based prestigious university has this system to discourage students to engage in academic competition or use grades for self-gratification. The idea is, if someone was able to be admitted to the school, then the organization believes that they’re pretty much equipped to take on their course load, it’s only a matter of whether or not they’re willing to put the work to adapt to their curriculum easily. This way, those who attend MIT can focus on their own respective works and not obsess about others’.

So, why did Iron Man say that Tony graduated summa cum laude at MIT? The best possible explanation is that it was nothing more than a slip from the writers and the filmmakers of the film. Marvel Studios, and Marvel Comics, unlike DC, tend to ground their stories by using real-life locations and historical events. It’s reflective of how their characters are burdened by day-to-day problems encountered by normal human beings. This makes them more relatable to the public. If anything, the MCU isn’t the only Hollywood movie to commit this mistake. In 2003’s The Recruit, Colin Farrell’s James Douglas Clayton supposedly graduated MIT as a valedictorian, meanwhile 1997’s Contact featured Jodie Foster Eleanor Arroway as an MIT magna cum laude.

It would be interesting to see someone as competitive as Tony being in an academic setting that doesn’t foster competition between students. After all, this is the guy who hacked into the Pentagon on a dare by his friends when he was in high school, so he’s naturally inclined to compete. Perhaps the MCU version of MIT does give out Latin Honors. What’s clear however is that Tony was proud to be an MIT alumnus. This is evidenced by him sporting his MIT Brass Rat during his first appearance after his harrowing experience in Afghanistan in Iron Man. He even returned to his alma mater to deliver an inspiring speech about redefining the future and fund students’ researches in Captain America: Civil War.

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