About Howard??? I don’t know. I wrote and continued to write.
Howard Stark in the 40′s is a very different person as to what he’s like in the 70′s, 80′s & 90′s. He’s still in his young, playboy phase. But he was also pushed into a war way too early in his life. Like, he was 22 when WW2 started?? Sure back then he was an adult and all that stuff but I’m personally 23 and I still feel like a teenager. Howard having to not only build himself up from nothing in the first 19 years of his life, but also be big enough to have Stark Expo going on, make a fucking flying car, and join in the war effort? Jesus, he must have been a bundle of stress and bad decisions.
And then WW2 has been and gone and he has made things like Midnight Oil, which massacred a whole bunch of people in the worst possible way. He’s invented things that will explode if you poke it too much. His inventions worked, but were really unstable and they killed people.
He’s 28 and he spent most of his 20s in a war doing fucked up shit, intentionally or unintentionally. Of course he would fixate on the only thing he did right - Captain America. And of course he would try and push on, drink, live a carefree life because post-ww2, heck, they won! he deserves to celebrate, to try and forget everything. He pushes it down. Then he’s accused of selling weapons to the enemy. Then he becomes a director and so on and so forth.
And then it gets to the cold war, and he’s a genius, so obviously he’d be a part of it. He never stops inventing. He never stops going forward, and all the while he is still having to deal with the fact that not only did his inventions kill people in the war, but also, will kill people in the Cold War. The guilt he has is so big, but he can’t stop because he has to live up to who he has created. Howard Stark. So he focuses on Stark Industries, he focuses on trying to make a legacy which is worth all this bullshit. And he forgets the playboy act and just becomes focused/serious and desperate to try and make every moment matter.
Then he meets Maria (?? not sure when in the timeline). He falls in love. And it’s amazing. He has Tony in the 70′s, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He has a kid and he can do right by something. But the cold war is still on and he still has to invent, still has to focus on that. So he does. And he misses Tony’s early years. His kid being a kid years. He tries compensates by telling him stories of Captain America and god he never stops going on about Steve. He tries his best. But whenever he’s around, he has to parent. And he parents in the bad way. Telling him off; because that’s all the seems to remember from his father. And that’s the only way he knows how. He acted cold, he acted like a dad. He acted like the Howard Stark we all know and hate.
The cold war begins to die down in 1989. And by that time, TONY’S FUCKING 19 YEARS OLD. Howard has been stressed and uptight and has focused all of his energy into Stark Enterprises and the Cold War. He has snapped at Tony, he has told him off when he was around, because hell, he has no time for father-son time. And because he missed his chance with Tony, all he can do now is try and get him on the right lines. And how can he do that?
He doesn’t know how to be a dad. He never learned, because all he was doing was working. Securing a future for him, because if the Cold War turned hot, then nothing would matter, because they’d all be dead. He was doing all he could; focusing on the Cold War, on Stark Industries. Hell, he never learned to be a decent human being when he was Tony’s age; he has no idea what to do, so he does the only thing he knows how to. And that’s be strict, tell him what he needs to do and disciplines him when he can. Because that’s how to father, right?
And then he dies, two years later, via Bucky.
I’m not defending him. I’m not saying he was a good dad. He was terrible. But I see all of this as motivation for it. As Howard’s brain, and attitude. So yeah, 1940′s Howard is much different from 1990′s Howard. Especially when it comes to his views on parenting.
Because lol Howard would have been a bad dad in the 1940′s but at least he’d care a bit more. He’d be a mess but he would have made it one of his priorities to see the kid. Imagine Tony pre-Iron Man having a kid, yeah, it’d be that.
