cap_ironman | Info needed!

lol I like the "classified" solution.

I think the day is unknown and the year varies because they don't want him to get too old. (Which leads to some interesting backstory flexibility as he changes fr a child of the cold war to a child of the 80s, and Steve is changing fr being of his Dad's generation to his grandfather's but anyway...)

There were discussions of dates/years in these old posts:
http://cap-ironman.livejournal.com/73608.html
http://cap-ironman.livejournal.com/531752.html

Thanks so much!

I asked the same question to this lovely person (http://vengerturtle.tumblr.com/) and I found their reply useful, so I'll just copy it here:

"I don’t think Tony has a canon birthdate! It really depends on which universe you’re going with! With the comics verse, it was earlier. They’re careful not to give actual ages in comics because they have to keep sliding timelines so nobody ages, but I believe it was his early twenties, because he gets taken hostage and builds his first set of armor within a year of his abduction, which took place within a year after he inherited his dad’s company at 21. So I would put it at 22/23 in the comics. It seems young, I know, but bear in mind that Tony in the comics now is supposed to only be 34/35, so it’s not that odd (his most recent given age was 34, during the Extremis arc, which was written in 2006). He’s aging very slowly, lol.

"In the movies, of course, it was much later; the novelizations for Iron Man peg him as being 35 and Iron Man 2 takes place only six months after IM. Personally I’d put Tony a lot closer to 40 than that, and I know that’s fandom consensus; RDJ looks great, but he doesn’t look 35, and frankly it’s easier for me to buy that Tony is 39 and then that crisis that he has in IM2 being not only because he’s dying but also because he’s just turning 40 that year."

(deleted comment)

Ha, the length of time Steve was frozen keeps getting retconned. I think Steve joined the Avengers about...ten years ago or so? Twelve? Something like that. He was born in 1920 and was frozen sometime in 1945, which means that he's nominally around 35 discounting the years he was frozen. We're pretending all the math makes sense, especially since a year in the 616 comics = 4 years real time (unless I'm misremembering that bit, which is entirely possible).

I.e. Steve and Tony are around the same age, give or take a few years and subtracting the time Steve was frozen.

He was frozen late April in 1945 which if you want to get technical about it, would make him 24 when he was found (now that I think about it if we aren't counting the years in ice, being frozen already messed up his birthday)

I think at one point Marvel said he was born in July 4, 1917 but they obviously changed it to 1920 since in current continuity Bucky was born in 1925 and Bru said that Steve is five years older than Bucky.

Thanks!

LOL, I've always (er, always being in the last year or so I've gotten into comics) found a marked difference between movie and comic Tony because yeah, RDJ just doesn't look 35 for all his handsomeness. Hell, I was thinking nearly 50 because if he's 50 in 2010, that still makes Howard (with Captain America movie canon) around 35-40ish when Tony is born (if we assume he's 20ish in CA, around 1945). If Tony's only 40 in 2010...I mean, Howard was nearly 50 when Tony was born. Not odd per se, but he certainly didn't look over 50 in Iron Man 2 in those videos he made for the Stark Expo.

Maybe Howard's just got good genes, idk. We don't know how old Maria was, so it's entirely possible that she was young enough to be able to have a kid, however old Howard himself was. He's not exactly the fatherly type ~~to say the least omg~~ so I could see him putting off having kids as long as he could.

Hello! I've wondered this some time myself and, well, being interested in astrology led me to basing it off that, I guess.

Based on what I know of Tony's personality, I narrowed it down to Scorpio- which ranges from about oct. 23rd to nov. 21st.

Here's a page dedicated to Scorpios: http://zodiac-signs-astrology.com/zodiac-signs/scorpio.htm

I just saw it as fitting, I guess. I dunno. Plus, Scorpios are water signs, so they match well with Cancers- which is what Steve is. Hope this helps at least a little bit!

It's like I opened the Pandora box again. Dammit Tony why you have to be so mysterious.

I like the idea of his birthday being late in the year, like the oct-nov. Or Even the December theory I read in one of the post above.

IDK, Im going to tell my friend she'll have to decide when she want's her Tony to be born and show her these answers.

Thanks!

Going by

taricalmcacil's comment two threads below, he's apparently a Taurus. Which, hey, hedonism, plus maybe a moon sign in like Gemini or something, compounded by what seriously looked like some level of ADHD in the film.

(Scorpio doesn't really make sense anyway, imo - he isn't one for holding grudges or the kind of cold anger so prominent in a lot of Scorpios, and his type of loyalty is different from a Scorpio's. He can be intense, yeah, but that isn't a trait necessarily unique to Scorpio either.)

lol armchair psychology

~~I'm just commenting all over this post, aren't I.~~

As a non-grudge (mostly, except there was this guy 25 years ago who....) holding Scorpio I have to protest ;-). Although the cold anger fits, when I remember that I should be angry at someone, :-D.

The creativity, drive, ambition, and obsessivenss fit with Scorpio though. And the passion (whether for sex, robots, cars, or one Steve Rogers)

:DDD I also like the idea of him being a Taurus ~~not for any personal reasons oh no~~

~~It's okay, I love talking about astrology and birthdays and comic books, too.~~

note*

I read the post and I just personally don't think Tony fits the characteristics of a Taurus. As Earth signs, they're known for enjoying stability and don't erupt unless pushed too far- which, in that case can be nasty. They tend to linger over things as well and don't enjoy chaos or things being out of order. Even with a Gemini moon it wouldn't alter the nature of the Taurus very much.

Scorpios are known for being intense, mysterious, sexual, passionate, determined, destructive and compulsive. They tend to not trust right away and can be reluctant to express their emotions- even though they are extremely emotional people.

Gemini Moon would fit well because it makes the person have a drive for lots and lots information as well as keeping busy, mental stimulation, and having personal freedom. They also can have easily changeable moods, become bored easily, and can be extremely witty.

And, for kicks, I think he'd have an Aries Mercury. Mercury rules the mind, so under Aries his mind would work quickly, impulsively, originally, freshly, and impractically. He'd be fond of debate and argument- sometimes just for the sake of arguing- and tend to make make decisions without really thinking about them sometimes. He'd also be impatient and come off as egotistical when it comes to his intelligence.

These are just my thoughts though and please don't think I'm trying to be a dick and just argue loool. I actually rather enjoy conversations about astrology xD

*While interested in astrology, I take it with a grain of salt. I don't mean to insult anybody's astrology signs because I'm positive you're all absolutely lovely people.

Yeah, I was side-eyeing the Taurus too, but hey. The hedonism works, the talent with materialism - although Capricorn is best with that - and some of the characterization in fic makes it believable for me that he is the kind of guy who functions best with a minimum of routine. If we tossed Jupiter next to Gemini too, maybe it'd be enough to temper Taurus' ultimate stubbornness, WHO KNOWS.

I'm just not convinced by Scorpio. I'm going mostly off my experience of Scorpios (both parents, closest friends, best romantic partners, and it might possibly be my favorite sign ever) and I don't see in Tony their biggest shared traits. The same kind of blind loyalty, for example. Like, yeah, Scorpios are distrustful in the beginning, but once you earn it, it takes some serious shit to break it. Tony can be the best of friends with people while keeping a record of their DNA secretly hidden away "just in case," and I'm not sure he ever really turns off at least some small level of calculation - although Steve and Pepper seem to be the exceptions, if the only ones except maybe Happy and Rhodey, so. He feels incredibly deeply, but without the additional self-oriented way that lets Scorpios feel things so personally and be so good at their infamous "revenge is a dish best served cold and when least expected" motto. If Pepper got angry, a Scorpio might be hurt by it more so than most signs and retain that hurt for longer, whereas Tony seems to expect it, take it as his due, and just kind of add it to the rest of his pile of self-loathing and move on. If that makes sense?

The difficulty I have with astrology besides the skepticism is how easily many of the signs can be interpreted in such a way as to fit a variety of people and that ultimately it depends on the influences of all the other signs in an individual's chart. A number of the characteristics you listed for Scorpio can also work for Aries, for example, and I think it's less having a particular characteristic so much as how you exhibit it. I'm an Aries (lol) but it's tempered by being on the cusp with Pisces, having a Taurus moon, etc, so some of the broader attributes of Aries make me go lolwut no. There was some study done somewhere where researchers took interpretations of people's natal charts and sent half of them to the correct people and the other half to the wrong people, and the majority of people who'd gotten the wrong charts were like WOW IT'S SO ACCURATE.

(I'm not trying to be a dick either, jsyk, I do find this interesting. :D)

Hmmm, I see where you're coming from then with the whole Scorpio thing. My best friend's actually a Taurus with Gemini moon and she doesn't seem like Tony at all, so that's what put me off of Taurus. I understand what you're saying about Tony's attitude towards someone, such as Pepper, getting angry at him and it makes sense. The whole "pile of self-loathing" thing makes me think of Pisces, but that sign... doesn't really fit him. At all. (I'm a Pisces with a Pisces Moon)

I agree completely. I feel like people bend the traits to fit certain aspects of their lives most of the time. I mean, sometimes I do see some grains of truth, but overall it's just emphasizing certain traits more than others and in different ways for the signs.

Oh god, I love studies like that. It's funny because I bet a whole case could be made on how people subconsciously exert certain traits about their sign that they read about. It's sorta like this study where these 3 groups of people each took a test that was identical content-wise, but certain key words in the questions were either more aggressive, more passive, or neutral (the control group). In the end when they had to turn in the test, the test proctor was talking to someone. So the person could either wait or interrupt. In the end, the people who took the test with the aggressive words interrupted more often while the test with the passive key words caused people to wait. The neutral group had mixed results, but nothing dramatic.

I really wish Marvel would just give us a day or something and resolve this though, loool. I mean, Steve doesn't really fit his sign at all, but at least it's a day! I suppose we'll never truly know, but you're really interesting to talk to! :D

It's funny because I bet a whole case could be made on how people subconsciously exert certain traits about their sign that they read about.

...You may be talking to someone who realized she did this as a kid, ahaha. But holy shit, I just took a cursory look on JStor (http://www.jstor.org/) and there are loads of psychology- (and hard science) based studies and analyses of astrology, okay, why did I not think of this before, curse you for setting me up to miss another night of sleep. ~~You should do it too.~~

(Hey, whatever our personal opinions, the fact that we can bend interpretations to suit our needs means we can find some way to explain what appears to be Tony's canon Taurus-ness. \o/ We've got, what, like ten houses and a bunch of planets and just enough awareness of physics to make sweeping but inaccurate justifications. For great justice and truthiness.)

Oh no, not JStor. I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANYTHING DONE NOW.

(Pft, totally. Just swap a few planets around in different houses and we'll find something that more or less resembles Tony, ahaha)

Oh man, I just read the wrong post. But! I took a look at the timeline things and agree with the year- just not the sign.

I was reading your link, and I came across this: "[O]n the other hand, they are interested in the occult, the paranormal, conspiracy theories and other types of similar unknown mysteries."

LOLOLOL, oh, Tony.

GA

Man, I've been wondering about this myself, and while no age has been given in comics, I found quite a fair bit of evidence (with the birthday party and the Grand Prix in IM2) that in the movies his birthday falls in May (10th May actually).

These movie timeline thingies are pretty interesting to read and give the 'reasoning' for a lot of their assumption too, and both mention the same for Tony's B'day.
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/5395/A-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe-Timeline/
http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2011/05/02/a-marvel-cinematic-universe-timeline/

Hope this helps! :)

Edited 2012-02-11 05:55 (UTC)

Awesome. I was wondering if you one could tell on the movies.

Thank you!

Movie verse he was definitely born in 1973. Novelization says so (which create some continuity issues for IM2, since no 1 year old would have been able to play with the expo model...). Then, going by the date of the of the historic grande prix, which is held 2 weeks before the Grand Prix of Monaco which takes place on Memorial Day weekend here in the states, I'd put his actual birthday sometime around memorial day, between May 25th and May 30th.

/car nerd

Holy shit, by that reasoning, movie-verse Tony could potentially have the same birthday as me (albeit separated by a decade and a half, LOL). I approve of this theory. :D

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