Tony Stark practices neo-paganism and the force he worships is technology. Religious systems mediate power relations. Paganism is a religious system which mediates power through specialized knowledge and ritual. It is polytheistic, acknowledging various local deities, such as the god of a particular river or mountain, whose strength is limited and contingent. Unlike in monotheistic religions, pagan deities have a limited sphere of influence. This attitude is recorded in 1 Kings 20, which describes a war between ancient Israelites and Syrians. After losing a battle to the Israelites “the servants of the king of Syria said to him, ‘Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they'” (1 Kings 20:23). The servants of the king of Syria reason, quite correctly according to pagan logic, that the Israelites’ god could not possibly be equally strong in the hills and the plain. According to paganism, the ultimate power in the universe is beyond these local deities–an impersonal force upon which a skilled priest or sorcerer might draw. Paganism is also transactional. Ancient near eastern communities worshiped Baal as a storm god who would bring rain and good harvests if he received the proper sacrifice in the proper way. This is why specialized ritual knowledge is so important: if the sacrifice is not prepared properly, then the god will be angry rather than pleased. Pagan societies grant special status to shamans or priests because of their esoteric ritual knowledge.
As paganism requires precision, so do computer-based technologies. As a small mistake in a ceremony might provoke a god’s wrath, so the wrong key stroke can botch a string of computer code. Improperly regulated electricity can fry circuits. Atmospheric disturbances can disrupt satellite signals. Too much heat can cause servers to melt and systems to crash. Thor prepares us for this concept of neo-paganism based on technology when, in the first Thor movie, he explains to his astrophysicist girlfriend, Jane, that “your ancestors called it ‘magic’ and you call it ‘science,’ but I come from a place where they are one and the same thing.” Science is “magical” because it achieves the seemingly impossible; magic is “scientific” because it is governed by precise laws.
The Cult of Technology
Tony Stark is a priest in the cult of technology. Like any priest, he has specialized knowledge, in this case of mechanical engineering, weapons manufacturing, and computer programming. As paganism promises that the power of the gods can be summoned to enable humans to defeat their enemies, so Tony harnesses the power of technology to defeat his foes. The religious quality of Tony’s faith in technology is signaled early in Avengers: Age of Ultron by a shot of a bumper sticker which says, “Jarvis is my copilot” a parody of the evangelical Christian bumper sticker saying “Jesus is my copilot.” Jarvis, a computer program named after Tony’s father Howard’s butler, represents the remarkable potential of technology. Jarvis implements Tony’s ideas, running endless calculations and simulations to perfect the Iron Man suit and Tony’s other inventions. Tony has faith in Jarvis even when he and the other Avengers fail to defeat Ultron.
In almost every Marvel movie, Tony performs some kind of ritual re-calibration. In Iron Man 2, for instance, Tony creates a new element to power the reactor in his suit by erecting a “prismatic accelerator” consisting of a circular metal coil, a prism, and a laser. While Tony is experimenting rather than performing a previously established ritual, the scene captures the neo-paganism in Tony’s relation to technology: once the proper formula has been enacted, power is received.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvcwPttQsIc
Neo-Paganism in Age of Ultron
In Age of Ultron, Tony and Dr. Banner inadvertently create the villain, Ultron, in their attempt to create an integrated AI system capable of global defense. Ultron becomes a terrorist, however, when he concludes that humanity would be better off dead and that machines are the way of the evolutionary future. After Ultron first goes haywire, Thor blames Tony for playing with forces beyond his comprehension. This is the greatest danger of neo-paganism–unleashing power one cannot control.
Strangely, instead of learning from his apparent mistake–that AI is unpredictable, that something will always go wrong with overly ambitious technologies–Tony doubles-down and convinces Dr. Banner to download Jarvis’s consciousness into the body which Ultron created for himself. Dr. Banner initially suggests they are repeating the same mistake–“this is where it all went wrong”–and Captain America accuses Tony of not knowing what he is doing. Yet, this decision is not merely Tony being stubborn, but touches his fundamental faith in technology. Tony believes his failure was due to a mistaken calibration, as a pagan priest would feel if a ritual were conducted improperly. It would be as inconceivable for Tony to accept that technology could fail completely, that it would be incapable of solving his problem, as it was counter-intuitive for the Syrians to think that the Israelites’ god could defeat their god both in the hills and the plains. Tony’s logic reflects neo-paganism: technology will grant him the power that he needs so long as he performs the correct calculations and calibrations.
The Cult of Technology vs. American Civil Religion
Tony’s seemingly irrational decision, which is perfectly rational following the logic of paganism, leads to one of his many clashes with Captain America. Captain America, of course, is angry because he believes Tony is being reckless and stubborn, but the real conflict between Tony and Cap is religious. If Tony is a neo-pagan worshiper of technology, then Cap embodies American civil religion. While most dictators operate under the premise that “might makes right,” Captain America epitomizes the American ideal that “right makes might”–that good will triumph over evil because it is good. Cap’s courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice, along with his belief in freedom, democracy, truth, and justice encapsulates American ideas of heroism. Captain America was created to fight the Nazis, and his mission reflects the idea derived from the Puritans that America has a special mission in the world. The serum that transformed Steve Rodgers into Captain America not only enhanced his physical strength, but it also multiplied his virtues, making him essentially incorruptible. Tony tells Cap, “I don’t trust a guy without a dark side,” but purity and righteousness are central to American civil religion. Cap will always choose duty over love, as he does in Captain America: The First Avenger when he crashes a bomber into the ice to prevent casualties, even though it means losing Peggy.
A New Pantheon
If Captain America is a kind of saint, the Vision is both literal and figurative deus ex machina: he is a literal “god from the machine” as he emerges from the “regeneration cradle” which Ultron uses to create a body from synthetic organic tissue and vibranium and into which Tony and Dr. Banner download Jarvis. He also serves the typical deus ex machina function by solving a seemingly unsolvable plot problem–how the Avengers will defeat Ultron. The Vision is inexplicably able to lock Ultron out of the internet. Had the Avengers been unable to sever Ultron’s connection to the web, he could have replicated himself infinitely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwoMnuKAnXA
The Vision and Ultron function much like pagan gods, each possessing significant power, but lacking omnipotence. If technology in the abstract is a potentially unlimited source of power, then the Vision is an avatar of that impersonal force. The Vision is identified as divine when, in attempting to describe himself, he says, “I am” before trailing off, an allusion to Yahweh’s self-definition as “I am” to Moses in Exodus 3. Yet, the Vision is neither omniscient nor omnipotent; his power is great, but limited, like Zeus’s or Thor’s.
If the Vision is a just, benevolent deity willing to help humanity and even feels compassion toward Ultron, then Ultron is a wrathful deity intent on destroying humanity. Each of them manifests the power of technology for good and evil. Ultron is fond of quoting the bible and comparing his actions to stories of God’s judgment like Noah’s Flood. Ultron’s desire to destroy the Avengers, particularly his creator Tony, reflects the parricidal conflict in which younger pagan gods overthrow older ones. In Greek mythology, the Titan Kronos overthrew his father Uranus. Kronos was, in turn, overthrown by his son, Zeus. Ultron says, “Everyone creates the thing they dread” and suggests that human life is an agonistic struggle between generations, as people give birth to children “designed to supplant them, to help them end.” Ultron’s ultimate plan is to annihilate humanity by raising a massive hunk of earth into the air and then allowing it to crash back to the surface like a meteor strike. He is attracted to an image of “the world made clean for the new man to rebuild.” Ultron perceives himself as the new god out to destroy the old pantheon–the Avengers. Age of Ultron relies on the idea of neo-paganism in its portrayal of clashes between figures of god-like power.
