My friends advised me for weeks that I had to see “Iron Man.” I resisted, citing the utter lack of quality in the majority of recent movies and recent action movies in particular. They said this one is different; see it and you will understand. On Father’s Day, I relented and saw it with my family, subsequently continuing my streak of making incorrect decisions based on preconception.

“Iron Man” is a fascinating movie, not merely from the action-adventure standpoint, but from the sociocultural one. Watching a quality politicized superhero flick makes you realize what people saw in comics back in the day. The stories were mostly allegories of the U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. or capitalism vs. communism themes, though to most people of my generation the stories seem more caked in action and violence than politico-drama. The most recent Marvel movie, though, does a shockingly adequate job of highlighting the paradox of modern capitalism in a globalized world: at what point does profiting from the system become an unpatriotic act?

For those unfamiliar with the movie, Tony Stark is a brilliant engineer who takes over his father’s weapons business – and proceeds to make it, and himself, a household name. In designing ever more complex, and effective, weapons, Stark parallels the archetypal American industry: industrial, efficient, and profitable. Innovation is the driver, exemplifying all that young Americans are told to admire. In his free time, Stark is the celebrity superhero that we so often worship in the real world, as much for his money and style as for his ability to attract the fairer sex and social charm.

The problem is Stark’s day job is not that of Kobe Bryant or Brad Pitt. To support his extravagant manner of living, Stark designs the devices that (in the movie) the U.S. military uses in war engagements. Certainly, no self-respecting American would ask the valiant soldiers to enter combat unprepared, but there is a difference between enforcing political policy as war and enabling war to be a massively political tool. The former is clearly patriotism while the latter is debatably so.

It is in this netherworld that the politicization becomes apparent. During the course of the movie, Stark realizes the dilemma of producing such industrially efficient death machines and adjusts his life accordingly. He does this in two ways: the first is by changing the way his company operates, while the second is by literally becoming a superhero.

Without becoming a cinematic love-fest, Iron Man proceeds to argue that industry has a greater purpose than pure profit – the subtle political message of the action movie. In modern America, we extol the virtues of corporations that generate high profit (and therefore high stock growth) yet revile those values in corporations of the military-industrial complex like Halliburton. We ask our companies to make money for us yet sometimes we critique this philosophy, failing to grasp the inherent paradox of capitalism.

To be continued next week … Happy Independence Day Chambana!

Lee is a recent graduate who wonders how a movie could so glorify an “enginerd” who is not he.