In the beginning, Stark simply doesn't realize what his weapons are being used for. He is naiive, not evil (that would have been far more interesting, a turn from someone who knows damn well that his weapons are sold on the black market and still doesn't quite care until he sees how it affects innocent lives) and believes that only the United States military has access to his stuff. Him realizing that terrorists can also use his weapons is again, abrubt character "development". There is no prompted investigation into his company, to see if maybe, just maybe, there's more to his weapons use than meets the eye. That would have been appropriate character development, as he begins to realize just what his company is responsible for, and not just that his weapons can be stolen. Being handed a picture of his weapons being used overseas again is not. That's just a story point that incites him to action, which an investigation into his company leading to the realization that his weapons were still in use would have done as well.
Bruce Wayne, on the other hand, wants revenge. He goes from wanting revenge, to beginning to realize that his desire for revenge is selfish. From there, he begins to realize that revenge will not be enough, and that he would rather seek justice. He goes on a worldwide search for this, becoming lost, and having to pull himself out of that "loss". Granted, Ra's Al Ghul helps him along, but Bruce finds his path in the end. Past that, he then has a journey after he knows what he wants to do in Gotham, to becoming Batman, which involves the "omen" sequence and Bruce Wayne strategically building himself into a creature of the night. And even after that, there is develop to his character, because once he becomes Batman, he also has to put on a mask as Bruce Wayne, which leads to all kinds of issues with the public and with his friend Rachel. He also undergoes development relevant to his father, and his attempt to mirror their work as Gotham's savior.
Tony Stark realizes that his company's weapons can be misused. He doesn't like this, and he builds a suit of armor, and he becomes Iron Man, embracing the role in a very quick shift in character at the end of the movie. Does the story develop? Sure, as it progresses, as any story does, but his character development is fairly abrubt and not real deep.
Wayne's entire objective changes. In fact, he has three: revenge at the outset, a desire to save Gotham later on and a search for the method to do so, and later, a need to disguise his true nature.
Tony Stark has one objective during IRON MAN: Stop his weapons from hurting innocent people. He never has to be told the right thing to do, he never struggles to achieve his method, he never changes his public persona.
And that's fine, but you just can't really compare the depth of character development between them. Bruce has more development. Much more.
I'm glad they did not take a "Batman Begins" with Stark wandering around philosophizing everything to death with the tea-spoon mentality.
Believe me, so am I, but the philosophizing isn't really where the character development lies. It's Bruce's reaction to the philosophies that allowed him to develop as a character.
Stark may be more "abrubt" as a character, and his actions may be in keeping with the mythology, and that's fine. But that just proves the point even further.
Wayne is smarter at business and planning things, Stark is smarter in science and jumps into things blindly. Wayne would have tested the suit for weeks, while Stark just flew off.
Wayne jumped into things fairly blindly as well. This is a man who went into kill Chill out of revenge, went right "after" Falcone, ran off with the League of Shadows at a moment's notice, went to confront Gordon before he was even finished with the suit, etc. Tony Stark DID test his suit for weeks. What do you think all the "testing" scenes were meant to show? Trial and error, and then success.
They are different characters and to expect the same type of "character development" with Stark with more "moments of introspection" would be out of character.
I don't think Stark actually reasoning out why he changed his mind a little better is out of character. "I saw young men killed by my weapons" just isn't broad enough for the concept of responsibility that the film presents. He needed to go further, and do more than have a kneejerk reaction where he shut down his company's bread and butter.
Regardless of whether the abrubt change is in character or not, it is not an impressive method of structuring character development. Period.
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