Follow Me As I Waste My Life

Hang on, guys--we're going down the rabbit hole here...

If you've been here long enough, you know how obsessed I am with comic book geography, and comic book movie geography. I'm the idiot who will spend hours on Google Earth trying to find the Batcave with data from one half-glimpsed frame in The Dark Knight Rises. Hours!(Spoiler alert--it's under Universal Studios!!)

So when Tony Stark gives us his freakin' address, you know I'm going to completely waste a day or three tracking this down.

Start with this clip from Iron Man Three:


Dude...you gave you street address to a major terrorist. That is so bad-ass!!

Or is it?

Because it turns out that there is no "10880 Malibu Point" (or "Pointe" or "Pt") in ZIP Code 90265. Google Maps gives us the disappointment:

There's a number of 10880s--Malibu Colony Rd, Malibu Pier, Malibu Crest Drive, Malibu Canyon Road. There are a number of other eponymous roads in Malibu--Malibu Road, Malibu Country Drive, Malibu Cove Colony Drive--not a lot of imagination from the city planners, it looks like--all of which are in different ZIP codes or have street numbers far above or below 10880.

So we're stymied, right?

Hahahahaha, you know not the depths of my obsession. Let's turn to the bonus materials that came with the awesome Marvel Movies Briefcase...namely, Tony Stark's bio sheet:

(Now, before you ask, 200 Park Avenue is a real address, and that is the correct ZIP Code. No, Avengers Towers is not really there. Yes, of course I spent hours researching this. Sigh...)

Anyhow, we should look at his California address from the S.H.I.E.L.D. data:

Yes, there is a Cliffside Drive in Malibu. No, there is no 39 Cliffside Drive...the street numbers are all in the 20,000s.

And that ZIP Code? Obviously not California. So where is it from?

People, there is NO 56677 ZIP Code. It does not exist. (56676 and 56678 are in Minnesota, of all places...but 56677 doesn't exist!!)

And now it all begins to make sense! Obviously, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been providing Stark with fictitious addresses, fake locations, to help deter attacks from terrorist warlords and evil think tanks and the Soulfather and whomever!

So when people have complained that Tony Stark was crazy to give out his address like that, well, crazy like a fox!! It was all a trap, trying to draw the Mandarin to a fictitious address!! And that just shows how clever his organization was...because they found Stark anyway, at his real address!!

Damn, I am a loser...