Iron Man
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This article is about the superhero. For other uses, see Iron Man (disambiguation).
Iron Man
IM006.jpg
Cover of Iron Man Vol. 4, Issue #6
The Invincible Iron Man: Extremis Part 6 of 6; Iron Man in his Extremis armor.
Art by Adi Granov.
Publication information
Publisher Marvel Comics
First appearance Tales of Suspense #39 (April 1963)
Created by Stan Lee
Larry Lieber
Don Heck
Jack Kirby
In-story information
Alter ego Anthony "Tony" Edward Stark
Team affiliations Stark Industries
Avengers
Mighty Avengers
New Avengers
West Coast Avengers
Illuminati
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Department of Defense
Force Works
Notable aliases Iron Knight, Invincible Iron Man, Armored Avenger, Iron Avenger
Abilities

* Genius-level intellect
* Formerly a Cyberpathic link with powerful armored suit:
* Superhuman strength
* Supersonic flight at Mach 3
* Energy repulsors
* Missiles
* Durability and regenerative life support

Iron Man is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963), and was created by writer-editor Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby.

Born Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark, he is an industrialist playboy and genius engineer who suffers a severe heart injury during a kidnapping and is forced to build a destructive weapon. He instead creates a powered suit of armor to save his life and escape captivity. He later decides to use the suit to protect the world as Iron Man.[1] Through his multinational corporation, Stark Industries, Tony created military weapons and his own metal suit is laden with technological devices that enable him to fight crime. Initially, Iron Man was a vehicle for Stan Lee to explore Cold War themes, particularly the role of American technology and business in the fight against communism. Subsequent re-imaginings of Iron Man have gradually removed the Cold War themes, replacing them with more contemporary concerns such as corporate crime and terrorism.

Throughout most of the comic's history, Iron Man has been a member of the superhero team the Avengers and has been featured in several incarnations of his own various comic book series. The character has been adapted for several animated TV shows and films. The character is portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. in the live action film Iron Man and features briefly in The Incredible Hulk; Downey will reprise the role in the upcoming sequel, Iron Man 2.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Publication history
o 1.1 Premiere
+ 1.1.1 Thematic origins
o 1.2 Recent years
* 2 Fictional character biography
o 2.1 Origins
o 2.2 Late 1980s and 1990s
o 2.3 2000s
+ 2.3.1 Avengers Disassembled
+ 2.3.2 Illuminati
+ 2.3.3 Civil War
+ 2.3.4 Secret Invasion
+ 2.3.5 Dark Reign
+ 2.3.6 Siege
* 3 Powers and abilities
o 3.1 Armor
o 3.2 Powers
o 3.3 Skills
* 4 Enemies
* 5 Other versions
* 6 In other media
* 7 Cultural influence
* 8 Bibliography
o 8.1 List of Iron Man titles
o 8.2 As a team Member
o 8.3 Collections
* 9 Notes
* 10 References
* 11 External links

[edit] Publication history
[edit] Premiere
Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963): Iron Man debuts. Cover art by Jack Kirby and Don Heck.

Iron Man's premiere was a collaboration among editor and story-plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, story-artist Don Heck, and cover-artist and character-designer Jack Kirby. In 1963, Lee had been toying with the idea of a businessman superhero.[2] He wanted to create the "quintessential capitalist", a character that would go against the spirit of the times and Marvel's readership.[3] Lee said, "I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military ... So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist ... I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him ... And he became very popular."[4] He set out to make the new character a wealthy, glamorous ladies' man, but one with a secret that would plague and torment him as well.[5] Writer Gerry Conway said, "Here you have this character, who on the outside is invulnerable, I mean, just can't be touched, but inside is a wounded figure. Stan made it very much an in-your-face wound, you know, his heart was broken, you know, literally broken. But there's a metaphor going on there. And that's, I think, what made that character interesting".[4] Lee based this playboy's looks and personality on Howard Hughes,[6] explaining, "Howard Hughes was one of the most colorful men of our time. He was an inventor, an adventurer, a multi-billionaire, a ladies' man and finally a nutcase".[7] "Without being crazy, he was Howard Hughes," Lee said.[4]

While Lee intended to write the story himself, he eventually handed the premier issue over to Lieber, who fleshed out the story.[5] The art was split between Kirby and Heck. "He designed the costume," Heck said of Kirby, "because he was doing the cover. The covers were always done first. But I created the look of the characters, like Tony Stark and his secretary Pepper Potts."[6][8]

Iron Man first appeared in 13- to 18-page stories in Tales of Suspense, which featured anthology science fiction and supernatural stories. The character's original costume was a bulky gray armored suit, replaced by a golden version in the second story (issue #40, April 1963). It was redesigned as sleeker, red-and-golden armor in issue #48 (Dec. 1963); that issue's interior art is by Steve Ditko and its cover by Kirby. In his premiere, Iron Man was an anti-communist hero, defeating various Vietnamese agents. Lee later regretted this early focus.[2][9] Throughout the character’s comic book series, technological advancement and national defense were constant themes for Iron Man, but later issues developed Stark into a more complex and vulnerable character as they depicted his battle with alcoholism (Demon in a Bottle) and other personal difficulties.
Tales of Suspense #48 (Dec. 1963), the debut of Iron Man's red-and-gold armor. Cover art by Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky.

From issue #59 (Nov. 1964) to its final issue #99 (March 1968), the anthological science-fiction backup stories in Tales of Suspense were replaced by a feature starring the superhero Captain America. After issue #99 (March 1968), the book's title was changed to Captain America. Iron Man stories moved to the title Iron Man and Sub-Mariner in April 1968, before the "Golden Avenger"[10] made his solo debut with The Invincible Iron Man #1 (May 1968). Lee said that "of all the comic books we published at Marvel, we got more fan mail for Iron Man from women, from females, than any other title ... We didn't get much fan mail from girls, but whenever we did, the letter was usually addressed to Iron Man."[4]

Writers have updated the war and locale in which Stark is injured. In the original 1963 story, it was the Vietnam War. In the 1990s, it was updated to be the first Gulf War,[11] and later updated again to be the war in Afghanistan. However, Stark's time with the Asian Nobel Prize-winning scientist Ho Yinsen is consistent through nearly all incarnations of the Iron Man origin, depicting Stark and Yinsen building the original armor together. One exception is the direct-to-DVD animated feature film The Invincible Iron Man, in which the armor Stark uses to escape his captors is not the first Iron Man suit.
[edit] Thematic origins

Like other Stan Lee creations in the early years of Marvel Comics, such as The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk, the Iron Man story, in its original manifestations, was an exploration of Cold War themes. Where The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk focused on the American domestic and government/bureaucratic responses to Cold War pressures, respectively, Iron Man looked to industry's role in the struggle against communism. Tony Stark's real-life model Howard Hughes was an archetype of American individualism as well as a significant defense contractor who helped develop new weapons technologies.[12]

Tony Stark/Iron Man's reliance on technology and intelligence, rather than the chance transformations of many other superheroes, reinforced the American faith in technological solutions to the military, political and ideological problems of the Cold War. Stark is an idealized portrait of the American inventor. By the 1960s, military weapons development was firmly in the realm of Big Science, with little role for the lone inventor. Issues of autonomy and government intervention in research and questions of loyalty — which real-life American physicists and engineers were also facing, if less dramatically — are prominent themes in early Iron Man storylines.[12]

According to historian Robert Genter, Stark is emasculated by his loss of autonomy as an inventor — a blow to his manhood symbolized by his chest wound — and "Iron Man centers on Stark's inability to reconcile with this wound to his masculinity."[12] Stan Lee used the playboy side of Stark to restore the character's sense of masculinity. Stark conquers women — either romantically or physically, and with female supervillains frequently both — and, writes Genter, "follows the lead of other cultural and literary figures such as Ian Fleming, Mickey Spillane, and Norman Mailer who made unregulated sexuality a form of authenticity."[12]
[edit] Recent years
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Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (December 2008)

A new Iron Man series started in early 2005 with the Warren Ellis written storyline "Extremis" with artist Adi Granov.[13] The series tied-in with Civil War, before the title changed its name to The Invincible Iron Man with issue #17 and then Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in issue #29, the last arc of which tied into Secret Invasion and resulted in the launch of a War Machine ongoing series.

Another series Invincible Iron Man started in July 2008 and tied into Dark Reign in issues #8-19.[14] The fallout from the Secret Invasion leads to a low point for the character of Tony Stark, according to Fraction:
“ Public opinion is against Tony, but he still wants to put on a brave face and a good show for the rest of the world and hope for the best. As the former preeminent superhuman lawmaker and law enforcer, he wants to be seen as obeying the law. So Tony really tries to play by the rules and long story short, Osborn makes it clear that there’s no place for him and then goes after the superhero identity database that kicked off Civil War. Tony realizes that Norman is not pretending at all to be law abiding and that in fact the keys to the kingdom have just been handed over to a madman. So Tony kicks off his plan . . . his doomsday plan.[14] ”
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Origins

The son of a wealthy industrialist and head of Stark Industries, Howard Stark, and Maria Stark, Anthony Stark is born on Long Island. A boy genius, he enters MIT at the age of 15 to study electrical engineering. After his parents' accidental deaths in a car crash, he inherits his father's company.

While observing the effects of his experimental technologies on the American war effort, Tony Stark is injured by a booby trap and captured by the enemy, who then orders him to design weapons for them. However, Stark's injuries are dire and shrapnel in his chest threatens to pierce his heart. His fellow prisoner, Ho Yinsen, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work Stark had greatly admired during college, constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart, keeping him alive. In secret, Stark and Yinsen use the workshop to design and construct a suit of powered armor, which Anthony uses to escape. But during the escape attempt, Yinsen sacrifices his life to save Tony's by distracting the enemy. Stark takes revenge on his kidnappers and heads back to rejoin the American forces, on his way meeting a wounded American Marine Corps helicopter pilot, James "Rhodey" Rhodes.

Back home, Stark discovers the shrapnel lodged in his chest cannot be removed without killing him, and he is forced to wear the armor's chestplate beneath his clothes to act as a regulator for his heart. He must also recharge the chestplate every day or else risk the shrapnel killing him. The cover for Iron Man is that he is Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. To that end, Iron Man fights threats to his company, such as Communist opponents Black Widow, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man, as well as independent villains like the Mandarin. No one suspects Stark of being Iron Man as he cultivates an image as a rich playboy and industrialist. Two notable members of Stark's supporting cast at this point are his personal chauffeur Harold "Happy" Hogan and secretary Virginia "Pepper" Potts, to both of whom he eventually reveals his dual identity. Meanwhile, Jim Rhodes would find his own niche as Stark's personal pilot of extraordinary skill and daring.

The comic took an anti-Communist stance in its early years, which was softened as opposition rose to the Vietnam War.[2] This change evolved in a series of stories with Stark profoundly reconsidering his political opinions and the morality of manufacturing weapons for the military. Stark, however, shows himself to be occasionally arrogant and willing to let the ends justify the means.[15][16] This leads to personal conflicts with the people around him, both in his civilian and superhero identities. Stark uses his personal fortune not only to outfit his own armor, but to develop weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D. and other technologies such as the Quinjets used by the Avengers, and the image inducers used by the X-Men.

Eventually, Stark's heart condition is discovered by the public and cured with an artificial heart transplant. However, Stark also develops a serious dependency on alcohol. The first time it becomes a problem is when Stark discovers that the national security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. has been buying a controlling interest in his company in order to ensure Stark's continued weapons development for them. At the same time, Stark's business rival Justin Hammer hires several supervillains to attack Stark. At one point, the Iron Man armor is even taken over and used to murder a diplomat. Although Iron Man is not immediately under suspicion, Stark is forced to hand the armor over to the authorities. Eventually Stark and Rhodes, who is now his personal pilot and confidant, track down and defeat those responsible, although Hammer would return to bedevil Stark again. With the support of his then-girlfriend, Bethany Cabe, his friends and his employees, Stark pulls through these crises and overcomes his dependency on alcohol. These events were collected and published as Demon in a Bottle.

Some time later, a ruthless rival, Obadiah Stane, manipulates Stark emotionally into a serious relapse. As a result, Stark loses control of Stark International, becomes a homeless alcoholic vagrant and gives up his armored identity to Rhodes, who becomes the new Iron Man for a lengthy period of time. Eventually, Stark recovers and joins a new startup, Circuits Maximus. Stark concentrates on new technological designs, including building a new set of armor as part of his recuperative therapy. Rhodes continues to act as Iron Man but steadily grows more aggressive and paranoid, due to the armor not being calibrated properly for his use. Eventually Rhodes goes on a rampage, and Stark has to don a replica of his original armor to stop him. When Circuits Maximus comes under assault from Stane, Stark uses the completed next-generation Silver Centurion armor to confront Stane in personal combat. Stark's skill proves superior over Stane's unpracticed use of his own variant suit (known as the Iron Monger). Rather than give Stark the satisfaction of taking Stane to trial, Stane commits suicide.[17] Shortly thereafter, Stark regains his personal fortune, but decides against repurchasing Stane International until much later; he instead creates Stark Enterprises, headquartered in Los Angeles.
[edit] Late 1980s and 1990s

In an attempt to stop other people from misusing his designs, Stark goes about disabling other armored heroes and villains who are using suits based on the Iron Man technology, the designs of which were stolen by his enemy Spymaster. His quest to destroy all instances of the stolen technology severely hurts his reputation as Iron Man. After attacking and disabling a series of minor villains such as Stilt-Man, he attacks and defeats the government operative known as Stingray. The situation worsens when Stark realizes that Stingray's armor does not incorporate any of his designs. He publicly "fires" Iron Man while covertly pursuing his agenda. He uses the cover story of wanting to help disable the rogue Iron Man to infiltrate and disable the armor of the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives known as the Mandroids, and disabling the armor of the Guardsmen, in the process allowing some of the villains that they guard to escape. This leads the United States government to declare Iron Man a danger and an outlaw. Iron Man then travels to Russia where he inadvertently causes the death of the Soviet Titanium Man during a fight. Returning to the U.S., he faces an enemy commissioned by the government named Firepower. Unable to defeat him head on, Stark fakes Iron Man's demise, intending to retire the suit forever. When Firepower goes rogue, Stark creates a new suit, claiming that a new person is in the armor.

Stark's health continues to deteriorate, and he discovers the armor's cybernetic interface is causing irreversible damage to his nervous system. His condition is aggravated by a failed attempt on his life by a mentally unbalanced former lover which injures his spine, paralyzing him. Stark has a nerve chip implanted into his spine to regain his mobility. Still, Stark's nervous system continues its slide towards failure, and he constructs a "skin" made up of artificial nerve circuitry to assist it. Stark also begins to pilot a remote-controlled Iron Man armor, but when faced with the Masters of Silence, the telepresence suit proves inadequate. Stark then designs a more heavily-armed version of the suit to wear, the "Variable Threat Response Battle Suit", which becomes known as the War Machine armor. Ultimately, the damage to his nervous system becomes too extensive. Faking his death, Stark places himself in suspended animation to heal as Rhodes takes over the running of Stark Enterprises and the mantle of Iron Man using the War Machine armor. Stark ultimately makes a full recovery by using a chip to reprogram himself and resumes the Iron Man identity. When Rhodes learns that Stark has manipulated his friends by faking his own death, he becomes enraged and the two friends part ways, Rhodes continuing as War Machine in a solo career.

The story arc "The Crossing" reveals Iron Man as a traitor among the Avengers' ranks, due to years of manipulation by the time-traveling dictator Kang the Conqueror. Stark, as a sleeper agent in Kang's thrall, kills Marilla, the nanny of Crystal and Quicksilver's daughter Luna, as well as Rita DeMara, the female Yellowjacket, then an ally of the Avengers (the miniseries Avengers Forever later retcons these events as the work of a disguised Immortus, not Kang, and that the mental control had gone back only a few months).

Needing help to defeat both Stark and the ostensible Kang, the team travels back in time to recruit a teenaged Anthony Stark from an alternate timeline to assist them. The young Stark steals an Iron Man suit in order to aid the Avengers against his older self. The sight of his younger self shocks the older Stark enough for him to regain momentary control of his actions, and he sacrifices his life to stop Kang. The young Stark later builds his own suit to become the new Iron Man, and, remaining in the present day, gains legal control of "his" company.

During the battle with the creature called Onslaught, the teenaged Stark dies, along with many other superheroes. However, Franklin Richards preserves these "dead" heroes in the "Heroes Reborn" pocket universe, in which Anthony Stark is once again an adult hero; Franklin recreates the heroes in the pocket universe in the forms he is most familiar with rather than what they are at the present. The reborn adult Stark, upon returning to the normal Marvel Universe, merges with the original Stark, who had died during "The Crossing", but was resurrected by Franklin Richards. This new Anthony Stark possesses the memories of both the original and teenage Anthony Starks, and thus considers himself to be essentially both of them. With the aid of the law firm Nelson & Murdock, he successfully regains his fortune and, with Stark Enterprises having been sold to the Fujikawa Corporation following Stark's death, sets up a new company, Stark Solutions. He also returns from the pocket universe with a restored and healthy heart. After the Avengers reform, Stark demands a hearing be convened to look into his actions just prior to the Onslaught incident. Cleared of wrongdoing, he rejoins the Avengers.