Tony StarkIron Man

COOL EXEC, HEART OF STEEL

Tony Stark is the wealthy son of industrialist and weapons manufacturer Howard Stark and his wife, Maria. Tony grew up a genius with a brilliant mind for technology and inventions and, naturally, followed in his father’s footsteps, inheriting Stark Industries upon his parents’ untimely death. Tony designed many weapons of war for Stark Industries, far beyond what any other company was creating, while living the lifestyle of a bon vivant.

Fate would take a dark turn for Tony Stark once he decided to consult on a weapons contract overseas in enemy terrain. An improvised explosive device exploded underneath Tony’s transport, and he was brought to the brink of death.

Awakening as a prisoner of the warlord Wong-Chu, Tony made a gruesome discovery: the explosion had sent a piece of shrapnel mere inches from his heart. It was only the timely intervention of fellow captive and engineer Yinsen that kept the shrapnel at bay.While held captive, and forced to work on weapons, Tony turned his near-death experience into inspiration. What if he could power an iron suit that would not only keep the shrapnel from killing Tony, but also help him to escape?

Combining their genius, Tony and Yinsen built a mighty suit of iron armor that would be dubbed Iron Man. This first suit left a lot of room for improvement, but it still did what Tony couldn’t do alone. Yinsen sacrificed his life so the final preparations could be made, and Tony, wearing the Iron Man suit for the first time, escaped and returned to the United States a changed man.With full access to his equipment, Tony built a new, more streamlined suit of armor—the first of many updated versions he would create—and dedicated his life to fighting threats to the world.

IRON MAN

Since that first suit built in a cave, Tony has created dozens of new suits and upgrades over the years. However, throughout the 50-plus Iron Man models, there are common offensive and defense capabilities found in most iterations.

The primary weapon contained within every suit, the repulsor rays use energy pulses to repel and disrupt enemies and are generated through the suit’s gauntlets. The suit’s booster jets enable Stark to fly fast enough to break the sound barrier, and maneuver more quickly than any fighter jet.

Iron Man’s helmet provides Tony with a heads-up display that gives him 360-degree vision, access to information about his surroundings and enemies, and the ability to transmit and block transmissions along any frequency. The helmet also gives Tony a degree of resistance to EMP and psychic-based attacks.

A weapon centered in Iron Man’s chest, the unibeam is capable of projecting dazzling light, and can also be used as a powerful force beam that is even more powerful than the repulsor ray.

Each of Tony’s suits provides a full range of telecommunications, including the ability to jam and transmit on any frequency, and sophisticated artificial intelligence capable of piloting Tony to safety should he be rendered unconscious.

Beyond his all-purpose suits, Tony has created specialized armor for specific scenarios. Some notable examples include the Hulkbuster armor (so-named as its size and strength allow Tony to stand toe-to-toe with the Hulk, when needed), along with deep-space, underwater and stealth suits.

One thing common to most of Iron Man’s recent suits is the integration of Extremis, an attempt to re-create the super-soldier serum with many modifications. When using Extremis, Tony can interface with his brain’s repair center, which allows him to rebuild his body from scratch. Essentially, Tony is able to merge his mind, body, and armor in unprecedented ways. He can “armor up” in mere seconds—with armor stored within himself—gains split-second reaction times, and can even generate new internal organs to replace the old. Unfortunately, Extremis is also vulnerable to being hacked, and the Skrulls and other organizations have done just that.

REPULSING THE REPULSIVE

Numerous villains have made up Iron Man’s gallery of enemies, with many of them similarly armor-based in order to counter Iron Man’s abilities. The Russians have created both the Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man to try and stop the threat posed by Iron Man, and have fought Stark through numerous iterations.

The Mandarin is one of Iron Man’s fiercest archvillains. A tactical, mystical and technological genius, the Mandarin sought ultimate power, and often Iron Man is the only one smart and strong enough to stand in his way. In fact, the Mandarin, working with warlord Wong-Chu, captured Tony Stark and indirectly brought about the creation of Iron Man. The Mandarin has returned again and again to pit his magic and intellect against Stark technology.

A competing industrialist, Obadiah Stane, never lost his taste for weapons and was a great fan of psychological warfare. He took hostile control of Tony Stark’s company for a time, and though he perished in battle, his descendants are perhaps even more ruthless than he was.

Another rival industrialist on par with Stane, Justin Hammer is interested in the accumulation of wealth and power and sees Tony’s altruism as a big stumbling block toward that goal.Other foes of note for Tony through the years have included the Ghost, Radioactive Man, and nefarious organizations like Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM).

FIGHTING AND SMITING

Iron Man can’t always fight alone and has many notable allies and teammates. Stark is one of the founding members of the Avengers and is considered one of the “Big Three” core members, along with Thor and Captain America. While he has left the team at various points for personal reasons, he has always returned to fight alongside them again and again. He is one Avenger that can always be counted on.

Originally, Tony’s secretary Pepper Potts and limousine driver Happy Hogan grew to be Tony’s two best friends in the world. A romance between Pepper and Tony fizzled out, but she and Happy found happiness together for a time, until his tragic death. More recently, Pepper has taken up occasional super heroics herself, with an armored suit Tony has created for her called Rescue.

Former military man James “Rhodey” Rhodes became Tony’s bodyguard and trusted confidant. When Tony’s alcoholism got the better of him, Rhodey became the new Iron Man. Later, Rhodey donned a weapons-laden variation on the Iron Man suit and dubbed himself War Machine, fighting alongside Tony many times.

During a mind-clearing vacation from Earth, Tony joined the Guardians of the Galaxy, making fast friends with Rocket Raccoon especially. While Tony would eventually return to Earth, Rocket’s technology has made its way into many successive iterations of the Iron Man armor.

AMAZING ARMOR, BLAZING POWER

Since creating that first suit, Iron Man has gone through numerous events significant to his life.Originally, to cover for Tony Stark’s escapades as Iron Man, he convinced the world that Iron Man was his bodyguard. This helped explain the perceived close ties between Stark and Iron Man to both the outside world and even those who fought alongside Iron Man.

It was a brawl with the trickster god Loki that convinced Iron Man, the Wasp, Ant-Man, Thor and the Hulk to band together as a team. The Mighty Avengers stood tall, battling foes that no single one of them could face alone. Though the temperamental Hulk would leave straight away, Iron Man would become one of the Avengers’ core members, along with Thor and a newly revived Captain America.

Tony, working alongside Nick Fury, was also a key player in the buildup of S.H.I.E.L.D. from a tiny, secretive government branch to the well-equipped, global peacekeeping force it became. Though Tony and his chauffeur and best friend Happy Hogan both fell in love with secretary Pepper Potts, Tony, out of respect for his friend, agreed to step aside. Pepper and Happy were soon married, though their relationship would be a roller coaster.

Having faced near death more than once thanks to his injury, Tony underwent a heart transplant, and finally no longer relied on the Iron Man suit to live.

Tony’s dependence on alcohol was brought to a head when Iron Man failed in battle while under the influence. It was only the timely intervention of friends Bethany Cabe and Edwin Jarvis that Tony was able to keep his alcoholism at bay for a time. Alcoholism being what it is, though, is something Tony will have to manage for life. In fact, it wasn’t long after this that Tony relapsed, this time passing along his armor to Rhodey to become the new Iron Man until he was able to recover. This relapse also cost him his company, which he lost to his fiercest rival, the manipulative businessman Obadiah Stane.

On the road to recovery, but looking for a change in scenery, Tony moved to California. Back in the armor, he joined the newly formed West Coast Avengers. This newfound resolve led him to create a new company in Silicon Valley, called Stark Enterprises.

Sick of finding Stark technology among his enemies, Iron Man went about neutralizing all his technology among his armored foes. Unfortunately, many of these designs were used by S.H.I.E.L.D., who weren’t at all happy about their Mandroids and Guardsmen being shut down. Ultimately, Iron Man squared off against government operatives and temporarily faked his own death, something he would do more than once in his career.

Eventually, Tony discovered that the Iron Man suit was causing his nervous system to deteriorate. After briefly experimenting with a telepresence suit, Tony created the War Machine suit to protect himself. He again faked his death and put himself into suspended animation, passing the War Machine suit along to Rhodey, who continued in his stead.

After Tony recovered, he seemingly went rogue, murdering several people and forcing the Avengers to recruit a teenage Tony Stark from the past to combat him. These events were later revealed to be manipulation by the time traveler known as Immortus, but in the interim, the adult Tony was killed.

During a battle with Onslaught, the younger Iron Man was one of the many heroes, including his fellow Avengers, who were shunted into an alternate universe and believed dead. Eventually returning to his own reality, this younger Tony merged with a resurrected adult Tony thanks to Franklin Richards, who was in turn exonerated for previous charges. Stark then set up a new company called Stark Solutions and rejoined the Avengers.

The Iron Man armor technology became so sophisticated that it gained sentience and malevolence. While attempting to shut down this sentient armor, Tony Stark had a heart attack. The armor replaced Tony’s heart with an artificial one to save his life, and Tony began steering himself away from such high technology out of fears of this incident happening again.

After Tony revealed his identity as Iron Man to the world at a press conference, the U.S. military determined it now had the ability to use Stark technology wherever it wanted. Tony managed to become Secretary of Defense, hoping to keep an eye on said technology.

Tony was forced to resign as Secretary of Defense due to manipulation by an insane Scarlet Witch, who brought about the destruction of Avengers Mansion and the temporary break-up of the Avengers. Soon after, Stark would join a gathering of heroes to stop a Super Villain prison breakout, leading to the formation of a new Avengers team who would use Stark Tower as their headquarters.

During this period, Tony began using the Extremis serum to merge his mind, body and armor together in unprecedented ways.

The Avengers—and the Super Hero community at large—would face tremendous conflict when Tony faced off with longtime ally Captain America regarding the Superhuman Registration Act, siding with the government’s decision to regulate superheroes. The two ended up leading their own large factions of heroes, fighting for what they believed in, though Tony’s side eventually won the hard-fought conflict. In the wake of this Civil War, Stark would help convince Bucky Barnes to become the new Captain America after Steve Rogers was assassinated, while Tony himself became director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony was unable to stop the Earth from being taken over by Skrulls, as the aliens bypassed Stark defense technology used around the world. He was forced to resign as S.H.I.E.L.D. director and the Avengers again temporarily disbanded, replaced for a time by a government-sanctioned team run by Norman Osborn.

As the Extremis serum began to fail in Tony’s body, causing his mind to deteriorate, he decided to erase all the information about Earth’s heroes gathered by the Superhuman Registration Act from the world’s computers, to stop it from falling into Norman Osborn’s hands. To restore Tony to his previous intelligence, his friends “rebooted” his mind, though doing so wiped out his memories of the Super Hero Civil War and the events that followed.

Tony created yet another new company, Stark Resilient, to provide free energy to the world. This enraged traditional industrialists like Justin Hammer. After Tony overcame mind control by a resurgent Mandarin, he decided to leave Earth for a time and join the Guardians of the Galaxy.Thanks to machinations by the Red Skull, many of Earth’s heroes and villains had their morality inverted. The now idealistically evil Tony Stark decided to sell the Extremis technology to the world, creating a utopia but leaving everyone dependent on him both physically and monetarily. It was only through a reboot of the universe during a second “Secret Wars” event that this malevolent Tony Stark was undone.

Once again, the world’s heroes came into great conflict with each other, this time over an Inhuman named Ulysses that could see crimes and other events before they happened. When the Avengers used this precognition to ambush Thanos, Rhodey was killed in the process, and Tony decided to make sure nobody used Ulysses’ abilities ever again.

This culminated in a battle between Iron Man and Captain Marvel. Tony lost and went into a coma. In his absence, an A.I. version of Tony assisted young genius Riri Williams in creating a new suit of armor, allowing her to fight as Ironheart in Tony’s absence.