Wow, I’m at four hundred posts. I
never thought that I’d make it this far. Thank you, my audience, for sticking
with me for these last few years. I’ve enjoyed writing my various hero and
villain profiles, TV and movie series, and anime, and hope to keep making these
post well into the future. In honor of this special occasion I feel that I should
do a post on arguable the most popular superhero of the last decade, Iron Man.
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| The start of something amazing. |
Iron Man began his life as Anthony “Tony”
Stark. Son of Howard and Maria Stark, Tony was given a life of extreme privilege.
Being the son of one of the richest industrialists in the word will do that.
Tony was extremely intelligent, graduating MIT with Master’s degrees in Engineering
and Physics before he was old enough to vote. Sadly, his parents died in a car
accident a few years after graduation, and Tony inherited Stark Industries. Tony
proved to be an excellent CEO and owner of Stark Industries, pushing the technology
his company produced to it’s very limit. Unfortunately, Tony’s personal demons
made it hard to like the man. He had a weakness for alcohol, gambling and
women.
Things took a turn while showing
off some new weapons during the Vietnam War. Tony was injured by a booby trap and
captured by the Viet Cong, led by a fella named Wong-Chu. Wong-Chu wanted his
prisoner to build him weapons to fight off the Americans, but the shrapnel in
Tony’s chest effected his productivity. Chu forced another prisoner, Ho Yinsen,
to build a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from ending Stark. Stark
and Yinsen worked on weapons for Chu, but in secret also began work on a suit
of powered armor to aid them in an escape attempt. The armored exoskeleton would
protect Tony and was equipped with enough weaponry to plow through a small army.
Which he did, but unfortunately Yinsen was killed providing a distraction for
Tony to escape. Tony was picked up by the US Army, and met his future best friend
James “Rhodey” Rhodes.
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| Yes, there was a time when Iron Man fought crime in the Mark I Armor. |
Once back stateside began upgrading
his suits of armor and started battling threats to both himself, his company,
and/or the United States. Tony circulated the story that the Invincible Armored
Iron Man was his personal bodyguard. He pulled a Batman, portraying himself as
too much of a playboy industrialist for anyone to take him seriously as a
superhero. He cultivated a plethora of villainous opponents, including Black
Widow (while she was still a Russian Agent); a pair of armored villains, The Crimson
Dynamo (multiple Russian Agents don the suit) and Titanium Man (Merc in a
battle suit); and the Mandarin.
He quickly formed the original
Avengers alongside Thor, Ant-Man and The Wasp, and the Hulk. The heroes came together
after Thor’s villainous brother Loki attempted to use the Hulk to kill Thor. Iron
Man and the insect duo were also drawn in after tracing the distress call the
Loki used to draw Thor to the Hulk. While the team initially believed that the
Hulk was the menace, they ultimately came together to stop Loki and agreed to
work together should ever an issue too big for any one of them to arise.
As the years went on, Tony’s dependence
on alcohol grew more severe. Nearly dying on several occasions can do that to a
fella. And finding out SHIELD had been buying shares of Stark Industries in an
attempt to force Tony to continue to build weapons for them. Not cool Fury, not
cool. It took some doing but he put the kibosh on that. Around the same time, criminal
industrialist Justin Hammer used his own resources, a small army of Tony’s
minor tech-based opponents, and an expert hacker to control Tony’s Iron Man
Armor and used it to kill a diplomat and make Tony’s life a living hell. With help
of Rhodey and his other allies, Tony was able to defeat Hammer’s plans. He didn’t
bounce back as well when another corporate type named Obadiah Stane attacked him
personally again. Stane seized control of Stark Industries using dirty deals,
and hired a black widow, not Natasha, to get Tony to fall in love with her just
to reveal she was a paid actress. Tony spiraled into Alcoholism, hitting rock bottom
and becoming a homeless vagrant. He turned over his Armory and the title of
Iron Man over to Rhodey, believing he was no longer fit for the role but knew
an Iron Man would always be needed. After some time on the street, Tony started
recovering and started a new company to try and get his life back together called
Circuits Maximum. He developed a lot of new tech, and started building a new Suit
of Armor as therapy. This turned most fortuitous as Rhodey snapped. Turns out, they
hadn’t recalibrated the Iron Man Armor to fit Rhodey’s neural patterns. The
suit attempting to rewrite his brainwaves to fit Tony’s basically drove him
into a homicidal rage. Tony donned his new suit and was able to stop Rhodey.
Having figured out that Stane was behind ruining his life, Tony went to face
off against him. Stane had used the armor designs he’d taken with the company
to build his own suit. The returned Iron Man faced off against the Iron Monger.
Tony defeated Stane, but the latter committed suicide rather then face
punishment for his crimes.
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| You wish you look this good. |
Since then, Tony has grown to be one
of the ‘faces’ of heroes in the US. He has run several Avengers Teams, SHIELD,
and other projects all in the attempt to make life safer for everyone. He’s
continued to battle his alcoholism, corporate takeovers, and villains stealing
his tech. To cover all of his adventures would take way more time, so just know
he’s been one of the busiest heroes in the Marvel Universe.
Tony began his career as simply a brilliant
weapons designer. He used his marvelous brain and near unlimited resources to build
himself an arsenal of powered armor to battle his enemies. He’s pretty much got
a suit for every occasion. Such occasions include armors for deep sea, deep space,
Arctic conditions, Stealth missions, and the ever popular Hulkbuster Armor. That’s
the one that can wrestle the Hulk. Most suits include repulsor technology, the
beams of energy that fires from his gauntlets and boots, and the uni-beam, a
high powered repulsor on his chest. The suits allow him to fly, take enormous
amounts of punishment, and give him super-strength. The suits have become so advanced
that Tony needs an AI to help him operate it. He’s had several AI programs including
JARVIS, named after Edwin Jarvis, Tony’s butler; HOMER; and later a program
called PEPPER. I wonder if anyone told Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts? She’d be…
interested in that, I think. Tony is one of the most brilliant men of the Marvel
Universe, often working with fellow eggheads Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Hank McCoy,
Bruce Banner, and T’Challa to handle some of the more complicated issues that the
Marvel Universe creates. He’s a brilliant mathematician, physicist, chemist,
and software engineer. He’s also a charismatic leader, having been put in
charge of several teams.
Tony has had powers at one time or
another. Using an advanced Techno-organic virus called Extremis, he’d been able
to control his suit remotely and use an advanced nanobot suit that he could store
in his body. He’s lost and regained this power a few times over the years.
Tony has appeared in a TON of
Marvel properties over the years. I’ll stick to the shows and series I know
best, for simplicities sake.
Obviously the one you all know is
from the Marvel Cinematic Universe starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.
The first film follows his creation pretty closely. Billionaire playboy philanthropist
Tony Stark is kidnapped by terrorist following a weapons test. Though in this
iteration it’s a Middle Eastern group called the Ten Rings instead of the Viet
Cong. He escapes thanks to Yinsed and his Mark One Armor, and comes home only
to discover his technology is being sold under the table to groups like the Ten
Rings by his long-time business partner and mentor Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).
He builds several versions of his Iron Man Armor to battle the Ten Rings and
Stane. The final battle taking place atop the Arc Reactor at Stark Industries.
The movie ends with Tony revealing to the world that he’s Iron Man (bypassing the
Bodyguard lie) and being told by Nick Fury that he’s not the only hero in the
world.
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| This is what you'd get if Iron Man and Spider-Man did a fusion dance. |
The sequel saw Tony battling his
industrial opponent Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), an insane Russian Physicist who
uses an arc reactor based electric whips named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) and
poisoning from the palladium in that the Arc Reactor in his chest uses to keep
the shrapnel from his heart. The poisoning makes Tony spiral, much like his alcoholism
in the comics, and causes a rift between him, Rhodey (Don Cheadle), and Pepper
Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Tony is able to figure out an alternative power source for his Arc Reactor, saving himself from palladium poisoning. This was just in time for the finale, where the movie caps off with Iron Man and Rhodey in his War
Machine armor vs. Vanko in his own armor and a squad of Iron drones. Fun fact,
Vanko in this series is completely original. He's a combination of the original Crimson Dynamo Anton Vanko, in this version that is his father and Whiplash, a nameless mercenary villain that Tony
has battled. His suit is essentially Crimson Dynamo with electro whips.
Iron Man Three saw him having to
face things coming full circle as he did battle with the evil organization AIM,
it’s founder Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), the ‘Mandarin’ (Ben Kingsley) and
their Extremis super soldiers. Despite being forced into a corner more than
once, which included blowing up Tony’s house, Tony, Pepper and Rhodey are able
to fight off AIM and the Mandarin. Thanks in no small part to JARVIS and Tony’s
Houseparty Protocol.
RDJ’s Tony has appeared in Avengers,
Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and
the upcoming Avengers: Endgame. Too much data to cover, just know he’s a pivotal
character in all of these films. He’s also a supporting character in Spider-Man:
Homecoming, and has a cameo in The Incredible Hulk.
Tony has a CGI TV series back in
2009 called Iron Man: Armored Adventures. Oddly, this version is a teenage Tony
Stark battling a teenage Mandarin named Gene Khan, an adult Obadiah Stane, and
various individuals trying to steal Stark International from him. Most of his
villains were of the tech based variety such as the Maggia crime family, Three
or four Crimson Dynamos, Justin Hammer and Hammer industries, the corporate spy
Ghost and disgruntled former Stark Industries employee Donald Gill aka Blizzard.
It was an odd show, I mean it was essentially fusing Iron Man with Spider-Man, but
worth a watch if you see it on a streaming service.
Iron Man was a founding member of The
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes along side the original Avengers: Hulk,
Thor, Ant Man and Wasp as they battled a villain called Graviton. He became the
team’s de facto leader, financial backer and head of advertising. He even lets
them set up shop in one of his mansions. He and the team defrosted Captain
America, battled escapees from the various Marvel super-prisons, and ultimately
fought Thor’s traitorous brother Loki in Asgard. Season 2 had him eventually
bailing on the Avengers as the Skrull’s infiltration got into full swing. The infiltrating
Skrull posing as Cap had spent the better part of a year planting doubts in the
team’s minds in order to disable of the Earth’s most important teams. He
rejoined to fight off the Skrull, after a sort-of collaboration between him and
the equally brilliant Dr. Doom lead to a means of forcing Skrull infiltrators
into their natural forms. He stayed with the team through the series finale, where
an expanded Avengers work with their allies to fend off Galactus and his
Heralds.
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| Jump back to 2006, and I doubt anyone would have guessed at how amazing an Iron Man RDJ would be. |
He was also a main character in Avengers
Assemble. This series seemed to be loosely connected to the movies, with the
core Avengers being Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow and
Hawkeye. The group disbanded after the battle with Loki, but are forced to
rejoin after Captain America is kidnapped by HYDRA. They save Cap, foiling Red
Skull’s attempt at stealing Cap’s body, but the villainous MODOK uses his
mental control of tech to literally rip Tony’s suit from him and giving it to
Skull. They get Tony into a backup suit, and from that point on battle the
newly dubbed Iron Skull and his Cabal. They later go on to fighting villains
such as Thanos, Ultron, Kang the Conquer and others. This version of Tony also
had guest spots on Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of SMASH. All of
the shows were part of Disney XD’s Marvel series created by the team called Man
of Action.
An aged Iron Man appeared in Next
Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow. He was one of four surviving Avengers after
Ultron obliterated the team and took over the world. Thor went back to Asgard,
the Vision vanished, and Hulk’s in self-imposed exile, FYI. He took his friends
children to a safe house in the wilderness. These kids include James Rogers (Son
of Captain America and Black Widow), Torunn (daughter of Thor and Lady Sif)
Henry Pym Jr. (Son of Ant/Giant Man and Wasp) and Azari (son of Black Panther
and Storm). Thor dropped his daughter off after the fact so she could learn to
be a hero like he had all those years ago. Tony protects his friend’s progeny
for over a decade before things go sideways. The Vision returned to their
hideaway, which ultimately leads to Ultron tracking them down. Tony lets
himself be captured to by his kids time to escape. The kids discover and team
up with Francis Barton (son of Hawkeye and Mockingbird) and an aged Hulk to
free Tony and avenge the parents and world they never knew. It was kind of odd
seeing Tony in a full mentorship role, but he has a nice bond with these kids. He
couldn’t save his friends but he did everything he could to make sure their
heirs were ready to do what Avengers do best.
Tony Stark is one of the best
characters of the Marvel Universe. I’d read that Stan Lee created the concept
of Tony Stark to make a character that people of the time despised and yet would
grow into someone they love. Tony started as an alcoholic, warmongering, playboy
robber baron that cared only for himself. But, following his near-death
experience, he grew to become a hero that other heroes look up to. I’d say that
he is one best examples of the Stan Lee/Marvel model, of a flawed person that
tries to become a superhero worthy of the term. His brilliant mind, and unlimited
resources have allowed him to build a suit for every occasion. His demons make
him human, but his drive makes him a hero. I love seeing him in just about
every series. He’s been a highlight of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I’ll
be sad to see him go after RDJ’s contract is up. The Invincible Armored Iron
Man is one to always stand tall and defend the world when called.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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