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From SCIFIPEDIA
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- For other uses see Iron Man (disambiguation)
Iron Man is a fictional superhero character owned by Marvel Comics.
Anthony Stark is a technological genius, and has turned this genius into a multi-billion dollar corporation. He began designing weapons for the military, but now designs only non-lethal and defensive weapons in the hopes of making a better world. He has been known to withhold certain discoveries from the government that he feels would not be used for the common good. He has had many ups and downs in his life, many stemming from his recurring bouts with alchoholism.
Iron Man's high tech armor is built with an amazing array of non-lethal high tech weapons and flight capacity. Weapons in the suit include "repulsor rays" and "transistors" that provide enhanced strength. Stark endlessly upgrades his armor, so the look and the capabilities are always changing.
Iron Man was a founding member of the superhero team the Avengers.
Since the passing of the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA) Stark has gone public with his Iron Man identity. He also serves as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and taken on the cause of enforcing the act, putting him in contact with many of his superhero colleagues. This led to the crossover limited series Civil War. He also helped found the new team referred to as the Mighty Avengers, and the Initiative, which is a plan to place a team of licensed and trained superheroes in all fifty states.
Other allies: Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Jim Rhodes
Enemies: The Mandarin (his official arch nemesis), The Melter, Blizzard, Modok, Spymaster, Titanium Man, The Crimson Dynamo.
Character Origin
Millionaire munition industrialist and inventor genius Tony Stark was part of a group that was attacked by a Sin-Cong revolutionary Wong-Chu while attending a field test of a prototype of a battle suit at one of his international plants. When a land mine explodes during the attack, a piece of shrapnel is lodged near Stark's heart. Captured and taken back to camp, Wong-Chu threatened Stark and fellow prisoner Chinese medical technician Professor Ho Yinsen to build weapons for him. Stark told Wong-Chu that they would build one of the battle suits he had been developing. Secretly, Yinsen and Stark built the armor with a magnetic field generator in the chest plate to keep the schrapnel away from his heart. Once the suit was built, Yinsen was killed trying to buy the armor enough time to charge. Inspired by the sacrifice of his fellow prisoner, Tony Stark used the armor to destroy the Wong-Chu's camp. After returning home, Stark thought that, because of the schrapnel, he was stuck wearing the chest plate for life. Vowing to make the best of the situation, Stark decided to use the armor to make a difference. Today, the schrapnel has been removed from his chest, and the wound healed, but Tony Stark fights on as the super-hero Iron Man.
The armor's looks and capabilities are always changing.
Theme
Some of the unique aspects of the character is that, unlike many popular Marvel heroes, Tony Stark is an adult. As a successful business man and scientist, he tends to have very adult problems.
Iron Man is about the development of technology and taking responsibility for the way that technology is used. Tony Stark is a gifted inventor who once used his gifts for profit and weapons development. Somewhere along the way, he developed a sense of responsibility, and began taking back control of his own inventions and searching for ways to use them to make the world better. From the beginning, his character struggled with the military to keep the Iron Man technology under his exculsive use. He would take on missions for the government, but wouldn't share the secret of his technology, or allow them access to reverse-engineer it. In Armor Wars, one of the most critically successful Iron Man stories, Tony went to war with government agencies that had used stolen bits of his technology, seeking to destroy it and get it back under his control. Its a battle that forced him to invade other government agencies, and ended with him faking Iron Man's death to escape prosecution.
Alcoholism is also one of Tony's problems, and his struggle with this disease is another modern problem that the series explores.
Portrayals
John Vernon voiced "Iron Man" in the animated series that was part of the Marvel Super-Heroes series that premiered in 1966.
Robert Hays voiced "Iron Man" in the 1994 animated series hosted by Stan Lee.
Mark Wordon voiced Iron Man in the animated straight to video movie Ultimate Avengers (2006) and its sequel.
Robert Downey, Jr. portrayed Tony Stark in the live action movie Iron Man (2008).
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.
