Iron Man

Iron Man

Promotional art for The Invincible Iron Man vol. 5, #25

(second printing) (June 2010) by Salvador Larroca which
features Iron Man in his Bleeding Edge Armor

Publication information

Publisher

Marvel Comics

First appearance

Tales of Suspense #39 (March

1963)

Created by

Stan Lee
Larry Lieber
Don Heck
Jack Kirby

In-story information

Alter ego

Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark

Species

Human

Place of origin

Earth

Team affiliations

Avengers
Department of Defense
Force Works
New Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Illuminati
The Mighty Avengers
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Stark Industries
Stark Resilient
Thunderbolts
West Coast Avengers

Partnerships

War Machine
Rescue

Abilities

Genius-level intellect

Highly proficient scientist,

engineer, and businessperson

Expert hand-to-hand
combat

Via powered armored suit:

Superhuman
strengthand durability

A cyberpathic link
with a prior version of his
powered armored suit

Supersonic flight at
Mach 3

Energy repulsors

Missiles

Regenerative life
support (sometimes
powered by solar power)

The Invincible Iron Man

Cover for The Invincible Iron
Man #1 (May 1968). Art byGene
Colan and Mike Esposito.

Series publication information

Schedule

Monthly

Format

Ongoing series

Genre

Superhero

Publication date

(vol. 1)
May 1968 September 1996
(vol. 2)
November 1996 November 1997
(vol. 3)

February 1998 December 2004

(vol. 4)
January 2005 January 2009
(vol. 5)
July 2008 February 2011
(vol. 1 cont.)
March 2011 December 2012
(vol. 6)
January 2013 August 2014
Number of issues
(vol. 1): 332
(vol. 2): 13
(vol. 3): 89
(vol. 4): 35
(vol. 5): 33
(vol. 1 cont.): 29 (#500-527 plus #500.1)
(vol. 6): 29 (#1-28 plus #20.INH)
(Superior Iron Man) 9
(Invincible Iron Man) vol. 2:
4 (as of February 2016 cover date)
Creative team
Writer(s)

List[show]

Penciller(s)

List[show]

Inker(s)

List[show]

Colorist(s)

List[show]

Iron Man (Tony Stark) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published
by Marvel Comics, as well as its associated media. The character was created by writer and
editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack
Kirby. He made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover dated March 1963).

An American billionaire playboy, business magnate, and ingenious engineer, Tony Stark suffers a
severe chest injury during a kidnapping in which his captors attempt to force him to build a weapon
of mass destruction. He instead creates a powered suit of armor to save his life and escape captivity.
Later, Stark augments his suit with weapons and other technological devices he designed through
his company, Stark Industries. He uses the suit and successive versions to protect the world as Iron
Man, while at first concealing his true identity. 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.[1] Subsequent re-imaginings of Iron Man have transitioned from Cold War
themes to contemporary concerns, such as corporate crime and terrorism.[1]
Throughout most of the character's publication history, Iron Man has been a founding member of the
superhero team theAvengers and has been featured in several incarnations of his own various
comic book series. Iron Man 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 (2008), which was a
critical and box office success. Downey, who received much acclaim for his performance, reprised
the role in a cameo in The Incredible Hulk (2008), two Iron Man sequels Iron Man 2 (2010) and Iron
Man 3 (2013), The Avengers (2012) andAvengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and will do so again
in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and both parts of Avengers:
Infinity War (2018/2019) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Iron Man was ranked 12th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" in 2011,[2] and third in their list of
"The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012.[3]
Contents
[hide]

1Publication history
1.1Premiere

1.1.1Themes

1.2First series

1.3Later volumes

2Fictional character biography

o

2.1Origins

2.21970s and early 1980s

2.3Late 1980s and 1990s

2.42000s

2.4.1"Civil War"

2.4.2"Secret Invasion"

2.4.3"Dark Reign"
2.52010s

2.5.1"Siege"

2.5.2"Heroic Age"

2.5.3"Fear Itself"

2.5.4Return of the Mandarin and Marvel NOW!

2.5.5Superior Iron Man

2.5.6Time Runs Out

2.5.7All-New, All-Different Marvel

3Powers and abilities

3.1Armor

3.2Powers

3.3Skills

4Other versions

5In other media

6Cultural influence

7See also

8References

9Further reading

10External links

Publication history[edit]
Further information: List of Iron Man titles

Premiere[edit]
Iron Man's Marvel Comics premiere in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover dated March 1963) 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.[4] In 1963, Lee had been toying with the idea of a
businessman superhero.[5] He wanted to create the "quintessential capitalist", a character that would
go against the spirit of the times and Marvel's readership.[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] 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."[7] Lee based this playboy's looks and personality on Howard Hughes,[9] 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."[10] "Without being crazy, he was Howard
Hughes," Lee said.[7]
While Lee intended to write the story himself,[11] a minor deadline emergency eventually forced him to
hand over the premiere issue to Lieber, who fleshed out the story.[8] 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."[12] In a 1990 interview, when asked if he had "a specific model for Tony Stark
and the other characters?", Heck replied "No, I would be thinking more along the lines of some
characters I like, which would be the same kind of characters that Alex Toth liked, which was an Errol
Flynn type."[13] 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) by that issue's interior
artist, Steve Ditko, although Kirby drew it on the cover. As Heck recalled in 1985, "[T]he second
costume, the red and yellow one, was designed by Steve Ditko. I found it easier than drawing that
bulky old thing. The earlier design, the robot-looking one, was more Kirbyish." [14]
In his premiere, Iron Man was an anti-communist hero, defeating various Vietnamese agents. Lee
later regretted this early focus.[5][15] Throughout the characters 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 withalcoholism (as in
the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline) and other personal difficulties.

From issue #59 (Nov. 1964) to its final issue #99 (March 1968), the anthological sciencefiction backup stories in Tales of Suspense were replaced by a feature starring the
superhero Captain America. Lee and Heck introduced several adversaries for the character including
the Mandarin in issue #50 (Feb. 1964),[16] the Black Widow in #52 (April 1964)[17] and Hawkeye five
issues later.[18]
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." [7]
Lee and Kirby included Iron Man in The Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963) as a founding member of the
superhero team. The character has since appeared in every subsequent volume of the series.
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,[19] and later updated again to
be the war in Afghanistan. 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.