The Beginnings of the Suit
Tony is a genius, or at least very smart and you just kind of have to accept that.
At the age of 15, Tony went to MIT to study engineering. He of course graduated top of his class. During his studies at MIT, his father Howard Stark, (who created Stark Enterprises) was killed alongside Tony’s mother in car crash.
At the age of 21 he inherited Stark Enterprises and set to work turning it into a multi-million dollar business. His first task was to buy the engineering company responsible for manufacturing the brakes on his fathers car (and thus killing him) and redesigning the brakes so that the failure could never happen again. He then turned to Military weapons and munitions, which I always thought was an odd turn around, but hey he was good at it so fair enough.
During the Vietnam War, one of Tony’s many companies manufactured transistors at a plant in the war torn country. The plant, however, was plagued by sabotage and whilst on a visit to the factory, Tony was caught in an explosion. He was seriously injured in this explosion (a piece of shrapnel lodging in his heart) and captured by the warlord Wong Chu. It was a bad day all round.
The Warlord Wong Chu also held captive the famed physicist Ho YinSen and forced Tony and Yinsen to build him weapons under the promise that if Tony co-operated he would allow him to have an operation on the shrapnel in his heart to save him. Being sneaky little blighters, however, they built an iron suit instead which would not only keep Tony alive, but also aid in their escape.
The suit was very primitive though and required charging before it was able to be used. Wong Chu, realising that something was a bit funky with his new weapons, went to investigate, but he was prevented from reaching Tony by Ho Yinsen, who gave his life, allowing Tony the time to complete his charge. The suit fully charged Tony was able to escape by battering seven shades out of Wong Chu’s men.
On his way back to civilization through the jungle, Tony stumbled upon downed helicopter pilot James Rhodes. The two then made their way back to safety, by pinching an enemy helicopter. James became Tony’s bodyguard and friend and eventually became “War Machine” in the suit of the same name (actually called the Variable Threat Response Battle Suit).
The Superhero
The general background to the development of the superhero is as follows; Tony returned to the United States and set about redesigning the chest plate, which his heart required in order to continue beating. The redesign reduced the overall size of the chestplate so that he could conceal it under his normal clothing. This lead him to redesign the rest of the armour to suit the new chest plate and he announced to the world that he would be putting the new product up for sale.
Thieves attempted to steal suit components, and he was required to don the suit in order to stop them and shortly after he put on the suit again to stop terrorists from blowing a tennis match (go figure, it was the sixties). Tony decided that the suit was just too dangerous to be in the public domain and went no further pursuing the sale of the suit. You also get the impression that this millionaire playboy had decided that he’d really rather be a hero.
In order to retain some degree of anonymity, Stark told the world that Iron Man was his paid bodyguard wearing a suit of armour by Stark Industries. Very few people were trusted with the truth that Tony was in fact Iron Man.
Over the years Stark constantly refined and modified the design of his armour.
From the original heavy, lumbering Iron suit, Iron man transformed (over many re-designs) into the sleek humanoid designs we know today.
The Boozer
Tony’s frequent battles with the bottle are well documented. At one point he lost his company to Obadiah Stane (who is remarkably Lex Luthor like if you ask me. Multi-millionaire genius, bald from an early age, likes to use mind games and hire super-villains to smack people about, you get the idea).
Anyway, Obadiah’s consortium of international arms manufacturers placed Stark International (I think that’s when it changed) under considerable financial pressure by out-bidding them for military contracts, whilst Obadiah hired some floozy to romance Tony and them dump him (you’d expect better of a playboy, move on to the next one bud). The resulting stress resulted in Tony hitting the bottle hard and Obadiah buying Stark International and renaming it Stane International.
Whilst Tony was sitting in a heap and probably dribbling, Rhodey (James Rhodes) took over the mantle of Iron Man, destroying all but the armour he was using so that no-one else could get their hands on them.
There was a great deal of soul searching, blahdy, blah.. and after a few months Tony realised he didn’t want to be a drunk anymore, so went to find Rhodey. Forming a company in California called Circuits Maximus, he was soon on his way to being successful and happy again.
Here it gets a little messy, Stane (still around) is busy taking over or destroying other companies. One of his intended targets is in California and is saved by Iron Man (Rhodey in the suit). It is brought to Stanes attention that Tony is back up and around he starts to get a bit paranoid. Some of Tony’s buddies are kidnapped, some are killed, attempts are made to blow up Circuits Maximus and finally two Iron Man suits pan the living bejesus out a super powered chap in the employ of Stane. Stane realises that Tony is inside one of the suits.
Tony donned the suit again and hunted down Obadiah Stane. Finding him at his Long Island headquarters, he easily bested Obadiah’s henchmen and was confronted by Obadiah in a suit made from the technology ripped from Tony’s notebooks. Iron Monger is a bigger, heavier version of the Iron Man armour which Obadiah intended to mass produce, but is in no way a match for Tony’s latest armour
Iron Man defeats Iron Monger and Obadiah (taking the defeat rather badly) blows his own brains out.
Tony is able to reclaim control of his fortune, and creates a new company, called Stark enterprises, based in Silicon Valley.
The Armour Wars
This is one of my favourite bits.
Now back in control of his empire, Tony bested a suited bad guy by the name of Force and learnt that plans for many of his innovations and designs (up to the last Iron Man armour) had been stolen by the nefarious (I like that word) Spymaster and sold on to one Justin Hammer.
<Spymaster is a character that turns up a lot in volume 1 of Iron Man but eventually gets it in a particularly nasty way and Justin Hammer is another Multi-millionaire industrialist arms dealer chappie.>
Anyway.. It seems like Hammer had sold on all of Tony’s designs to various Super-villains and Organisations, who had put the designs to good on their own powered suits and set about killing lots of people. Understandably Tony was a bit miffed at this.
First move for Tony was to plant a computer virus in Justin Hammers computer system (I take it he doesn’t back up every night) and retrieve a list of armours that might use his technologies. Then, outfitted in his most advanced armour, go forth and try and stop them.
Tony created a device that when placed in contact with his technology would render it useless and destroy it so that it could never be replicated. There followed a long string of battles, possibly the funniest being against the diabolical STILT MAN. Yes, I too am scared. This has got to be the lamest super villain in the world. Should you have any other suggestions for that accolade, please let me know. http://www.marvel.com/universe/Stilt-Man
This is followed by attacks on the Mauler, The Controller and the Androids (daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2006/08/mandroids-lovable-losers.html). All of who are rather lame and easily battered, before the good stuff comes along.
Two of Iron Mans closest rivals are the Russian Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man (piloted by a small Gremlin from the Kremlin). In order to reach them Tony uses the “Stealth Armour” (amazing how quick he can knock them together). The Stealth Armour is black (I wonder if the paint chips off like the stealth fighters does) and is less heavily armed and equipped than the standard armour.
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