Tony Stark / Iron Man

General Information

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Iron Man, like knights of old, is identified by the armor he wears. The best-dressed of the Marvel heroes, he has changed his look frequently since his debut in 1963, but he can afford to: the man who wears the suits (and designs them) is wealthy inventor Tony Stark. So the man make the clothes, but do the clothes make the man?

Equipment

Not only does Tony Stark have no super powers of his own, but the armor that gives him strength was also created to keep his damaged heart beating; he could not survive without his iron shell. Eventually his cardiac condition was corrected by a heart transplant, and a later that left him paralyzed was repaired with a microchip. So even without his high-tech costume Tony Stark is a mixture of man and machine, what science fiction writers call a cyborg.

Without his Armor

Exactly who Stark might be without his armor is difficult to say. Writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck initially presented him as a suave playboy, part of a long tradition of rich men who have become masked heroes. Yet unlike most of his predecessors, Stark got his income from a specific source: he manufactured and sold weapons. This was a slightly sinister occupation, despite its undoubted utility, and there were hints that Stark was ambivalent about his role. When his business was menaced by a hostile takeover in a 1979 storyline, he collapsed into alcoholism, and a friend was obliged to take over temporarily the job of Iron Man. So the suit an function without Stark, but can Stark function without the suit?

Iron Table

Relationship to his Suit

Stark publicly proclaims that Iron Man is his bodyguard, and to avoid prosecution for his own violence he once announced that the man in the suit had died and been replaced. He might have been talking about himself, since he is empowered by machinery and sustained by another man's heart. Beneath his polished veneer, Iron Man may be the most troubled of Marvel's heroes, forever fighting to prove that his armor is not hollow.

Powers

After being critically injured during a battle with the Extremis-enhanced Mallen, Stark injects his nervous system with modified techno-organic virus-like body restructuring machines (the Extremis process). By rewriting his own biology, Stark is able to save his life, gain an enhanced healing factor, and partially merge with the Iron Man armor, superseding the need for bulky, AI-controlled armors in favor of lighter designs, technopathically controlled by his own brain. His enhanced technopathy extends to every piece of technology, limitless and effortlessly due to his ability to interface with communication satellites and wireless connections to increase his "range". Some components of the armor-sheath are now stored in Tony's body, able to be recalled, and extruded from his own skin, at will. During the "Secret Invasion" storyline the Extremis package is catastrophically shut down by a virus, forcing him again to rely on the previous iteration of his armor, and restoring his previous limitations. Furthermore, Osborn's takeover of most of the few remaining Starktech factories, with Ezekiel Stane systematically crippling the others, limits Tony to the use of lesser, older and weaker armors.

Remarkable Suits

• Mark I
• Mark V
• Mark XXII

50. Mark X
51. Mark XI
52. Mark XIII