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Iron Man is a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, and a founding member of The Avengers. The character was created by Stan Lee.

While on a visit to Vietnam to see how his new mini- transistors could assist the American war effort, millionaire industrialist and inventive genius Tony Stark was caught in a booby trap. Captured by a Vietnamese warlord, Wong Chu and dying from a piece of shrapnel lodged in his heart from the booby trap, Stark was pressed into building weapons for Wong Chu together with a fellow prisoner, the famed physicist Yin Sen. However, Stark and Yin Sen used the workshop to secretly design and construct a suit of powered armor - an iron exoskeleton that gave Stark tremendous strength as well as other abilities - that would not only keep Stark's heart beating, but allow him to escape. Yin Sen sacrificed himself to buy Stark enough time to charge the bulky suit of armor, and as Iron Man, Stark made short work of Wong Chu and his men. Returning to the United States, Stark continued to upgrade and refine the armor, establishing a dual identity as the adventurer and superhero Iron Man. He also greatly expanded his father's company, Stark Industries, eventually renaming it Stark International.

The cover for Iron Man was that he was Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. To that end, Iron Man fought both threats to his company as well as Communist opponents and independent villains like The MandarinThe Mandarin is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe, one of the major archenemies of Iron Man. In addition to his organization, he is also armed with 10 rings with various individual functions that he found on a crashed alien ship.. No one suspected Stark of being Iron Man as he continued to cultivate his image as a rich playboy and engineering genius. The comic took a fairly right-wing anti-Communist stance in its early years, which was softened as the comics readership displayed opposition to the Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a war fought between 1957 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos See Secret War) and in bombing runs ( Rolling Thunder) over North Vietnam. See also the timeline of the Vietnam War. Fighting on. This took place in a series of stories with Stark profoundly reconsidering his political opinions and the morality of manufacturing weapons for the military. Stark, however, has remained essentially conservative both in character and politics despite his playboy image. He has also often shown himself to be occasionally arrogant and willing to justify the means with the ends. This has led to personal conflicts with the people around him, both in his civilian and superhero identities.

Another notable element of the character is, unlike other superheroes, his appearance and abilities are continually in flux as Stark continually modifies and upgrades his equipment. This is most obvious with the regularly changing appearance of his armor. In addition, writer David MichelinieDavid Michelinie is an American comic book writer. His most famous works include a noted run on the Iron Man series in the early 1980s which introduced the character's serious problem with alcoholism, his specialized power armor variants and his new enmit also had Stark develop several specialized suits for space travel, deep sea diving , stealth and so on. The most consistent features of the armor, however, have been a red and gold color scheme, enhanced strength, flight, and offensive capabilities in the form of "repulsor beams" fired from the palms of the suit.

Stark has a vast personal fortune, and is also known as a philantropist. He has not only donated the use of the house he grew up in as Avengers Mansion, he also funds the Avengers' operations through the Maria Stark Foundation, a non-profit organizationA non-profit organization (often called "non-profit org" or simply "non-profit" or "not-for-profit") may be a formal incorporated not-for-profit corporation that does not have shareholders, though it may have members and issue membership certificates or r named after his late mother.

Eventually, Stark's heart conditionHeart conditions can be either acute or chronic, and either congenital or acquired. See: Heart failure Heart attack Angina pectoris Myocardial infarction Cardiac arrhythmia Cardiomyopathy. was discovered by the public and eventually cured with an artificial heart transplant. However, Stark was also developing a serious dependency on alcohol. The first time it became a problem was when Stark discovered that the national security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. had been buying a controlling interest in his company in order to ensure Stark's continued weapons development for them. With the support of his friends and employees, however, Stark pulled through.

Some time later, a ruthless rival, Obadiah Stane, manipulated him emotionally into a relapse. As a result, Stark lost Stark International, became a homeless vagrant and gave up his armored identity to his pilot Jim Rhodes, who became the new Iron Man for a lengthy period of time. Eventually, Stark recovered and started a new company, Circuits Maximus, which came under assault from Stane. Finally, Stark defeated Stane in personal combat where his skill with his new armor proved superior over Stane's unskilled use of his own variant suit, known as "Iron Monger".

In an attempt to stop other people from misusing his designs, Stark then went about disabling other armored heroes and villains who were using suits based on the Iron Man technology. However, these "Armor Wars" had tragic consequences, when he inadverdently caused the death of the Soviet Titanium Man. Declared a danger by the United States government (whose Guardsmen suits were based on Stark designs), Iron Man was hunted down. Stark eventually had to fake Iron Man's demise, and claim that a new person was in the armor.

However, Stark's health continued to deteriorate, and it was discovered that the armor's cybernetic interface was causing irreversible damage to his nervous system. His condition was aggravated by a failed attempt on his life by a mentally unbalanced former lover which injured his spine, paralyzing him. Stark constructed a "skin" made up of artificial nerve circuitry, intended to assist his own failing nervous system. Ultimately, the damage was too extensive, and almost killed him. Faking his death, he placed himself in suspended animation to heal as Jim Rhodes once again took up the mantle of Iron Man. Stark's recovery was slow, but eventually he got to the point that he could pilot a remote-controlled Iron Man armor, although not wear the armor himself. When Rhodes learned that Stark had manipulated his friends by faking his own death, he became enraged, a characteristic that would soon dominate his personality. Rhodes's manic mental state was later revealed to be the result of his using armors whose cerebral interfaces were calibrated for Stark's brain, leaving any other long-term user disoriented and confused.

Stark ultimately made a full recovery and reassumed the mantle of Iron Man, and Rhodes used one of Stark's experimental armors in a new identity as War Machine. A difference of opinion as to the future of the Avenger's west coast branch led to Iron Man leaving the team and forming a new superhero group, Force Works, funded by Tony Stark. However, tensions within that team soon led to his resignation from it, and Iron Man attempted a reconciliation with the Avengers.

It was revealed soon after that a traitor was among the Avengers' ranks, and it turned out that traitor was none other than Iron Man himself. It appeared that the villain Kang the Conqueror had been manipulating Stark for years, using him as a sleeper-agent, and causing him to push aside his friends and unconsciously serve Kang. Stark, fully in Kang's thrall, killed an employee of the Avengers, then, having momentarily regained control over his actions, gave his own life battling Kang. Much later, this entire episode was claimed to have been the machination of a disguised Immortus, not Kang, and the mental control had only gone back for a few months, with the villain's influence allegedly affecting his behavior long before Stark betrayed the Avengers. In any case, with Stark dead and the Avengers needing his help to defeat Kang, the team travelled back in time and recruited a teenage Tony Stark to assist them. "Teen Tony" at first stole a suit of Stark's armor to aid the Avengers against his older self, then later built his own suit to became the "new" Iron Man.

During the battle with the creature called Onslaught, "Teen Tony" died, along with many of his teammates and allies. However, Franklin Richards preserved these "dead" heroes in the " Heroes Reborn" pocket universe, in which Tony Stark was once again an adult and a hero. The reborn adult Stark, upon returning to the normal Marvel Universe, retained the memories of both the original and teenage Tony Stark, and considered himself to have been both of them. With the aid of law firm Nelson & Murdock, he successfully regained his fortune and set up a new company (during his "death", Stark Enterprises had been sold), Stark Solutions.

Iron Man also demanded that a hearing be convened by the Avengers to look into his actions just prior to the Onslaught incident. Cleared of wrongdoing, he rejoined the Avengers. Stark continued to be active as a member, even after he decided to finally reveal to the world that he had been the man behind the Iron Man mask all along.

Recently, Stark discovered that the United States military was still using his technology. Rather than confront them as he did before, he accepted a Presidential appointment to act as Secretary of Defense (his predecessor, Dell Rusk, had actually been the Red Skull in disguise). In this way, he hoped to be able to monitor and direct how his designs were being used. He continued act to as Iron Man while carrying out his government duties, until being forced to resign after a seemingly drunken tirade against the Latverian Ambassador in the United Nations building. In the aftermath of this, he claimed that he would stand down as Iron Man, though there would "always be an Iron Man." Of course, the "new" Iron Man was, once again, Stark himself.