10 Mind-Blowing Facts About Iron Man
He's been called the Da Vinci of our time. ...
You wouldn't think it was true now, but before his first movie came out, Iron Man was strictly a B-List hero. You would struggle to find anyone outside the comics fandom who could tell you much about him beyond the basics and the fact that he had a fairly average 90's cartoon series with a disproportionately awesome theme song.
Flashforward to today and, mostly thanks to a hell of a performance by Robert Downey, Jr, Iron Man is one of the most popular heroes on the planet and a cornerstone of the Marvel empire.
Tony Stark is much more than just a movie character though and he has a rich comic book history stretching back to the 1960's. Modern comics have portrayed him pretty closely to the version on the big screen, but Iron Man has gone through a lot of iterations over the years. This has lead to some interesting titbits and trivia that most people might not be aware of.
Ahead of what could be his last couple of years as a movie Avengers, it's time to get to know what's under the armour in a little more detail...
10. Iron Man Was Briefly Secretary Of Defense
The early 2000's saw Marvel comics shift towards telling more grounded stories with real-world consequences, and this involved giving Iron Man a major change.
The idea of Tony Stark pretending that Iron Man is his bodyguard is one that stretches suspension of disbelief even in the world of comics. After all, it's a pretty terrible bodyguard who is never in the same room as his employer. In 2002 Tony dropped the act and publically revealed himself as Iron Man.
This had an unexpected downside though. Years ago, Tony Stark had signed a contract with the military which forbid them from copying the Iron Man design as long as an employee of Stark's wore the suit. With the revelation that it was Tony himself in the suit, the contract became void.
The US army began trying to build their own Stark tech but were pretty bad at it. The technology they built was faulty and nearly blew up Washington D.C., the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
Tony stopped the disaster and was afterwards appointed as Secretary of Defense by the President so that he could control how his technology was used.
Unfortunately, he had to step down during the events of 'Avengers Disassembled' when an insane Scarlet Witch used her reality warping powers to make Tony go on a tirade against the Latverian Embassy.