What Happened To Everyone Who Wore Iron Man's Armour?

12. Tony Stark

Iron Man Tony Stark
Marvel Comics

The most obvious person to have wielded the Iron Man armour is none other than Tony Stark himself. The genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist created the first Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of scraps, and then proceeded to take the arms industry head on by building more with the full resources of his company behind him.

As one can probably gather from the fact Tony isn't the only one to have assumed the Iron Man identity, he hasn't exactly had an easy ride as a superhero. He's struggled with alcoholism, industrial espionage and even his fellow superheroes, but he's come through it all to emerge today as one of the most recognisable figures in the comics medium.

That's no small feat, and while Tony has donned a whopping 40 suits (at least) in mainstream Marvel continuity, the one with that trademark red and gold hue is still his most recognisable.

Currently, after experiencing difficulty with two Civil Wars, a Dark Reign and a misguided business venture where he primarily existed as an AI, Tony is back where he belongs with the Avengers. Whether that remains to be the case on the big screen, however, is far less likely.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.