10 Iron Man Fates Worse Than Death

1. Wiping Your Own Mind - World's Most Wanted

Marvel Original Sin Iron Man Hulk
Marvel Comics

In the fallout of the Civil War and Secret Invasion storylines, Tony Shark is removed by the US government as the Head of S.H.I.E.L.D. due to his StarkTech equipment being infiltrated by the Skrulls. Following this, it's the nefarious Norman Osborn who's tasked with overseeing S.H.I.E.L.D., with Norman presenting himself as a reformed character who is all about fighting the good fight.

Of course, Norman Osborn will forever 'Norman Osborn', and thus this is all merely part of a power-play from the Green Goblin designed to get himself access to the vast records held as part of Civil War's Registration Act.

On that front, access to such records would allow Osborn to know the secret identity of every superhero and supervillain, in addition to offering up all kinds of technological secrets. Realising this, Iron Man executes a virus designed to destroy this information. While that does indeed work, there is one other copy of these deets - that being in the mind of Tony Stark.

With Norman hunting him down, Tony decides that he has to wipe his own memory. In attempting to do this, the Armoured Avenger inflicts brain damage on himself in order to successfully delete this key information from his mind.

A brutal beating of Stark by Osborn would be televised and massively hit Norman's shoddy PR campaign, but the actions of Iron Man here left Tony in a vegetative state and requiring intensive tech care just to stay alive.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.