I think with the whole Iron Man buzz in the air at the moment, the time is right to publish this, something I began writing when the first rumours of an Iron Man movie were surfacing more than 2 years ago now. Someone asked me who my favourite comic-book character was, it wasn't a quick answer but I had to say that it was
Iron Man. Most people expect
Batman or even
Spider-Man, many would presume someone more 'military' like a
G.I.Joe character or
The Punisher or those who know who he is;
Nick Fury. No, while I've read and enjoyed many of their adventures,
Iron Man is my firm-favourite comic book character.
So up until pretty recently most non comic-book oriented folk had little or no idea who
Iron Man was. Allow me to explain:
Anthony 'Tony' Stark inherited his fathers arms company after his parents were killed in a motor-vehicle accident. The young
Stark founded a cosy little Empire and by the time of the Vietnam War he was supplying the US Military with then state-of-the-art weaponry. He kept a very hands-on approach to his business and even traveled to Vietnam in '68 to advise the military on the use of his weapons systems. Unfortunately during this visit there was a Viet-Cong attack and an unfortunate explosion left a piece of shrapnel dangerously close to his heart. He was captured by the VC and was instructed to create weapons for them instead.
Stark designed, built and constructed a metal torso which sent light electrical pulses to his heart to keep it beating. It was cumbersome and he had to wear it for a few hours each day and it had to be recharged after use which took a while. He then had the idea to create an entire suit of armour with the capability to fly and have built in weapon systems. Thankfully the VC generously allowed him to build this under their noses and so he did, and promptly escaped from his captors with one of the most powerful weapons in the world- the
Iron Man armour.
Stark founded a multi-million dollar engineering and electronics company
Stark International.
Stark himself was naturally CEO and he cast
Iron Man in the role of his personal bodyguard which was a good cover story as
Iron Man obviously made frequent appearances in the vicinity of
Stark, especially when he or someone was in trouble.
Stark lost his company after falling foul of alcohol, it was bought out by
Obidiah Stane a rival manufacturer. Once
Stark began the road to recovery he uprooted all he had left and and moved everything lock stock and barrel to the West Coast and settled in California's Silicon Valley. There he founded
Stark Enterprises and soon the company had grown 10 times what his previous company was, making
Stark one of the richest men in the world.
Stark had very few close relationships with anyone, but one man who stood by him throughout most of his adventures was
James "Rhody" Rhodes a US Air Force pilot whom was shot down and interred at the same POW camp where
Stark created
Iron Man.
Stark helped him escape and he has been his personal pilot and general right-hand man ever since.
Rhody knows
Stark is
Iron Man and has worn the armour himself many times especially during a two year period when
Stark was addicted to alcohol and in no condition to operate the armour. During times where
Stark and
Iron Man needed to be in two places at once (or indeed the same place both as
Stark and
Iron Man), then
Rhody was
Iron Man.
Rhody now wears the
War-Machine armour; an ultra-powerful combat suit with more firepower than a US Marine Expeditionary Unit.
No hero would be complete without nemeses; Some of his more difficult foes have included, The
Living Laser,
Doctor Doom,
Titanium Man,
The Crimson Dynamo and
Fing Fang Foom. Through various circumstances he's also gone up against
The Incredible Hulk and
S.H.I.E.L.D. Out of all the villains
Iron Man has faced over the years however, none have been more dangerous to him than
The Mandarin. Of Asian descent this madman held power over 10 magical rings, each with a unique ability that spell doom for
Iron Man.
As with most comic-books over the years there has been some
retconning, which was used to alter historical facts fit the approximate age of the character in present day. As
Tony Stark is perpetually in his mid 30's, he obviously couldn't have been captured during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Thankfully the US was engaged in another war when
Iron Man rebooted a few years ago and it was alluded to that
Stark was injured in Afghanistan and captured by Al-Qaeda, facts that Director
Jon Favreau has adopted for the movie.
Later, I will recount for you my earliest memories of
Iron Man and a brief history of the Comic Book itself and what I've learned from reading it.
(Left) Ripcord (Marlon Wayans of Scary Movie and White Chicks)
(Right) Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye -Agbaj of Lost and Oz)
(Left) Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui of Vantage Point and Sleeper Cell)
(Right) Duke (Channing Tatum - Star of Step Up and Stop Loss)
(Left) General Hawk (Dennis Quaid)
(Right) The Baroness (Seinna Miller)
(Below) Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee of Hero)
As you can see, these do not look like the comic-book characters and toys you grew up with. Why, because this needs at least some foundation in realism. You can't have a covert counter-terrorist unit on a modern battlefield wearing whatever they wanted, it's fine for cartoon or comic-book land but not in a live action picture. It wouldn't have even worked for the X-Men either, that's why they had uniforms. The military use body armour and uniforms, deal with it. There are a lot of nay-sayers "complaining" about the look of the characters already, these are the same imbiciles who complained about the aforementioned Optimus Prime having flames painted on him. ALL of those people fell silent once the movie became the greatest of the decade. I'm sure they'll be proved just as wrong when G.I.Joe is released in Aug 2009.
