When Iron Man made his first comic book appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 way back in 1963, at the time, no one knew that the character would remain popular nearly 50 years later. After all, Iron Man was a different kind of superhero, especially when considering the character beneath the suit, Tony Stark. Stark was not like other superheroes: he was deeply flawed and not exactly the most likable person on the planet. In spite of all this, his legacy prevails.
In 2008, Iron Man made his live-action movie debut. Thanks to the perfect casting of Robert Downey Jr. and a great script, the film launched what is now the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Without the success of that first Iron Man movie, fans would not have the Avengers lighting up movie screens a decade later. The character was close to how he appeared in comic books throughout his three films in the MCU, although there were some details that Disney/Marvel felt the necessity to leave out for various reasons.
With a comic book history that spans decades, Iron Man has a lot of things about him that people just don't know. There are also a lot of other things that people just get completely wrong about the character. Iron Man is so much more than what fans have just seen on the silver screen. He is a culmination of his cinematic outings plus his comic book history, and so it's time to correct those inaccuracies.
Here are 20 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Iron Man.
Iron Man can fight without his suit
It's no secret that Iron Man can fight really well while he's in the suit. But think about it: how did he learn how to fight in the first place? Obviously, he would need some knowledge of hand-to-hand combat to take on an enemy in order to fight hand-to-hand in the suit.
It turns out that Iron Man spent time training on fighting, at least in the comic books: the suit isn't doing it all for him.
Outside of the suit, he learned how to fight with trainers like Captain America.
That's right: the man Iron Man fought in Captain America: Civil War is actually the man who taught him how to throw a punch in the first place.
It actually a long time to make the first Iron Man movie
It took Iron Man a long time to come to the silver screen. The film got tossed around a lot in the 1990s at various studios, including Fox and New Line. Then it spent time bouncing around from writer to writer and director to director, forever in development limbo.
New Line eventually decided that the film was unrealistic.
The studio didn't think that a man who flew around in a metal suit would ever sell movie tickets.
New Line's option for the character finally expired in 2005.
That's when Marvel Studios stepped in. Marvel gave Iron Man a shot and finally brought him to the screen in 2008. That first movie launched an entire blockbuster film franchise.
Marvel didn't have confidence in Iron Man
Oddly enough, though, Marvel did not think that Iron Man would succeed at the box office, especially as a launching point for an entire shared universe. The general idea was really just to promote Marvel's characters and get toy merchandise on retail shelves.
Marvel executives just wanted a film that would break even. Instead, they got a movie that landed over $585 million worldwide. The movie ended up making so much money that Marvel's frugal CEO was thrilled enough to gift Robert Downey Jr. a brand new Bentley and director Jon Favrea a brand new Mercedes.
Considering how huge the MCU is now, they obviously earned those gifts.
Tony was not born a Stark
Although the Iron Man movies have shown flashbacks of Tony's parents, as well as a younger Tony with his family, there is something that they never mention. The version of the character in the comics was not actually born as a Stark. He was adopted.
All that technical genius isn't something that Tony inherited in his DNA.
However, there is another natural-born Stark, Arno. When introduced, Arno was confined to an iron lung and only able to communicate using an assistive device. He's as smart as Tony, but his illness has prevented him from living up to his potential. This is something the movies never touched upon.
He started two superhero civil wars
Fans of the MCU already know about Tony's involvement in the first superhero war. Tony insisted upon the Sokovia Accords, which would create a registry of all super-powered individuals in the world. Captain America disagreed and in the end, the Avengers found themselves split. They went to all-out war, with Tony and Captain America eventually facing off.
Tony ended up starting another Civil Wa in the comic books. In that story, an Inhuman arrives who has the ability to predict the future. Captain Marvel wants to use these predictions to stop calamities before they happen and take on villains before they commit crimes. Tony does not agree and ends up kidnapping the Inhuman. This starts a second civil war between superheroes.
He’s not a good guy
Tony Stark is not really a hero, especially when compared to heroes such as Captain America. In fact, Tony Stark is a bit of a jerk, even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
For example, in The Avengers, Coulson perishes at the hand of Loki. Tony makes a joke about it and calls Coulson an "idiot" shortly thereafter.
There are other instances of him being completely selfish. In Captain America: Civil War, he refuses to listen to Captain America's thoughts on the Sokovia Accords. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, he convinces Bruce Banner to use an A.I. that he knew was dangerous to create a global defense program. That backfires when Ultron gets created from that experiment, and then Ultron nearly destroys the world.
He destroyed the superhero registry in the end
In both the comic books and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tony Stark is very much in favor of creating a registry to track the world's superheroes. This resulted in the Sokovia Accords, which made it international law that every superhero must with their respective governments so that the government could keep track of them in a database. Tony even went to war with his fellow Avengers in of this concept.
In the comics, Tony gets discredited and loses his position with S.H.I.E.L.D. He gets replaced by Norman Osborn.
To keep Norman Osborn from getting his hands on the registry, Tony creates a virus to destroy those records.
It seems he learned that the registry was a bad idea all along.
The Avengers isn’t the only group Stark belongs to
Because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most fans know that Iron Man is a member of The Avengers, a team of superheroes meant to protect the world.
However, Tony also belongs to yet another superhero team, the Illuminati - which also includes Black Bolt, Namor, the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards, Doctor Strange and The X-Men's Professor Xavier.
In fact, he's a founding member and formed the Illuminati after the Kree-Skrull war.
The group is informal and only meets up to discuss alien threats. Although Tony invited Black Panther to the group, he refused to take part, fearing that the actions of the Illuminati would lead to more violence.
Iron Man is now a girl
Although it is rare when superheroes from natural causes or even retire, it actually does happen sometimes. That means that their titles get handed down to someone younger, someone with similar powers or ideological principles.
For Iron Man, that title got handed down to a very capable 15-year-old girl named Riri Williams. Riri proved she was as smart as Tony when she built an Iron Man suit of her own. Tony embraced her and her intellect.
After the events of Civil War II, Tony stepped down as Iron Man and allowed Riri to take up the mantle as Ironheart. Although this change outraged some Marvel fans, others embraced the new superhero with open arms.
Tony Stark is not a good businessman
Although Tony Stark is a technological genius worth billions of dollars, his acumen as a businessman isn't as good as everyone thinks it is.
Believe it or not, Stark Industries has filed for bankruptcy a number of times because its owner is really bad with money.
The company has even undergone several hostile takeovers. Although he keeps going on and on about how rich he is, Tony really has no actual business skills. This is even the case in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: while Tony is off being an Avenger, the person really running the company is his significant other, Pepper Potts. In fact, without Pepper, Stark Industries would probably not stay afloat.
