Characters / Marvel Comics: Tony Stark

Iron Man

Alter Ego: Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark

Notable Aliases: Crimson Dynamo, Cobalt Man, Mark One

Editorial Names: Invincible Iron Man, International Iron Man, Superior Iron Man

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense #39 (March, 1963)

"When I put on this armor, I took on more power than any human was ever intended to have... and maybe more responsibility than my heart can truly bear. But today... I will do my job. I will protect you. No matter what it takes."

Tony Stark was the highly intelligent albeit arrogant son of wealthy weapon manufacturer and industrialist Howard Stark. Tony cared only about himself, but he would have a change of heart after he was kidnapped by terrorists and gravely injured with a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest and threatening to pierce his heart. Pressured to create a weapon of mass destruction for his captors, Stark instead designed an electromagnetic harness to keep himself alive and eventually, with the help of an old scholar and fellow prisoner Ho Yinsen, a powered suit of armor that allows him to escape, although not before Yinsen gives his life distracting the terrorists to buy Tony time to charge up the suit.

Moved and inspired by Yinsen's sacrifice, Tony uses his vast resources and intellect to make the world a better place as Iron Man, the invincible superhero clad in red and gold with many wondrous gadgets at his disposal. Stark is a major name in the Marvel Universe, and a founding member of the Avengers.

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Tony Stark provides examples of:

A-H

• 10-Minute Retirement: A couple times, most notably, Tony secretly retired and passed the mantle to Rhodey without actually telling most of his fellow Avengers that they weren't the same person under the armor.
• Abusive Parents: Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father, was verbally and emotionally abusive. As a child, Tony respected his father greatly and wanted to please him. However, in spite of Tony's genius, Tony's reluctance (and inability) to assimilate his father's "ethics" caused Howard to resent and despise his son. Howard's rejection hurt Tony deeply, and although Tony has long since lost all respect for his father, he's never entirely gotten over it, as shown in Iron Man: Legacy of Doom:
  (in Mephisto's Realm, Howard Stark's spirit appears before Tony)
  Tony: Y-you?
  Howard: Losing again, eh, boy? You always were a wimp. Never had the stones to do what had to be done.
  Tony: I always tried to do what was right!
  Howard: Brilliance isn't enough. You'll never reach your true potential worrying about consequences. You're weak.. [...] You're no son of mine.
  Tony: I'd heard it all before. But the pain was still enough to distract me from the physical task at hand.
  (Howard lunges; Tony flees, unable to attack his own father)
  Howard: COWARD! You were my greatest shame, but I'll make a man of you yet! I'll beat it into you!
  (later, after Howard is defeated)
  Tony: You can't kill something already dead. I'd been telling myself that for a long time.
  • In Legacy of Doom, Howard is also physically abusive, but it's unclear whether or not Howard ever physically abused Tony in life. (Although Tony doesn't seem too surprised by Howard trying to kill him; but then again, Tony is in hell.)
  • Howard makes Tony drink a cup of bourbon when he's a child in order to win some momentary approval. He may have not forced it down Tony's throat, but he did coerce Tony into doing it, and that transcends into physical.
  • The Secret Origin of Tony Stark seems to have given a major reason to all of this - stress due to the fear that the Rigellian Recorder would realize that Tony wasn't his true son, that he was adopted to save his biological son, Arno, from being used as a weapon. Tony... is still mixed about the whole thing.
• A God Am I: After his personality was changed due to the magic inversion of Axis. He's since dropped this after convenient changes to reality.
  Superior Iron Man: I'm the most intelligent, capable person on the planet. I'm not playing God. All this time...I've been playing human.
  • It's started to leak back ever since "The Secret Origin of Tony Stark", and the revelation of the Godkiller Armor. Ever since, Tony's been building his own suits patterned after the Celestial-slaying superweapon, either consciously or not.
• The Alcoholic: Has struggled with drinking ever since the infamous "Demon in a Bottle" storyline. He fell back off the wagon during Fear Itself, sacrificing his sobriety as a way to convince Odin to help. He's since worked to get back on. His Superior period had him fall off again.
• Ambiguously Bi: He's The Casanova and all of his canonical love interests have been women, but he also seems to have a thing for teasing/making Double Entendre remarks towards male characters.
  • Not to mention the fact that he publicly apologizes to both men and women when his dating profile is taken down in the comics... and when it's put back up, it noticeably allows both men and women to send requests. There's also a party scene from the Superior Iron Man issue that displays a half-naked Tony surrounded by both men and women who are also in various states of undress — while in his bedroom.
  • Exaggerated by the Avengers Academy game, in which Tony does things like refer to Thor as sexy, call T'Challa handsome to his face, tease Loki for hitting on him and compliment his hair, openly check out Captain Britain's biceps, and seems to have no problem with the concept of himself and Steve as a couple, all while still flirting incessantly with female characters like Pepper, Nadia Pym, and Natasha Romanoff.
• Arm Cannon: Several suits have allowed Stark to access varying arm cannons. Most notable, the Bleeding Edge Armor had specialized ports for attachments, including several types of massive blasters and cannons for the arms.
• The Artifact: The Tony Stark on Earth-616 isn't wholly the original. He's actually a combination of the original Tony, brainwashed, killed, then brought back to life, and a teenage Tony from another dimension. This resulted from Heroes Reborn, and Marvel never mentioned it again, hoping for everyone to just forget about it.
  • And then they did practically the exact same thing for the 2015 Secret Wars... down to Franklin Richards being the one who re-creates him.
• The Atoner: For Tony, Iron Man is a chance to redeem himself from his former life as a weapons manufacturer.
• Back from the Dead: If the Iron Man suit is destroyed, Tony Stark can just make a new one as long as he himself escapes harm. Even if he is harmed, Stark has an incredible resilience. He's been shot and paralyzed by a crazy girlfriend, he died, was cryogenically frozen and finally resuscitated after his nervous system started shutting down, he was rebooted entirely after Heroes Reborn (which technically speaking involved three different versions of him dying) and he deleted and re-uploaded his brain in 'World's most wanted' and 'Stark Disassembled'. Plus, several "future Marvel Universe" stories have Tony saving his brain patterns in his armor or in a computer after his death. And his origin story was a 'death and rebirth' writ large.
  • When Riri Williams once again bemoans her lack of a functioning A.I. to help efficiently run her suit, what is delivered to her garage? The A.I. brain scan of the late Tony Stark.
  • By the events of the Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony has come back from the dead through Brain Uploading a digitized copy of his consciousness into a bio-engineered clone-body. He's actually shown to be insecure about it, confessing to Rhodes that he's worried he might have Came Back Wrong, and holding a long discussion with Fem Bot Jocasta about whether he still has a soul.
• Badass Bookworm: One of the most dangerous bookworms in the whole Marvel Universe, being intelligent enough to build high tech suits of armor for his heroing.
• Badass Normal: Out of his armor, he can handle almost any threat until he can suit up.
  • In the Kieron Gillen run, he faces trial by unarmed combat on an alien world. The martial artists he's facing are certainly competent, but not that good compared to his Avengers colleagues and foes. He flattens them.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: Dramatically smashing through barriers in a single blow is practically a character trademark.
• Bash Brothers: With Captain America and War Machine.
• Beard of Sorrow: Tony grew this when he was a alcoholic bum living on the streets of New York.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Tony Stark during his Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. period had some serious aspects of this, being portrayed as constantly struggling to keep up with the bureaucratic demands of running America's most powerful secret governmental agency singlehandedly. Especially during Knauf's run.
• Benevolent Boss: During the Tony Stark: Iron Man run, Tony's personal think-tank is established as a crazy place full of weird science, whose workers absolutely love it there because Tony listens to them, engages them in honest debate, and is more than happy to fund even crazy-sounding ideas just to see if they can work. The very first issue has Tony recruiting a robotics developer he humiliated at a robotics design expo some 25 years ago, and by the episode's end, the man declares he couldn't be happier to be working with Tony.
• Big Brother Instinct: Has this towards Arno.
• Bigger Stick: The Iron Man armor is the most sophisticated Powered Armour in existence, with only Dr. Doom able to truly match him, and Stark works very hard to keep it at the cutting edge, maintaining a vital technological lead over any and all of his business rivals and supervillainous competitors.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Before his secret identity was outed both to his comrades and the public, Tony crafted a heroic, straightforward, and occasionally playful persona for his fictional bodyguard identity. He becomes way more casual and borderline careless in expressing his many flaws to those in the know.
• The Blacksmith: Tony Stark's more iconic moments in visual media show him doing some literal blacksmithing; pounding out molten iron with hammers and pouring it into molds. Shirtless. He was this literally during 'Fear Itself' as he worked with the dwarves of Niffleheim.
• Byronic Hero: Tony Stark is womanizing, self-destructive, and forever angsting over his past as an arms-dealer.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Before they learned they were one in the same, Pepper and Happy believed that Iron Man was coercing Stark into acting as his corporate pawn while publicly touting himself as the man's bodyguard.
• Body Horror:
  • There have been periods where he was literally trapped inside the armor, once when he was paralyzed he needed the suit to walk. Another time while fighting to keep his technology out of the wrong hands he had a rather vivid nightmare of being consumed by his own technology as a reflection of how much he depends on it to keep him alive. Then, ironically enough, at one point the armor was in fact passively killing him with its own electromagnetic fields.
  • In 'Extremis', the titular bio-reconstruction process works by causing the whole body to become a giant open wound inside a cocoon of scabs, then heal it in the desired new form. Both the villain and Tony undergo the grotesque procedure; the body horror comes to light again when, during their climactic battle, the villain outright refuses to stop fighting until Iron Man, in mortal danger, vaporizes his head... and then, for a horrific moment, the headless body tries to get up again.
  • In the first arc of Mighty Avengers (vol.1), his Extremis-altered biology is used as an entrance point by an artificial intelligence... specifically, Ultron. Not satisfied with that, Ultron immediately used Tony's posthuman abilities to transform his body... into an identical copy of Janet Pym (aka the Wasp, whom Ultron has had a serious hangup with for decades...).
  • Then, there was 'Haunted', in the course of which S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (Tony being their director at this point) bring the body of Karim Mahwash Najeeb - a U.N. official who had been murdered by henchmen of the Mandarin - aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier for autopsy. Unfortunately the Mandarin had boobytrapped it with a synthetic weaponized tumor, which exploded from the corpse, attacked and assimilated anyone it could get to. It basically grew over the entire ship like some monstrous fungus, until Tony managed to stop it - by allowing it to assimilate him, and having his super-boosted immune system kill the entire thing at once. It's a grotesque and hideous scene, not in the last place because the growth has killed one of Stark's oldest friends.
• Boldly Coming: He's tried, at any rate. Unfortunately, the alien species in question found facial hair hideously disgusting, so he got kicked out.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • The Crossing claimed he'd been brainwashed since the earliest days of the Avengers to serve Immortus. Eventually, Avengers Forever did a bit of soothing by claiming he'd actually just been slightly brainwashed since Operation: Galactic Storm (and it hadn't quite worked properly).
  • Like the rest of the Marvel superheroes, Tony turned evil thanks to the inversion spell during the AXIS event. Later subverted when Tony took measures to keep the reversal of the spell from affecting him, resulting in his Fallen Hero status in Superior Iron Man and Time Runs Out.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: On various (read: endless) occasions, Stark has had to don his older armor despite the fact that all of Tony's old armors were destroyed several times. (Apparently Tony likes to rebuild them.)
• Breakout Character: He was originally considered a B-list hero compared to the likes of Spider-Man and Wolverine, but after the success of his first film and subsequent sequels, he has come to equal both of them in popularity and became Marvel's new mascot.
• Broken Ace: Tony Stark is one of the smartest, richest, and most popular people on Earth, witty, a ladykiller who had everything anybody could ever want in their life. However, deep inside he suffers from self-hatred (which has even developed into suicidal tendencies), alcoholism, control issues, and the scars left by his abusive father. He has even stated he feels he doesn't deserve the friends and good things in life he has. Following the Civil War, Tony's guilt over Captain America's death and the actions he took would make him occasionally break down.
• Broken Pedestal: Around the time Spider-Man finally officially joined The Avengers, Tony Stark became something of a mentor to Peter. The two gravitated to each other, being the only members of the team at the time who were scientifically minded, and after the infamous The Other storyline, Tony even designed Peter a new Spider-Man armor much like his own. This "mentorship" culminated during Civil War when Tony essentially made Peter his Number Two on the Pro Registration side. Eventually, their friendship completely dissolved when Peter learned the extremes Tony was resorting to during the event.
• Brought Down to Badass: Any time he loses the armour, he typically manages to still acquit himself well.
• Brought Down to Normal: The storyline World's Most Wanted has Tony feeling this way as he deletes his brain and loses his intellect, though his abilities decrease well below average (Tony doesn't really see the difference). In the story Stark Disassembled, Pepper feels this way as her heart-mounted repulsor generator and armored suit are dismantled to reboot the brain-dead Tony Stark.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Tony during the mid-1980s, when he spiraled downward into a status of a homeless drunk. He got better, but not before a long parade of indignities.
  • Again in the Civil War-Dark Reign Marvel Universe, where Tony Stark became "villainous" or at least, less sympathetic than the opposition. Norman Osborn putting a bounty on his head is just the icing on the cake.
• The Casanova: The guy loves women. Lots of them.
• Charlie Brown from Outta Town: Inverted. Trying to dodge the legal repercussions of his actions in Armor Wars, as part of his secret identity at the time, Tony claims that someone else is Iron Man — and presses this lie to rejoin the West Coast Avengers after they tossed him out of his ass for his actions during the story.
• Chest Blaster: The iconic Unibeam, his chest-mounted super Repulsor. He traditionally only uses it as a finishing move or as a desperate attempt to damage something out of his league, because it drains so much of his power to utilize compared to the weaker, but faster gauntlet Repulsors.
• Chick Magnet: Tony Stark is the epitome of this trope. It'd be easier to list the women he hasn't dated in the Marvel verse.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Famously the biggest womanizer in the Marvel Universe, yet he's incredibly polite to the women he's chatting up, cares deeply about most of his exes (the Marvel Now relaunch's opening story arc essentially boils down to him wanting to protect the legacy of one of his exes after her life's work is stolen and abused), is VERY protective of his on-again/off-again love interest Pepper, honestly loved (and still loves) Madame Masque, and is always completely supportive of his female teammates, no matter how they dress and pose.
  • At least one fan has argued that Tony is best described as a "serial monogamist"; when he's seriously involved with someone, he's completely faithful to them, but he rebounds from the invariable breakup quickly and goes looking for love again.
• Chrome Champion: Enforced: He briefly attempted to fight crime and help people in the gunmetal grey suit he created in captivity, but people didn't receive the sight of a lumbering, booming-voiced, dark colossus who could juggle lions stomping onto the scene. Dying it with gold paint helped give Tony's alter ego a more wholesome appearance.
• Clark Kenting: For most of the character's history, Iron Man had a secret identity. The cover story was that Iron Man was Tony's bodyguard... despite the fact that he hardly ever was seen in the same place as Tony, which would make him one of the worst bodyguards ever. Plus, when trouble struck, Tony would run off, and then Iron Man would show up a second later, without the guy he was supposed to be protecting! No one put two and two together because for several decades because he appeared together with Iron Man many times, thanks to allies wearing the armor and the judicious use of androids which either looked exactly like him or wore the armor.
• Clingy Costume: Originally, Tony Stark had to constantly wear his chestplate to keep himself alive.
• Clothes Make the Legend: His red and yellow armor, though far from the only set he uses, is emblematic of the character.
• Comic Book Death: He died during The Crossing and was replaced by a younger version of himself. Then that version died in the Onslaught deal. After Heroes Reborn, he got better (sort of. See "Fusion Dance").
• Comic-Book Time: Stark was originally injured during a walk in the jungles of Vietnam, when he was already a millionaire industrialist and genius inventor. Over the years, this has perpetually been updated to wherever the United States was involved in a conflict 10-ish years ago. For a while, it was updated to Afghanistan, but it was changed to the Fictional Country of Siancong in History of the Marvel Universe, Vol. 2, #2 to avoid further problems with this down the line.
• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: Tony Stark's cover for Iron Man was that he is Tony's bodyguard, sponsored by Stark Industries.
• Crazy-Prepared: Tony has a suit for any and every situation. Sometimes several suits for each situation, just in case he loses one. This has caused friction between team members before, who have been less than thrilled to discover that Tony's built a suit designed to take them down in case he ever needs to.
• Create Your Own Villain: A recurring theme for Tony. Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, Iron Monger, Firepower, The Hammer Twins and Detroit Steel are all his fault to some extent.
• Crimefighting with Cash: All those armors are just one of the ways that Tony uses the bounty of Stark Industries as a superhero.
• Cunning Linguist: He's fluent in a grand total of seven languages: English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, French, Russian, and Urdu. According to Tony himself, he also possesses proficiency in several other Middle Eastern languages.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: If Tony's on the receiving end of one, chances are good that in the next issue he'll deliver one right back with an upgraded armor. The battles with Firepower at the end of the Armor Wars arc, Ultimo in Iron Man #299-300 and Mallen in the Extremis arc are textbook examples. The conclusion of his first fight with Titanium Man is one from the comic's early history.
• Dating Catwoman: Unsurprisingly, Tony's lecherous habits don't stop at civilians and allies. He still has a history with villain Madame Masque, much to the consternation of his allies
  Namor: Why would you want to date a woman who looks like Doctor Doom?
• Deadpan Snarker: Mostly subverted; fans of the movies may assume Tony fits this trope, but it's really not a major quality in his comic book depictions. Although some writers have been borrowing more from Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal and incorporating this trope more into Tony's characterization as time goes on.
• Death Seeker: Tony, to a horribly painful degree. And, no, it didn't start during/after Civil War (2006), either, though that certainly made it worse. It started when he was struck with survivor's guilt over the death of Yin Sen — that's right, it started with his origin story — and just kind of went downhill at breakneck speed from there.
• Depending on the Writer: How strong his sense of morality is, and how close he is to falling off the wagon. Also, his level of smugness and / or snarkery.
• Descent into Addiction: The Demon in a Bottle story arc from 1979 deals with Stark's slow descent into alcoholism. Although he managed to seemingly beat the addiction by the end of the arc, it returned later to further ruin his life, and has been a major defining element for the character ever since.
• The Determinator: First became Iron Man by surviving shrapnel to his chest and building a powered suit of armor under his captors' noses to escape. Been fighting the good fight ever since.
• Disability Superpower: For the longest time, Stark's early Iron Man suits were basically glorified pacemakers to keep the shrapnel in his chest from reaching his heart.
• The Dreaded: Iron Man is now this to the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, who are basically The Fair Folk on crack, with even Malekith the Accursed, an incredibly powerful psychopathic sorcerer who fights and actively trolls Thor, being wary of him at the very least. Malekith also comments, after Tony, in a Cold Iron armour, tears his way through Svartalfheim hunting for the rings of the Mandarin (which Malekith had acquired by murdering the former owners), that the upshot of it is that they now have a new story to terrify the children with.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Tony, already established as a recovering alcoholic, fell off the proverbial wagon hard when his company got taken over during The '80s.
  • Obadiah Stane went out of his way to make Tony's life hell for the express purpose of making him fall off so that he could take over.
  • Later, when Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel) loses her power the second time (as Binary), she fell onto this and caused her to get expelled from The Avengers. She manages to get out of this thanks to the counseling from Iron Man himself, as a fellow alcoholic.
  • In Fear Itself he started screaming at Odin and the other gods, yelling that if they wanted a sacrifice he'd give them the "only thing he could give worth anything": his sobriety, by taking a huge swig of alcohol.
• Driven to Suicide: In the World's Most Wanted storyline, Tony decides to shut down his own brain to erase all the data in it and thereby foil Norman Osborn, doing so with a big grin, a lot of gallows humor, and a calm explanation to Maria Hill (when she attempts Reverse Psychology) that shooting himself in the head just wouldn't be reliable. Sure, he's fighting evil in a very tight corner, but them's not the actions of a sane and happy man.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Iron Man's suit is a clunky gray thing in its first appearance, then the same clunky thing painted gold for a couple more issues, before he switches to a slim red-n-gold number that is recognizably related to almost every suit he's worn since.
  • Along those lines, when Tony Stark is introduced, he's firmly a part of the military industrial complex as a way of attempting to make a sympathetic character that young people at the time wouldn't relate to. After the Vietnam war, writers would steer him away from the direction of weapons manufacturer and make it a period of his life that he regrets.
  • The origin of Iron Man's incredible power used to be miniaturized transistors and electromagnets.
  • The period when the Iron Man face plate had a nose that came about because Stan Lee made a joke about Iron Man not having a nose that was taken literally.
  • For a time, the entire suit was Tony's life support, meaning he was forced to be Iron Man 24/7.
  • In his first appearance, he is only referred to as "Tony Stark" once in the entire issue, by a female admirer. Throughout the rest of the issue, he is only called "Anthony Stark".
  • Tony's hair color often varied between stories — being black, brown or even red — before they settled on black hair by the mid-70s.
• Easily Forgiven: A perfect example of the differences of opinion about his actions: He never does these things for sh*ts and giggles, but always to protect people.
  • Tony and Reed Richards cloned Thor during Civil War, and the clone then went on to murder Bill Foster/Black Goliath. Thor was pissed off for a while but forgave him quickly after Siege. He also hunted his friends like animals during Civil War, particularly Steve, who forgave him as soon as Steve himself came back from the not-really-dead. He's also been part of the Illuminati, which contributed to the Skrulls being able to infiltrate so easily, who shot the Hulk into space, while Tony himself later injected She-Hulk with a serum which stopped her from being able to turn into She-Hulk because he was worried that she would tear him apart for what he'd done to her cousin. The strife between him and Captain America as a result of their opposing viewpoints during the time the Incursions were threatening to destroy Earth ended with the fighting literally to the death as the planet was being destroyed by the Final Incursion; there was no forgiveness as the event was cut out of history post-Secret Wars.
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: A prodigal genius who studied at MIT and Cambridge.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Anthony Edward Stark. Not much embarrassing, but he prefers not to make it well-known.
• Energy Weapon: Repulsor rays are the armor's primary energy weapon.
• Everything Is an iPod in the Future: The Superior Iron Man armor.
• Everything Sensor: Tony's various armors have various sensor functions installed, second to none in the Marvel universe, to the point it's almost a bit of a joke. When the Avengers enter an area or land somewhere, one of the first things that happens is invariably Iron Man making a remark like "My sensors are picking up/ not picking up any X".
• Evil Costume Switch: After AXIS, Tony begins sporting a suit of sleek, silver armor as the Superior Iron Man.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Whether or not he did this during Marvel's Civil War is a touchy topic that has led to natter on this page.
  • Played classically straight during AXIS when his alignment was inverted by a spell cast by Doctor Doom and the Scarlet Witch. However, he was the only formerly heroic villain who designed the means to stay a villain in case the spell was reversed - which was exactly what happened. This is how he became the Superior Iron Man. This has since been undone following the post-Secret Wars (2015) multiversal reboot.
• Faking the Dead: While he was clinically dead for a bit, Stark was immediately put into a cryogenic state so that Dr. Sondheim and Abe Zimmer could get to work literally rebuilding his nervous system. In an attempt to protect everyone else, and to keep his opponents from coming for him while he was in this state, Tony let everyone believed he was dead. Which he technically was, of course.Trying to explain it to his best friend, though, doesn't go so well.
• Fallen Hero: Earns this status after he deliberately avoids the reversal of the inversion spell from the AXIS storyline, from Superior Iron Man to the beginning of the Secret Wars storyline.
• Fanservice:
  • For very bizarre and silly reasons, there was a scene in one comic book involving Tony having to fight another superhero. Only the two men were only allowed to do so naked, and wrestling.
  • Also numerous instances where Tony wears nothing and a little black shadow.
• Fatal Attractor: Tony has dated supervillains (Madame Masque), plants hired by his enemies to conduct psychological warfare against him (Indres Moomji), other businessmen/women who were only trying to take advantage of him (Sunset Bain, arguably Tiberius Stone), one night stands who may arguably have date-raped him (Heather), and creepy possessive stalkers who tried to kill him (Kathy Dare, the Living Armor), along with a string of single dates and/or one night stands with vapid supermodels and society women. Even with his most stable girlfriend, Rumiko Fujikawa, she repeatedly jerked him around for her own amusement and outright cheated on him with Tiberius Stone before ultimately being killed by a supervillain.
• Fiction 500: He is one of the richest men on the planet thanks to running a MegaCorp and can still redirect some money into an advanced lab and a collection of truly expensive◊ armor. Even when he's not an active member of the Avengers, they're usually bankrolled by Stark Industries.
• Flanderization:
  • Matt Fraction has quite openly done this by very simply stating outright that all of Iron Man's problems boil down to his alcoholism. This was all the more painful for the fact that Fraction himself is a recovering alcoholic, pulling it into Author Tract territory.
  • Matt Fraction did something similar with the "Repulsor generator". Repulsors are Iron Man's signature weapons - palm-mounted energy beams which push really hard against things. Possibly in a reaction to the movie's arc reactor, Fraction promoted the repulsor to an energy source instead and not just an energy source for technology - it also turns people into super-people when you implant one in them. Ultimately, the repulsor tech was the root and spine of Iron Man - when it had started out as simply one weapon of many.
• Flawed Prototype: Several of Tony's armors fit into this category, such as his original armor being too bulky while a later armor proved to be susceptible to control by Ultron. This is a result of his tendency to immediately attempt to use a new suit in the field as soon as he completes it, without bothering to properly test it first.
  • In Tony's defence, this is mainly because most of his new suits are created to immediately stop whatever threat destroyed or damaged their predecessor, focusing more on overcoming whatever weakness led to the destruction of the previous armour before his foe can cause more damage and only learning about other issues later.
• Flying Brick: The Iron Man armor grants Tony hypersonic flight, extreme super-strength, and the ability to tank a lot of damage.
• Flying Firepower: His armour enables both flight and the ability to level buildings or drop his targets thanks to energy blasts.
• Foil: To Steve Rogers, playing the selfish cynic to Steve's old-fashioned idealist.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Initially, his selfishness, arrogance and poor communication skills rubbed a lot of his teammates the wrong way, but they worked together long enough to earn each other's genuine trust and respect. After Civil War, depending on the author and title, he's pretty consistently tolerated at best, even by most other pro-registration heroes. Every time he almost salvages his reputation, he does something else to ruin it with the team again.
• Friends with Benefits: This describes Tony Stark's relationship with most of the recurring characters he's slept with. Most prominently, She-Hulk, since the two of them are Avengers that are well known for "getting around".
• Functional Addict: Under some writers more than others. Just how close Stark is to diving head first into a bottle is a pretty major part of his modern characterisation in the comics. The MCU movies stay away from the alcoholism storyline completely, by design (it's Disney and they're aimed at kids and young people... and RDJ understandably refused to go into the Demon in a Bottle storyline, mooted for Iron Man 2, as it would put him in a headspace he'd spent a very long time trying to leave), although they do show Tony drinking casually once in a while.
• Fusion Dance: Part of Tony's resurrection after The Crossing was Franklin Richards recreating the heroes closer to what he remembered and in Tony's case, resurrecting him and fusing him with Teen Tony.
• The Gadfly: Most modern depictions of Stark depict him as trolling for reactions a lot of the time.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Stark is one of the premiere tech constructors in the Marvel Universe.
• Geniuses Have Multiple PhDs: Brilliant engineer/inventor/industrialist Tony Stark has multiple PhDs, though the number tends to vary: in New Avengers he says he has three, while in a 2010 issue of The Avengers he says he has seven.
• A God Am I: Post-Inversion Tony, in Superior Iron Man, as when Daredevil accuses him of playing God, Tony goes on a rant about how he's the most intelligent, capable person on the planet, and that he's not playing God: "all this time... [he's] been playing human."
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Iron Man is often called "The Golden Avenger" even though he's mostly red nowadays (although he once had a fully golden armor).
• Good Is Not Nice: Tony Stark has never been the nicest guy, being a playboy, a glory hound and an irresponsible narcissist who would rather shift the blame onto someone else, yet he still cares about saving the world and is the first to put himself on the line for humanity when it comes down the wire.
• Got the Call on Speed Dial: Every time Stark gets his armor wrecked, he just goes and builds a new one.
• Grandfather Clause: Tony Stark is one of the few mainstream superheroes (along with Batman and Green Arrow) who can still play the Honest Corporate Executive trope somewhat straight, even after public opinions about oligarchs in the real world have shifted negatively, largely because that trope was the whole raison d'être for Iron Man in the first place.
• Guile Hero: Depending on the Writer, Iron Man can be shrewd and manipulative, as even with his modern Iron Man suits putting his power level among his more powerful peers, Tony still relies on his guile as his first and most useful weapon.
  • For instance his "I hacked you while you were distracted" trick.
• Hand Blast: Iron Man's stock weapon are his palm-fired repulsor beams.
• Handicapped Badass: For a time, he was paralyzed after being shot by a crazy lover, using the armor as a means of getting about. Things proceeded to get worse, resulting in Tony nearly suffering total failure of his entire nervous system, and having to go into suspended animation before dying.
• Has a Type:
  • Pepper Potts, Black Widow, Bethany Cabe. If it's a significant Iron Man love interest, chances are it's a redhead. Though Pepper was a brunette originally.
  • Averted: The woman who came closest to him, ever, to the point of almost getting married to him, was Rumiko Fujikawa—who was, as her name indicates, Japanese, and so raven-haired.
• Heart in the Wrong Place: Averted, as his heart-sustaining arc reactor is located in the center of his chest.
• Heart Light: The power source of the suit is the same as the magnet keeping the shrapnel out of his heart. In the film version, and most animated versions that came after the first film, the "arc reactor" in Tony Stark's chest always generates a light that can be seen through his shirt.
• Heart Trauma: Part of his origin story is getting shrapnel stuck near his heart.
• Heroic Bastard: His biological parents, Jude and Amanda, weren't married.
• Hero Insurance: Tony tries to cause as little collateral damage as possible. This is because Stark Enterprises' facilities are frequently the sites of his battles, and when they're not Tony will compensate whoever's property he wrecks.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: After Armor Wars, then Civil War and Secret Invasion, in some comics he became known as the man whose leadership led to the death of Captain America and allowed the Skrull Empire to nearly conquer the Earth. And during World War Hulk a lot of Hulk supporters hate him because of the whole "shot Hulk into space" thing.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During Fear Itself, Tony furious that Odin refuses to aid Earth, decides to sacrifice his sobriety to get the god's attention.
• Heroic Suicide: Storyline "Execute Program", a villain remotely hijacks several of Tony's Iron Man suits, causing them to go on a rampage all over the world. Tony takes down four of the five but is unable to defeat the last one, which is about to crush Captain America. Because the suit is controlled through software that's plugged directly into Tony's brain (long story), he realizes that he can deactivate it by killing himself. Which he does, by using his suit's power source to give himself a massive electric shock (don't worry, he gets better).
• He's Back!: A few times, most notably involving overcoming his alcoholism.
  • First, there was the highly-acclaimed "Demon In A Bottle" storyline. Justin Hammer had remote-hacked Iron Man's armor, resulting in the death of a foreign ambassador. Although Iron Man was ultimately absolved of wrongdoing, Tony nearly crawled into the bottle to stay because of this, until his friends snapped him out of it (just in time, too, since SHIELD was in the process of assuming control of Stark International).
  • A few years later, Obadiah Stane came along, and manipulated Stark in many ways to force him back into the bottle. Stark was forced to relinquish the armor to Jim Rhodes, and then lost Stark International to Stane. With his personal fortune frozen, Stark hit Skid Row hard, and would've died in a blizzard, if not for his need to protect a newborn baby. With a newfound respect for life, Stark cleaned himself up, and joined Rhodey and the Irwin twins in moving to California to start anew. He'd have been happy enough, doing jobs for Cly and Morley, but after Tony had to go back in action in a prototype suit, Stane decided Stark was a threat again, and decided to target Stark's friends. Cue Stark donning the brand-new Silver Centurion armor and flying to Long Island to kick Stane's ass six ways from Sunday, driving Stane (despite his Iron Monger suit) to kill himself.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Tony and Happy were the original dynamic duo. After they fell out touch (long story) Rhodey becomes the new best friend. In more recent years Happy and Tony reconnect, only for Happy to die during Civil War.
  • With Rhodey, until Time Runs Out, and Captain America, until Civil War.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: He may not always be willing to admit it, but he does care about his teammates and making the world a better place.
• Hollywood Cyborg: He's become more and more this over the decades. Early on, he relied in his chestpiece for survival. Then came the Extremis which was bound with his nervous system. Then the entire suit became part of his body. But then the writers reverted him to only relying on a chestpiece for survival. And now, his entire body has been rebooted so there is no technology in there at all anymore.
• Honest Corporate Executive: An integral part of his original character, as after becoming Iron Man, he turned his company around and became very concerned with morality and making the world a better place, even in his civilian life. He's turned away numerous projects and dangerous employees on moral grounds, at great expense to both his wallet and his well-being.
  • In stories that focus on or involve his running of Stark Industries, he's shown to have honorable practices like the "no selling weapons to terrorists" thing. (In some, he will not even sell weapons to the US military for fear that they will be misused, though this was not part of his original characterization.) Naturally, this will also depends on the writer, and Civil War in particular didn't show him as this.
• Howard Hughes Homage: Tony was inspired by Howard Hughes and has many things in common with him, as a wealthy, brilliant businessman/engineer/playboy who designed for the military (munitions instead of planes), was Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee, and went through a major struggle with a debilitating psychological problem, although in Tony's case it was alcoholism, not OCD. In his early comics appearances, he even had the mustache. Due to Comic-Book Time, these days his father — actually named Howard — is portrayed as even more of one.

I-Z

• IKEA Weaponry:
  • For years, Tony has made Iron Man armors that collapse and store inside his briefcase.
  • Then Extremis let him store most of the undersheath in the hollow parts of his bone where the marrow is normally found, calling on the rest of the suit when in need. The next step was an armor based on fibrous 'liquid' armor, inspired by the armor of the time travelling Iron Lad, which stored inside Tony's body entirely but could deploy incredibly rapidly, almost organically growing in the blink of an eye.
• Inspector Javert: Becomes this after Civil War, relentlessly pursuing the New Avengers when he's got the opportunity and trying to arrest them. The opening issue of Mighty Avengers has him tell Carol Danvers his reasoning: If they don't, SHIELD will, and they'll be much less restrained about it.
• Insufferable Genius: He just loves to rub his intellect in people's faces and pointing out just how much smarter he is than everyone else.
  • He's far worse as Superior Iron Man, where he doesn't even try to cover it up anymore: this version literally thinks he is the most capable and intelligent person in the world. Worryingly, this just might be true.
    Tony: I'm not playing god. All this time... I've been playing human.
• It's All About Me: At one point, Tony's attending a funeral for a group of heroes in Invincible Iron Man and his internal monologue is complaining about Thor ignoring him — he'd cloned Thor and sent the clone after his friends, but all Tony cared about were his own hurt feelings.
• It's All My Fault: In Avengers Annual 2001 (where it was explained why Tony was Back from the Dead and the Fusion Dance/Merger of Souls deal with Teen Tony), Tony was shown to still be plagued with guilt over his actions as a Brainwashed and Crazy Manchurian Agent for "Kang"/Immortus, including the murders of Rita DeMara, Marilla, and Amanda Chaney, even after the other Avengers and authorities determined that due to said brainwashing, he wasn't legally culpable for any of it.
• I Warned You: Just before Civil War, he and Namor have one of these exchanges. Namor angrily asks if Stark's going to say that if they'd just listened to him years ago, the whole situation the superheroes are facing wouldn't be happening. Tony's response? "Yes."
• Jerkass Ball: On the occasions he's not just being a straight jerkass, for a genius he can cling to this one pretty hard. The usual consequence is straining or outright ruining his relationships with the other heroes.
  • During Operation: Galactic Storm, he's much snappier than usual with pretty much everyone, culminating in him pulling rank over Captain America and taking a bunch of Avengers to go kill the Supreme Intelligence. Not for nothing The Crossing claimed he'd been brainwashed at this point.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Tony can be a smug narcissist who's a bit of a showoff, his heart's in the right place and he works hard to make the world better.
  • Even early on, he refused to trust his closest friends with his secrets until his back was against the wall, not because they would be endangered, but because he believed no one else was equal to the responsibility.
  • Superior Iron Man shoves him firmly into Jerkass territory because of the morality inversion of the AXIS event.
• Jet Pack: The thrusters and repulsors of the armor allow Iron Man to fly really long distances. The main verniers are on his feet. His back generally carries flaps for air stability and braking.
• Knight Templar: When Tony's technology was stolen by Spymaster and then resold by Justin Hammer, Tony became determined to get it back and prevent it from hurting anyone... no matter what the cost. This led to the Armor Wars story arc, and Tony eventually even Lampshaded the fact that he was verging on this trope.
• The Lancer: In a "traditional" Avengers team line-up, he plays this role to Captain America's leadership.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: He's generally happy not to bring up the "Teen Tony" days.
• Light Is Not Good: During the Superior Iron Man days, as the Superior Iron Man suit looks like an Apple product, given its white, silvery design. But the man inside is a greedy, extremistic, self-righteous, arrogant douchebag.
• Lightning Bruiser: The standard Iron Man armor makes him incredibly strong, quick, and resilient.
• Like a Son to Me: This was his relationship with Peter Parker, when he brought him under his tutelage right before the Superhuman Civil War, and using this relationship was how he convinced Peter to unmask as Spider-Man. When he left Stark to join Captain America (for some fairly understandable reasons), it hurt Tony arguably just as deeply as fighting Steve did.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: His origin story. The terrorists/communists think that he will really follow up on his promise to build weapons for him.
• Lonely Rich Kid: His background in a nutshell, merged with Intelligence Equals Isolation.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Played with. During his early career, people on the outside regarded his Iron Man persona warmly as a selfless hero, but thought of him as little more than a bodyguard vigilante with above average intelligence. Learning that they were one and the same caused Hank Pym to experience a Heroic BSoD as he was no longer the sole genius among the original Avengers. In contrast, Tony was respected for his intellect, but was mistrusted and often vilified by the media and his enemies as they still believed him to be the Corrupt Corporate Executive he was before his superhero origin.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The armor that Tony built to replace his destroyed Silver Centurion suit contained an energy shield in the left gauntlet that Tony could use to protect himself from beam weapons.
• MacGyvering: Tony Stark is a version of Angus MacGyver who happens to wear a complete high tech tool kit with him.
• Made of Iron: Literal as of the dawn of the Heroic Age. It becomes less literal after he has it removed from him.
• Magic Versus Science:
  • Stark is smarter than the average Flat-Earth Atheist, acknowledging that Doctor Strange and other magical characters are doing something beyond his understanding, but he finds magic and its defiance of physical laws, even those of a superhero universe, profoundly irritating and uncomfortable. This has had some negative consequences, as his taking a sample of Thor's DNA in an attempt to figure out how his "godly" powers work resulted years later in Civil War's Thor clone, who ended up killing one of Tony's friends on the other side of the war.
  • Averted in What If? v2 #113, where Tony becomes the Sorcerer Supreme instead of Doctor Strange... and combines the Sorcerer Supreme magic with his Iron Man technology.
  • The "Knightmare" storylines with Doctor Doom, involving Time Travel and the Arthurian legends, has Tony having to deal with magic, much to his frustration. When the two are brought to the year 2093 in the second story, Tony admits magic can have its benefits when he wields Excalibur and the sword is able to magically restore his armor.
  • Also, in a Bad Future brought about by the horrible attempts to Set Right What Once Went Wrong in the Age of Ultron storyline, Tony Stark is an enfeebled dictator of the USA, sustained by the life-support his suit grants and commander of the Defenders against the demonic forces of Morgan le Fay, in a literal war between magic and science over New York City. Unfortunately, Tony, and therefore science, is fighting a losing battle, although it is implied were Hank Pym still around, the odds would have been evened. Hell, it's Pym's death that started events leading to the war in the first place. ^note : Wolverine and Sue Richards went back in time to stop Pym from creating Ultron and prevent Ultron's takeover of the world. Wolverine's "solution" to the problem was to kill him before he gets the chance, leading to the aforementioned Defenders vs Morgan le Fay timeline.
• Magnetic Weapons: The repulsor rays in the gauntlets are pure magnetic force beams. Instead of propelling a projectile, they create a variable push (from "slam a Mook against a wall" to "blow a hole in a mountain").
• Manipulative Bastard: Tony has often fallen into this for what he judges is the greater good. Not surprisingly, this has lead to... strained relations with his friends and allies over the years. See Civil War and Armor Wars for the most prominent examples.
• Meaningful Name: Tony's middle name, "Edward" is translated in Old English as 'Rich Lord' or 'Rich Protector'.
• Mecha-Mooks: Tony often uses old armors like this. When his body was possessed by Ultron and transformed into a robot version of the Wasp, the Avengers had to face an army of Mecha Mook Iron Man units.
• Merger of Souls: While nothing was done with it, the aforementioned Fusion Dance did give Tony his teen counterpart's memories.
• Millionaire Playboy: He's extremely wealthy, and luxuriates in the pleasures that his wealth enables him to access. Unlike a certain other iconic comic millionaire playboy, he's not faking the fun-loving hedonist aspect of his personality, it just doesn't prevent him from also wanting to do the heroic thing.
• More Expendable Than You: Tony does this for Captain America, at one point asphyxiating himself in the process of (successfully) giving CPR. That time his reasoning is explicitly, 'He's more important', although he's tried to kill himself to save Cap several times.
• More Hero than Thou: One of Tony's subtler, yet oldest flaws is his near-overwhelming guilt/responsibility complex, which means he is always the first to try and leap into putting his own life on the line, even when it would be smarter to let some other hero take on the responsibility.
• More than Mind Control: Tony's arrogance has been an avenue for controlling him via brainwashing at least three times in his career. During the time Morgan Le Fay used magic to zap the Avengers into being her servants, Hawkeye pointed out to Cap that going for Tony first wasn't a good idea since Tony was going to buy far more easily into the whole "feudal lord" thing.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Alcoholism, arrogance, and womanizing tend to be his favorite vices. He got help for the alcholism, and helped Carol Danvers through her troubles with it, though during Fear Itself, he ritually sacrificed his sobriety to get Odin's attention and thereby his workshop (where he was surrounded by enabling dwarves).
• Must Make Amends: Tony Stark after the events of Civil War.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • When the Watcher paid him a visit and showed him two alternate outcomes to Civil War.
  • After being rebooted in "Stark Disassembled", he was then shown a record of the Civil War. He breaks down in tears.
• Never My Fault: He's never actually apologised for his deeds in Civil War and Civil War II. In the case of the former, he even said after wiping his memory he'd have done everything he did over again.
• New Tech Is Not Cheap: This is often cited as a justification for why Tony doesn't just build armor for every member of the Avengers—or, for that matter, the police, firemen, rescue services, and so forth. Each of his suits is essentially a Super Prototype, made without the benefits of mass production or tech support, and each one is also hideously expensive. (Amounts he's quoted include $4 billion and $7 billion per suit.) In some cases, he has provided armor for another person or group—for example, the guards at the supervillain prison known as the Vault often wore Stark-made Powered Armor—but these are often explicitly less powerful and cheaper than his "normal" suits.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Tony was based on Howard Hughes. And Errol Flynn. Who also drank like a fish.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • Only Iron Man's earlier armos were mostly made of iron. Played with in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2 when the title heroine infiltrates Stark Tower and overhears two employees:
  "Look, all I'm saying is, his suits aren't even made out of iron anymore. Boss should be calling himself Ceramically-Enhanced Alloy Man while he's in San Fran."
  • During Magneto: Not A Hero, the titular character is suspected of slaughtering a bunch of anti-mutant extremists (it's actually his clone, Joseph), and is called in to a meeting with Captain America and Tony, the latter of whom has made preparations for Magneto's abilities. Cue Magneto snarking that, "The Invincible Rubber Man" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
  • When was the last time the Hulkbuster armor managed to bust Hulk?
• Not That Kind of Doctor: He has several doctorates, but almost never is actually referred to as Doctor Stark. It's almost exclusively Mister Stark, unless he points it out.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • Stark's external pacemaker chestplate, which he kept hidden for some time, is eventually discovered by the public and he finally received professional medical treatment for his heart condition.
  • Extremis. This Warren Ellis story changed Iron Man for good, it seems - new repercussions keep popping up and there is no sign of it stopping.
    • And then it stopped when Tony completely rebooted his biology.
• Off the Wagon: Tony is a recovering alcoholic and is frequently tempted to go back to the bottle during emotionally charged storylines. He's fallen off a few times though.
  • He most infamously fell off during the Iron Monger saga, when Obadiah Stane drove him into a mental breakdown. ** He jumped off it deliberately in Fear Itself to get Odin's attention and his workshop - and was then surrounded by dwarf enablers.
  • He fell off due to the stress of dealing with Incursions in secret from his Avenger teammates, and proudly embraced it when his personality was inverted and he became the Superior Iron Man after Axis.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • If you're a regular mook without superpowers of your own, seeing Iron Man arrive on the scene is often cause for this.
  • Tony has a few of these moments himself, for example when he's on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle (or is about to receive one, if he's just run out of weapons). When this happens, it's usually the Hulk who's involved.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, the nose armor is one of Tony's biggest regrets in design choices.
• Omniglot: Tony Stark, in addition to English, speaks fluent French, German, Russian, Chinese... That's not counting his armor's translation software.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: No one will forget that Tony led the pro-reg side in Civil War in-universe and that this led to Captain America's death when the man surrendered, as well as many superheroes losing their lives, livelihoods or freedom. He becomes Reformed, but Rejected but comes to agree everyone has the right to hate him when his brain is being rebuilt and he insists on seeing what he did, against Captain America's protests.
• One-Man Army: Iron Man, who has been described as wearing a fighter jet, although that's an understatement. Even better when he uses his Extremis to control multiple suits simultaneously.
• Only in It for the Money: After Tony lost his company to Obadiah Stane, he moved out to California with some friends to start a brand-new electronics company. Rhodey used the Iron Man armor as a hired mercenary to obtain seed money.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Was once eligible to wield Excalibur itself. Doctor Doom, who was also in the room and had (naturally) tried his hand, wasn't amused.
• Parental Abandonment: Tony complains that his father was cold, never around for him, and he seriously doubted that his father even loved him at all. This was eventually shown not to be the case.
• Phlebotinum Dependence: The electromagnet keeping his heart beating was this for a good portion of his history.
• Pillars of Moral Character: Under Matt Fraction, it has been attempted to portray Tony as the true form of hero as applied to the real world; i.e. rather than as a simplified, idyllic vigilante directed at an unrealistic Strawman Political or Omnicidal Maniac. He is a true philanthropist—someone more dedicated to rescue work than warfare, towards building and helping rather than destroying, and towards more constructive, useful, and applicable definitions of true idealism and heroism than Marvel usually tends to use. Previous acclaimed writer David Michelinie once called Iron Man "the world's greatest force for good", and he may actually have a good point.
• Poor Communication Kills: Tony means well (usually) but he's really bad at explaining things to folk until it's far too late.
  • For example: During Avengers Vol 3, Tony noticed from the outset that Carol Danvers is turning into an alcoholic. But, despite the problems of a Flying Brick developing a Hair-Trigger Temper when she's drunk on duty, Tony refuses to speak up because it's "not his place", until Carol really screws up.
  • And another: Before Civil War, Tony learns about the Superhuman Registration Act, which he does tell everyone he can about. What he also learns is that the government's alternate plan is to just try and hunt down every superhuman everywhere... which Tony doesn't bother to tell anyone about (except Steve Roger's corpse).
• The Pornomancer: He provides the page image and quote for a reason.
• Porn Stache: Believe or not but Iron Man sported a truly impressive pornstache in the 80s during the Armor Wars saga. Tony in later comics shaved it back to his smaller stache before getting his current bearded look.
• Powered Armor: The Iron Man suits are among the most famous, if not the prime example, in comic books.
• Power Crystal: On the chest and palms, function as Repulsor Beam emitters.
• Power Glows: The Repulsor Beam emitters glow when in use.
• Power Palms: The repulsor rays in his hands are perhaps his most iconic weapons.
• Power of the Sun: Most of Stark's Iron Man armors have a solar energy collection function that can keep them working on a basic level in situations where there is no other power source to access for recharging, but it's mainly an emergency backup that cannot seriously provide enough power fast enough for combat.
• Powered Armor: The Iron Man armor is the likely Trope Codifier for comic books, and current example image on said page.
• Powers as Programs: Tony is always coming up with new design ideas for his armor. He'll even incorporate his competitors' and enemies' ideas into his armor if he thinks they'll be useful.
• Pragmatic Hero: In Civil War (2006). When faced with the possibility of the implementation of a Superhero Registration Act, Iron Man tries to prevent it, to the point of speaking in a hearing against the SHRA. However, once the act becomes an inevitability and is subsequently passed, he decides to support it, not only hoping it could be diffused, but knowing that resisting the law would bring dire consequences for the superhero community. His methods to win the ensuing war between the pro-SHRA faction and the anti-SHRA forces (led by Captain America) include the creation of a prison for outlaw vigilantes in the Negative Zone and the recruitment of the supervillain team known as the Thunderbolts.
  "To do what I needed to do to win this quickly— I knew that meant you [Captain America] and I would probably never speak again. Or be friends again. Or partners again. I told myself I was okay with it because I knew I was right and I—I knew it was saving lives. It was!! It was the right thing to do! And—and—and I was willing to get in bed with people we despise to get this done. And I knew the world favors the underdog and that I would be the bad guy. I knew this and I said I was okay with it." (from Civil War: The Confession #1)
• Pride: Being rich, handsome, and a brilliant inventor he originally did not care who he sold weapons to until it almost killed him. He started helping others, but almost regularly takes his own path without consulting others, insisting that he "knows" what to do and that others' opinions are not worth considering. Sooner or later, it always come back to bite him.
• Primary-Color Champion: Ever since the Mark 3 armor, the Iron Man armor has usually been red and yellow (though sometimes it's red and silver, or just entirely red).
• Really Gets Around: Has slept with or tried to sleep with most major female characters in the Marvelverse (excepting those that are taken by his friends or are underage).
  • "Every time you kiss Iron Man, you taste Galactus.◊" And that list is woefully incomplete and outdated, too.
  • Within the first episode of the animé adaptation, he's already flirted with two women, both main characters, the first within the first five minutes of the show.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Tries to be one as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., even though his method of management rubs a few of the old-school (like Dum-Dum Duggan) the wrong way. Exactly where he fell depended on who was writing him. In Avengers: The Initiative, he immediately steps in once it's become clear Gyrich has massively crossed the line, and cans his ass.
• Red Is Heroic: Iron Man's standard color scheme is red and gold, although some of his "specialized" suits buck the trend.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Plays with this trope with Captain America. They wear the respective colors of a Blue and Red Oni, and seem to fit those roles accordingly, with Cap being the responsible, upright leader of the Avengers and symbol of all that is good in his country, and Iron Man being a oligarch playboy who often struggles with alcoholism and his own neurosis. However, when the situation calls for it Cap is more than willing to take a stand and do what he feels is morally right, even if it means breaking the law and and defying the government, and is guided more by his emotions, while Iron Man tends to be more pragmatic and logical in his decisions and philosophy, and will go to any lengths to protect the world, even if goes into Knight Templar territory.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Even the tiniest pieces of Tony's powered armor technology could solve any number of problems, from enabling paraplegics to walk, to replacing bulky forklifts with compact wearable lifting gear, to potential solutions for the world's energy supply. Why doesn't he release it? Because releasing it to civilians only doesn't solve the problem of potential misuse.
• Remote Body:
  • Iron Man can control his suits at a distance; he even uses remote-controlled armor while he's crippled.
  • The NTU-150 Telepresence Unit is the logical extreme of this trope, as unlike his other suits, it was a full-fledged robot controlled via a subspace link connected directly to Stark's brain. Especially useful considering that, at the time, Stark had just come Back from the Dead, and needed time to gain full use of his own artificial nervous system.
  • After Avengers Vs. X-Men, Tony has developed armor capable of being remotely operated across intergalactic distances, with no apparent problems with response lags.
• Retcon:
  • Way back when, Tony was depicted as one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D., being present when Nick Fury was inducted as Director. Due to the nature of Comic-Book Time (where SHIELD was always founded in the sixties), this was gradually phased out. In more recent decades, a new retcon has come in where instead it was Howard Stark who helped found SHIELD.
  • Comic-Book Time has made it necessary to retcon many elements about his armor, from who built it to what kind of Techno Babble it runs off. Originally, Stark built it in the jungles of Viet Nam together with an elderly Chinese professor, and it was powered by transistors, while the most recent comics more or less follow the movies.
  • The very first Iron Man story (which covered his superhero origin) also said he wouldn't be able to take off his armor without dying since it was keeping him alive, so he was stuck wearing it forever. The very next Iron Man story introduced the pacemaker chestplate which was separate from his armor, allowing him to maintain a normal facade, but there was no hint of this in the previous story.
• Riches to Rags: Happens to Tony more than once.
  • After Secret Invasion, Tony is blamed for the Skrull invasion, and loses his company. After Siege, he manages to get it back, but is apparently much poorer. "Apparently", because during a story in Avengers vol 4, he's shown to still have a lot of expensive things still around, justifying it to Cap with "my poor is not your poor".
  • Post-Secret Wars (2015), Tony's unintentional negligence of his company between going off to space and super heroics causes Stark Industries to fall into hard times to the point where Tony can't fund the Avengers anymore and has to sell the Avengers Tower.
• Rocket Boots: Part of his armour.
• Rollerblade Good: When Tony needs to get around fast and he can't fly, such as being indoors, some of his suits have pop out roller skate wheels in his boots to skate around on.
• Running Gag: Tony complaining about or reacting negatively to magic. He hates magic.
• Science Hero: Reed Richards was first, but Tony is the Trope Codifier in comic books because he fights with his inventions. Less so than most other Science Hero Avengers; he's less of a scientist and more of builder, and is generally referred to, not as a scientist, but as an engineer specifically.
• Science Is Useless: Averted in that if you attack him with magic, don't expect much considering Stark is usually able to use his scientific knowledge and technology to beat any spell you throw at him.
• Secret Identity: In the early days, Tony claimed that Iron Man was his bodyguard. These days, the secret is out in the open, as Tony Stark revealed it in the July 2002 edition; in this case, it actually got him in trouble as the Iron Man armour was legally now the US Government's to replicate. He eventually managed to make his identity secret again, then publicly revealed it during Civil War.
• Self Made Super Powers: During the Extremis six-issue arc, Tony Stark modified the titular virus to store his armor inside his body, directly interface with technology, use some of its powers without manifesting it, enhanced reflexes and regeneration of both his body and armor. He later develops Extremis 3.0, which grants him the ability to alter his appearance, a healing factor, enhanced strength, agility and reflexes. He also claimed it can make people immortal.
• Shadow Archetype: #293 positions the Controller as one to Tony and his current status quo: Whereas Tony has been paralyzed and is consciously neglecting his own recovery in order to continue to operate as Iron Man (using a remotely-controlled armor), the Controller has mind-controlled several of Stark's employees in order to force him to help him cure his own broken body.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: "Sharp Dressed Man" might as well be Tony Stark's theme song.
• Shoot the Dog: Tony as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D was extremely prone to taking morally ugly but pragmatic decisions.
• Single-Episode Handicap: Subverted with his alcoholism. Played straight in the Bronze Age; after being shot by Psycho Ex-Girlfriend Kathleen Dare in vol 1 #242, he was left paralyzed until he bought out a company with an experimental new "biochip" project and underwent risky experimental surgery to repair his damaged spinal cord in vol 1 #248.
• Smart People Play Chess: One scene in The Invincible Iron Man has Tony and Reed Richards playing each other on about ten different chessboards at the same time.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: Invoked in The Secret Origin of Tony Stark when Death's Head accuses him of being prejudiced against robots.
  Death's Head: You’re not one of those guys who has a code against killing 'except for robots'? I hate those krypto-fascists.
  Iron Man: No! Absolutely not! Some of my best friends are robots an— That sounds kind of robot racist, right?
  Death's Head: Yes.
• Spandex, Latex, or Leather: None. His powered armor is a space-age metal alloy!
• Strong as They Need to Be: Iron Man occupies that niche in the Marvel universe where he can get the upper hand over high-tier characters like Magneto, the Hulk, She-Hulk, or Dr. Doom. But alternately, street-level to mid-tier power characters like Captain America, Spider-Man, Dr. Octopus, or Shang-chi can also get the upper hand over Iron Man and defeat him in some instances with the right setup.
• Super-Intelligence: He is ranked among the smartest persons on earth in the Marvel Universe with Super-Genius class intelligence.
• Survivor's Guilt: Fatal Frontier reveals that one of Tony's most tragic fantasies is Yinsen surviving their imprisonment instead of him, believing the more noble scientist could have made the world a better place.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: Transistors were his original technological solution of choice, and those have been consistently replaced by the cutting edge tech of the era of whoever's writing him at the time.
• Taking the Bullet: Tony Stark does this far too often for good sense during battles, especially for Captain America. Granted, his protective armor does give him some logical basis for this, but he still frequently winds up badly injured.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Tony is tall, dark-haired and very much a handsome.
• Technological Pacifist: Tony eventually becomes one by swearing military contracts.
• Technopath: Tony could interface with machines using his mind after his Extremis and Bleeding Edge upgrades.
• Teen Genius: A former one. He was accepted into MIT when he was fourteen and graduated with double-majors in physics and engineering when he was seventeen. Shortly thereafter, his father had him submitted into Cambridge University, where he earned three doctorates, presumably also in engineering and physics, by the time he was around nineteen.
• The Team Benefactor: Even when he's not an active member, he's usually funding the Avengers.
• Temporarily a Villain: During the Crossing, Iron Man went insane and became a villain, only to be replaced briefly by a younger version of himself from a different time.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Early on, he used military grade weapons to battle street level crime. This philosophy still plays a large role in how Tony goes into battle.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted on occasion in the comics... just ask Mallen. Oh, right, you can't. He has no head, but considering Mallen had sworn to kill the President, nothing less than death would stop him and his body was trying to get up after his head had been blasted off, you might argue Tony was spit out of options.
• To Be Lawful or Good: During Civil War, he insists he's on Lawful (obeying the Registration Act). Given his acts involve creating a clone of a friend which then murders another person, and imprisoning people, minors included, for life without chance of hearing or parole (in a dimension known to cause suicidal despondency in some people), this rings more than a little hollow.
• Token Evil Teammate: He's nicer than the typical Marvel Mad Scientist and cares deeply for everyone, but he's very far removed from being The Cape as he's willing to do some morally questionable things to save the day that his more heroic allies could never bring themselves to do.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Civil War through Secret Invasion Tony takes several, becoming increasingly cold, controlling and authoritarian towards his teammates and long-time friends. His brain-wipe removes it.
• Tragic Hero: He's an arrogant, smarmy, womanizing jackass; but his life has been one long Trauma Conga Line, and due to his awareness of his flaws, he's a deep, dark pit of The Atoner bordering on Death Seeker, to the point where he feels that all his teammates' lives are always more important than his own.
• Transhuman: His Extremis and Bleeding Edge upgrades made him essentially into this; one consisted of a body-altering technology letting him store most of his armor in the hollow parts of his bone where the marrow is normally found. The other was Nanomachines kept inside his body until mentally commanded to become his armor or turn into any type of structure upon Stark's skin like clothes, and also augmented his intelligence. Both upgrades were removed, howver, with him losing the ability to use Extremis thanks to a Skrull computer virus and purged the Bleeding Edge upgrades from his body during one of his Ten Minute Retirements.]]
• True Companions: Of all the ties formed in the Avengers' long history, none match those between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. The team is always at its strongest when these three are in it, and any two of them would lay down their lives for the third without hesitation. This is what made the Cap/Iron Man conflict in Civil War (2006) so devastating; one has to wonder if it might have been averted if Thor hadn't been dead at the time. The adverts for Avengers Prime put it best: Many have answered the call, but three have always stood above the rest.
  • It's also why Thor is so pissed at Tony when he finally does return. A man he considered at least as close as a brother not only turned on people they both called allies (especially Cap), but then cloned Thor without permission. I doubt any of Loki's many betrayals hurt Thor as much as that did.
    • To be honest, it probably hurt Thor so much because it reminded him exactly of Loki's many betrayals.
• Underestimating Badassery: Surprisingly, this can be one of Tony's traits when it comes to looking down upon some of Spider-Man's rogues gallery, particularly Dr. Octopus, whom he sees as nothing more than a flabby pushover with metal arms. Unsurprisingly, this has led to Otto humiliating or getting the upper hand over Iron Man on more than one occasion.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight:
  • Tony Stark has had to face off occasionally against advanced versions of his armor using older models. Some examples include when he battled his own armor gone Yandere in the Sentient Armor arc, and later facing off against Norman Osborn, who was using his Dark Avengers "Iron Patriot" suit, with a suit (literally) made in a cave, with a box of scraps.
  • This idea was played with in Matt Fraction's "Five Nightmares of Tony Stark" storyline. In that story, a villain got his hands on some of Stark's tech, and used it to create armies of cheap, expendable Iron Men suicide bombers. Though Tony never fought the knock-offs directly, the situation was one of his titular nightmares: not a better version of his suit but a cheaper one, something that could be mass-produced.
• Variant Power Copying: Tony's suits usually have this ability, such as being able to copy Captain America's fighting moves by replicating them and then performing the motions, or copying Magneto's abilities using orbital satellites that can absorb electro-magnetic energy, or copying Venom's symbiote by using nanomachines that approximate the symbiote's biological abilities.
• Virtual Ghost: Given Tony's expertise in the artificial intelligence field, the transferral of his consciousness to the digital realm occurs several times. Most notably in the Hypervelocity miniseries and in the 'Iron Man: Rapture' mini.
• We Used to Be Friends: His actions often tend to do this with Captain America. Sooner or later they tend to patch things up, but it always makes things tense and awkward in the meantime.
  • During Armor Wars, Tony nearly kills a Guardsman and causes a super-villain prison break, then sucker-punches Steve in the process. The two remain on poor terms up until after Operation: Galactic Storm.
  • Civil War ruins it again. Even after Steve's resurrection, the two fratch with one another until a fight with Hel allows them to start moving on.
  • And again during Jonathan Hickman's Avengers run, thanks to Tony having Doctor Strange wipe Steven's mind, culminating in Steve dedicating S.H.I.E.L.D. to hunt Tony down so he can beat him to death. The cosmic wibblyness of Secret Wars seems to have undone that.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Not in those exact words so much, but Hawkeye's reaction to Iron Man's actions in the Armor Wars. Also, the Hulk when Tony tried to pick a fight with him (see Wrong Genre Savvy below).
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?:
  • Towards the Anti-Reg side in Civil War when he sent villains after them and sent them to a prison in the Negative Zone. He also does it to Steve in New Avengers by asking why he always has to be like this before the Illuminati wipe his memories of his time with the Illuminati.
  • His words to Mallen's corpse after decapitating him with a repulsor ray: "Damn you. Damn you for making me do that" (though to be fair to Tony, he did spend the entire preceding fight trying to talk Mallen into standing down even after Mallen nearly killed him in their first bout).
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: An oddly specific version from a usually cynical person. In flashbacks in the Illuminati one-shot, Tony expresses the thought that if all the heroes on Earth got together under one banner, they'd face less Fantastic Racism. Namor and Professor X reply that in all likelihood, the opposite would happen.
• Wolverine Publicity: He starred in four different shows on four different networks (Iron Man: Armored Adventures on Nicktoons, The Superhero Squad Show on Cartoon Network, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Avengers Assemble on Disney XD, and Marvel Anime: Iron Man on G4). That's without even getting into the movies, which made him a famous character in an unprecedented level (probably the first film alone being responsible for all this publicity). Three other characters are on Armored Adventures, Superhero Squad, and The Avengers: Nick Fury, who's been getting pimped out by Marvel himself lately, MODOK, who is also a new character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and the Hulk. He's in his solo book, Hickman's Avengers book, Hickman's New Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Worth It: Innocuously revealed his secret identity to save the life of a little boy and his dog. And in spite of all the trouble having it known has brought him, he's never regretted it.
• Your Universe or Mine?: When placed opposite of any female character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. This ranges from Crimson Viper to Tron Bonne to Hsien-Ko to Morrigan. The only exception? Amaterasu, who is a dog.
  (before the fight) So, you doing anything after this?
  (after the fight) Told you. A nice candlelight dinner would've been better.

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