Silver Age Iron Man
“Really, the handsome millionaire stuck in a metal tuxedo vest has the most tragic story of all?”
“I can't even imagine the fear you must live in from the mobs of non violent hippies protesting the war outside your factories and the inconvenience that your disability must cause you, not being able to wash any part of your chest anymore it's no wonder no woman will date you, you must have terrible body odor. Here, let me ask Dr. Strange play you a sad song on the violin with his broken hands.”
Back during the cold war, when times were simpler before people like Alan Moore and Frank Miller ruined comic books with things like plots and character development and blood and hookers respectively. Tony Stark was the Willy Wonka of death merchants for the United States military, a sort of defense contractor Santa Clause hard at work in his wondrous workshop making weapons of war as deadly as they were goofy looking, like rocket skates for revolutionizing troop movements down the road and miniaturized mortars no heavier or larger than a flashlight, however Tony Stark always kept the good shit for himself because he thought the army gave too many handouts like free ammunition, transportation, food, shelter and clothing, making them a stones throw from being communists. Tony had the mustache, hatred of communism and strikes of Walt Disney, the real estate around the world of Conrad Hilton and the engineering skills, charm with women, medical issues and secretive nature of Howard Hughes.
Personality[edit]
In between running munitions plants all over the world, fighting crime and almost dying, Tony Stark tries to vicariously live through Happy Hogan, the chauffeur and body guard he really doesn't need, and Pepper Potts the secretary he could have probably replaced with a computer even back in the 60's. According to Tony Stark no woman would date a super cripple workaholic, even a handsome sophisticated one with shit tons of money. That is because he must forever wear an artificial heart machine the size of an iron chest plate, making sex kind of uncomfortable, unless you're a woman into that sort of thing, Tony Stark must have though that their were no crippled women like The Thing's girlfriend Alicia Masters, or medical prosthetic sex fetishists back in the day, and everyone else was just as shallow about appearances as Tony Stark was. Mostly his bad attitude is just an excuse for Tony Stark to have a voyeurism fetish assisted by the secret hiding places hidden around his factories and added security cameras for catching spies, Stark is like Mr. Fantastic but without the family to drag him away from the work bench thus why he plays match maker with his employees. The fact his costume's zipped like mouth looks a lot like a robot bondage outfit only adds to the suspicion that being a super hero for him is just a weird sex thing and a way to blow off steam when he isn't designing rocket skates and super magnets to save Vietnam from the claws of the godless commie monsters. Commies, like the red warlord Wong-Chu, who forced Tony to build the VC weapons, and weapons, like the ones Stark industries had built for the United States government to drop on their hamlets, in a cruel twist of fate and shrapnel from a Viet Cong landmine.
Iron Man also likes to bring joy to sick children and injured war veterans by magnetically juggling cars whiles doing micro transistor powered electrically charged cartwheels in the air and makes complaining so much about his injuries that it reminds them all that although they aren't as amazing as Iron Man, they still have their dignity and don't cry all day about how bad they have it like self absorbed Shellhead. Tony Stark is even worse than Peter Parker is at feeling bad for himself when he isn't going to parties in his expensive car, at least Spidey has the excuse of being a poor whiny teenager. The drinking, smoking, depression and constant lying about his health to friends makes Tony Stark a far better role model for kids aspiring to be billionaires who take the law into their own hands, than that creepy, child grooming, gunless beatnik Batman, who needs mystery solving and getting inside the heads of your enemies when you've got weapons factories and physical and mental health problems.
Enemies, equipment and weaknesses[edit]
“Baby it's cold war outside, walking in a nuclear winter wonderland.”
Silver Age Iron Man has three, and exactly three different types of enemies, Commies, disgruntled former employees and nobility and explorers with advanced technology from alien civilizations. His drill fist and atomic powered giant scissors on the other armored gauntlet, allow him to look for oil in the toughest of environments. His patented micro transistor technology, and light weight neigh invulnerable origami fold up Iron Man suit, disguised cleverly as his attache briefcase allows Tony Stark to go silent air jet boot to toe with any number of interchangeable robot armored and elemental themed enemies like: The Unicorn, Jack Frost, and The Melter; and knock soviet off's like The Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man. Or square off against visitors from a distant world like Queen Kala of the subterranean Netherworld, Attuma usurper of the throne of Atlantis, or Gargantus the giant hypnotic Neanderthal, as well as the occasional vaguely racist wizard like Mr. Doll, a grown man who plays with a killer voodoo doll made of clay from the most magic part of Africa or King Hatap the ancient Egyptian magician who put himself into suspended animation for thousands of years, or of course The Mandarin, Iron Man's greatest foe, a Chinese wizard/rocket scientist with alien dragon rings working for reds. Of coarse the worst of them all is the godless red hoard with it's choice of seductive seditious poisons, such as labor strikes and spies like Black Widow who charms hardworking middle class American carnival entertainers like Hawkeye astray from the US of A.
Tony Stark spends most of his off time slouched over in a chair with an electrical cord sticking out of his chest plate and into a wall socket, as like clockwork every issue he nearly runs out of juice and his ticker starts going kaputz. Although it may look like he's passed out on the furniture from doing drugs or a night of too much drinking, the only thing he's getting high off of is the DMT released from his pineal gland as he enters a state of clinical death and the adrenaline rush from his heart starting to beat again. It's a shame Tony Stark doesn't know a telekinetic red head who knows how to preform surgery or anything, else getting that shrapnel out of his heart and patching it up with parts from a cosmic ray irradiated baboon shot into space and given shape shifting powers would be a real cinch.
See also[edit]
- Megaman: The robots have more depth to them than Iron Man's two dimensional human foes.
- Samus Aran: A profit seeking bounty hunter in robot armor, would've made granddad proud.
- Master Chief: Hates space Islam almost as much as his grandpa hated the commies.
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