When Did Iron Man First Appear?

In May 2008, the blockbuster film Iron Man hit the theaters in the United States after much anticipation. It was the first motion picture for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and was a huge success. Roger Ebert named it among his favorite films of 2008. Empire named Tony Stark as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. With this movie, many viewers may have been introduced to the Iron Man/Tony Stark story for the first time; but in reality, the super hero had first appeared in Marvel Comics 45 years earlier. Let’s answer the question: When did Iron man first appear?

Iron Man was created in the middle of the Cold War

The super hero made his first appearance in Marvel’s Tales of Suspense #39 (cover dated March 1963) as an anticommunist hero, defeating Vietnamese agents. In the premiere episode, weapons industrialist Tony Stark is captured by the enemy. During his capture, he is severely wounded with shrapnel moving closer to heart. There is nothing that can be done for him, and he will die when the shrapnel enters his heart. We have said in earlier posts, that Marvel writers created heroes with problems. You can’t get any bigger problem than this. Stark is going to die. He is forced to work for his captors, creating new weapons; but secretly he builds a high-tech suit of armor that not only will keep him alive, but also helps him escape from his enemies. He literally becomes a walking arsenal.

Just as other Stan Lee titles in Marvel Comics, the original Iron Man title dealt with Cold War themes as various enemies tried to attack the United States by eliminating Tony Stark/Iron Man. Stark was a weapons industrialist who invented specialized weapons to the government to fight the communist menace. Episodes about communist threats appeared frequently. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev even appeared in episode #46 (October 1963) as he commissioned the Crimson Dynamo to kill Tony Stark so that the Soviet’s could win the arms race. In that episode, the U.S. red scare was still seen to be evident as U.S. senators began to investigate Stark as a possible communist spy.

The anti-communist stance of the earlier episodes softened a bit over the years as public (and presumably, reader) opposition rose against the U.S. participation in the Vietnam war. Over several episodes, Tony Stark began to reconsider his political opinions and the morality of building weapons for the U.S. military.

Stark had to work hard to keep his secret

The armor plate that he had to wear constantly on his chest was the only thing that was keeping him alive. To make matters worse, the plate had to constantly be recharged or it would fail, and Tony would die. The armor would often run out of power at very inopportune times – sometimes when he was Tony Stark and with friends or dates, and other times as Iron Man in the heat of a battle.

The armor put a damper on his romantic life. As a wealthy playboy, there was never an absence of women that wanted to be with him and tie the knot; but Tony would always have to cut the ties with the women, because to marry one of them, he would have to reveal the secret of the armor that was keeping him alive.

His heart condition was discovered when he was summoned to hearing with Congress and suffered a collapse when the chest plate’s power failed, causing a heart attack. During the medical exam, his hidden equipment was discovered. When he was hospitalized, his assistant Pepper Potts urged the chauffeur Happy Hogan to don the Iron Man persona to protect their boss’s cover. Later, his heart condition was resolved with a heart transplant.

Stan Lee imagined Tony Stark as a person that readers would hate

The premiere of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense was a collaboration of editor and story-plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Leiber, story-artist Don Heck, and cover-artist and character-designer Jack Kirby, signaling the end of Tales of Suspense story lines of monsters and suspense. In 1963, Stan Lee began to imagine a businessman superhero. He wanted to make Tony Stark into the quintessential capitalist who would go against the grain of Marvel readership. Lee says that he basically gave himself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War, and if there was anything the young readership hated was war and weapons. So he gave them a character that represented all of that. He was a weapons manufacturer, a very wealthy industrialist. Lee thought it would be fun to create a character that he knew his readers would naturally hate, shove him down their throats and make them like him! And Tony Stark/Iron Man became very popular!

Lee set up Anthony Stark to be very wealthy, seemingly untouchable on the outside, but vulnerable on the inside. He has to carry around the secret about his wound. Stark was a man with a broken heart – literally! But this physical break in his heart was also a metaphor for the broken heart that he bore in his personal life.

Unlike in the MCU, comic book Stark kept his secret

It was quite a surprise ending to the 2008 Iron Man movie when Tony Stark stood before the press and said, “I am Iron Man!” It created quite an uproar from everyone! But that isn’t what happened in the comics. On the contrary, Stark kept his secret for quite a long time. The story that he gave the press and general public was that Iron Man was his robotic bodyguard and corporate mascot. So, Iron Man protects the company from Communist and individual threats. No one suspects that Tony is Iron Man as publicly he presents the playboy persona. Eventually, he does reveal his secret persona to two supporting cast members that we have already mentioned – Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan.

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Yes, Iron Man has been entertaining for decades!

Iron Man’s story has taken many turns over the decades. His origin tale has changed locations as current events have changed. In his premiere, he was captured by Viet Cong. In the 1990s it was updated to the Gulf War, and in the 2000s it was updated again to the war in Afghanistan. He has battled communists, terrorists, aliens from without, as well as his own personal demons as he descended into alcoholism.

Through it all, Iron Man has remained a popular super hero in comics and in cinema. I am sure that we will see him again in future posts.

For more Iron Man history in the comics, click here.

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