Characters / Iron Man: Central Rogues Gallery

Central Rogues Gallery

Blizzard

Blizzard I

Shapanka's third Blizzard armour

Alter Ego: Gregor Shapanka

Notable Aliases: Jack Frost

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #45

"Consider it a mission of vengeance, Iron Man — the righting of a wrong you did to a man you no longer even remember!"

A Hungarian scientist obsessed with obtaining immortality, Dr. Gregor Shapanka tried to steal from Stark Industries in order to finance his research into cryonics. He developed a suit with cold-generating powers, and became a member of Iron Man's rogues gallery under the name "Blizzard".

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• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Puny Snowman made Hulk mad. Puny Snowman got smashed.
  • Picking a fight with the Arno Stark of Earth-8410, who uses lethal force as casually as the Punisher and Deadpool, turned out to be an even stupider mistake. It got him incinerated.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: A subversion. He originally started out as a legitimate scientist working for Tony Stark, but he was arrested and fired for stealing company resources for his own personal projects. He then used his technology to create the supervillain identity of "Jack Frost" and tried to kill Stark out of revenge. Stark defended himself as Iron Man, starting a long feud between them even as Shapanka changed his villain name to "Blizzard".
• An Ice Person: One of the first ice-man villains.
• Jobber: Officially becomes this in Demon in a Bottle, where he is relatively useless without Whiplash supervising his actions. Ironically enough, what made Shapanka so effective in his earliest appearances was that he worked alone. He nearly killed Iron Man by spamming him with a powerful ice storm attack. Once he started working as part of a team, he could no longer use this attack, since he had to worry about allies or mooks getting hurt by Splash Damage.
• Humanoid Abomination: At some point he mutated into a snow creature with genuine cryokinetic powers and the bizarre ability to create ice golems. After the Hulk seemingly killed him and his "golems" in an avalanche, Shapanka showed up as a normal human again with no explanation.
  "I came here to dream, creature, and you interrupted my dreams by tramping brutishly through my world of fragile beauty! I thought I would be safe here, away from a warm-blooded world which no longer held a place for one such as I!"
• Immortality Immorality: Became a criminal in order to fund his research into immortality.
• Killed Off for Real: In a battle with Iron Man 2020.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: For someone who was supposed to have a PhD, he could be pretty dense.
• Large Ham: He tended to make a lot of theatrical, overwrought, tirades. Sometimes he would forget what he was doing while he was making them.
  "Fire, you fools! My ice is more than a match for your useless bullets!"

  "I knew feigning helplessness would cause you to lower your guard… and now, you costumed cretin, before you can recover… recoil before the power of Blizzard!"
• Powered Armour: His suit is filled with cryogenic technology.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: He had a stereotypical "lanky nerd" build before he turned to crime. After a stint in prison he became more muscular.
• Terrible Trio: Formed one in Demon in a Bottle alongside Whiplash and Melter.

Blizzard II

Gill in his second Blizzard armour

Alter Ego: Donald "Donnie" Gill

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #223

"It's times like this that don't make me feel so much like a so-called super villain... But instead more like a kid again. One that's waited all day for his parents to leave home so he can invite his buddies over a throw a party he's not supposed to. Of course, in this case... My parents are the Avengers."

A lifelong criminal, Donnie Gill was contracted by Justin Hammer, who gave him an upgaded version of Gregor Shapanka's Blizzard armour, and had him join his team of costumed mercenaries. Gill has been a recurring pain in Iron Man's backside since, working for Hammer, The Mandarin, and whoever else will pay the bill.

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• Affably Evil: He's actually a pretty nice guy once you get to know him.
• Boxed Crook: Whenever he's a good guy.
• The Brute: Played this role in Justin Hammer's organisation.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Initially, until he became an Inhuman and developed genuine cryokinetic powers.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The original Blizzard was an Ivy League-educated scientist with a genius level intellect, but not a lick of common sense. Donnie has average intelligence and doesn't have a formal post-secondary education, but is more streetwise, and has some natural talent in electrical engineering. The latter ability is what prompts Korvac to hire him, and he proves to be the sanest and most focused of Korvac's Acolytes.
• Face–Heel Revolving Door: Spent time with the Thunderbolts before turning back to villainy.
• Friendly Enemy: He has this kind of relationship with She-Hulk; the two bonded with each other over a glass of beer after Jen was briefly disbarred.
• Hired Guns: Is in it for the paycheck.
• An Ice Person: Via Powered Armor before Terrigenesis.
• Locked into Strangeness: His hair turned blue after Terragenesis.
• Noble Demon: He'll sell his services to whatever crook hires him, but he's pretty amicable when not working and is very loyal to his friends.
• Only in It for the Money: He's a refresher amongst Iron Man villains, of not being either a communist, industrialist, fanatic, former employee, thug, or an extremist. He's just in it for the money.
• Paint It Black: After becoming one of Korvac's Acolytes, he began wearing a sleeker, darker version of his predecessor's original dark blue armor.
• Powered Armor: How he uses his ice-based abilities.
• Shock and Awe: His Inhuman ability is the ability to control electrical currents, which he mainly uses to overcharge electronics.
• Undying Loyalty: To Hammer, right up until he discovered that Hammer was willing to sell him out.
• Villainous Friendship: With Whirlwind, having served together in the Masters of Evil. After the Mandarin/Hammer/Stane collective falls apart, they reteam, robbing a few banks before undertaking a riskier heist on the Avengers Mansion. Blizzard holds off Iron Man long enough for Whirlwind to escape.
• Villainous Valor: He's extremely loyal to his friends and allies, once even allowing himself to be captured by SHIELD so that the rest of the supervillain crew he was working with could escape.

Controller

Controller

Alter Ego: Basil Sandhurst

Notable Aliases: Alexander Hugo, Xander Basel

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #12

"He is just the first! I will not rest until all the Avengers are in my thrall!"

A scientist whose unethical experiments with thought control cost him his job, Basil Sandhurst was left crippled by an explosion in his lab. Outfitted by his brother with a mechanical exoskeleton that enabled him to walk again, Sandhurst used his mind control devices to become The Controller, a supervillain who has fought Iron Man, War Machine, and SHIELD.

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• And I Must Scream: After one betrayal too many, The Hood attached one of Controller's own slave collars to him, leaving him self aware but unable to do anything without the Hood's orders.
• Evil Cripple: Cannot walk without with his exoskeleton.
• Freudian Excuse: He was ill as a child, which frequently left him bedridden. He hated the lack of control he felt over his life and became obsessed with getting and keeping control over not just himself but anyone else around him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: As mentioned above, the Hood ended up using one of his own slave collars on him.
• Genius Bruiser: Extremely intelligent and very physically fit. Almost looks like a human non-nihilistic Thanos.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The accident that crippled him also burned his face. As mentioned throughout his folder, it makes him look like the human version of Thanos or Darkseid.
• It's All About Me: He was an extremely selfish, spiteful asshole long before the accident that crippled him.
• Mad Scientist: Fired for unethical experiments, which he continues to perform as the Controller. Maria Hill once found him kidnapping most of a town's population for use in his laboratories.
• Manipulative Bastard: His controlling discs are one thing, but he can play The Chessmaster with the right application.
• Mind-Control Device: Invented one, and regularly outfits his exoskeleton with them.
• Power Armor: A mechanical exoskeleton that enables him to walk.
• Power Parasite: His slave discs steal energy; on normal humans this just gives him their collective strength but with superhumans he gains their superpowers.
• Psychic Powers: His exoskeleton grants him limited telepathy and telekinesis.
• Psycho for Hire: At times he has worked for The Hood, Red Skull, Thanos, and Korvac, but he cares more at inflicting pain on others than money.
• The Sociopath: Believes he is the only one entitled to free will and sees other people as pawns.
• The Starscream: He was constantly trying to betray the Hood during Dark Reign. This ended up backfiring on him when he pushed Parker too far, which resulted in Controller getting one of his slave colors slapped onto him.
• Super-Strength: Thanks to his exoskeleton. Also as per Power Parasite above, he absorbs strength from those wearing his slave discs. This can make him a formidable opponent when he's had plenty of recruiting time before a hero gets to him. When Captain Marvel faced him during the Thanos War (1973), he estimated the Controller was as strong as Thor.
• Rocket Boots: In the feet of his exoskeleton.

Crimson Dynamo

Crimson Dynamo I-XIII

One of the few Iron Man villains to possess any staying power, the Krasnyiy Dinamit (Crimson Dynamo) was Soviet Russia's answer to the Iron Man armour. Originally built and worn by scientist Anton Vanko, twelve men and one woman have donned the Crimson Dynamo armour over the course of Iron Man's publication history.

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• Arch-Enemy: After The Mandarin, the Crimson Dynamos as a whole have the best claim at this title, opposing Iron Man since the 1960s and refusing to go away.
• Captain Patriotic: The Crimson Dynamo is meant to be loyal to the USSR, and subsequently Russia, above all else. Various Dynamos have lived up to or besmirched this reputation.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: All the Dynamos have piloted red armours.
• Demoted to Extra: Following the defeat of Valentin Shalatov (Dynamo VI), the more recent Dynamos have made only a few appearances each, and have received little characterization.
• Dirty Commies: The first six Dynamos were Soviet agents, including Dmitri Bukharin, the most famous Dynamo.
• Evil Counterpart: The first and most famous of them. As power-armoured foes with communist leanings and ties to the USSR, the Dynamos have always served as strong counterpoints to the capitalistic Stark.
  Crimson Dynamo: I have been wanting to test this armour against the so-called "Iron Man" for some time.
  Iron Man: Lots of others have tried and failed, Comrade.
• Evil Knockoff: A one-shot during World War Hulk shows that Crimson Dynamo armors are being semi-mass-produced and sold on the black market on the cheap. One of these knockoffs was bought by a bank robber who was dumb enough to think it made him powerful enough to singlehandedly take on Daredevil and Punisher.
• Flying Firepower: Like the Iron Man armour, the Crimson Dynamo armours are capable of both flight and offense.
• Legacy Character: Twelve men and one woman have worn the Crimson Dynamo armour. This becomes a running gag in the first Red Hulk storyline, where Iron Man and She-Hulk encounter the Winter Guard and have no idea whether the Crimson Dynamo they are encountering is a new one or an old one.
• Military Superhero: The first six Dyanmos, and Dynamo XIII are all members of the Soviet or Russian military.
• Powered Armour: Good enough to keep up with the Iron Man armour.
• Power Palms: Like Iron Man they use these a lot.
• Red Scare: Created when fear of the Soviet Union was at its height, and most of Iron Man's enemies were Communists.
• The Rival: The Crimson Dynamo armour is the rival to the Iron Man armour.
  • Rival Turned Evil: Depending entirely on who is wearing the suit, but frequently yes.
• Rocket Boots: What they use to fly.
• Soviet Superscience: The reason their armour is as good as it is.
• Super-Soldier: What they are seen as.
• Villain Team-Up: Often teams with other Russian villains.

Crimson Dynamo I

Vanko as Crimson Dynamo I

Alter Ego: Anton Vanko

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #46

"I am Professor Vanko, whom our leader calls the Crimson Dynamo! But sabotage alone will not satisfy me! I have vowed to destroy Iron Man!"

A Soviet scientist specializing in electricity, Anton Vanko built a red suit of armour that could produce and discharge vast quantities of electricity. Forced into battling Iron Man on behalf of the KGB, Vanko eventually turned on his masters, becoming an ally of Stark's.

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• Adaptation Expansion: A 2004 miniseries designed to update his origins to better fit the Floating Timeline give him a little bit more backstory: He's Armenian, with his birth name being Anton Igorovich Vankonian. He backed the losing side of a political power struggle, which put him in bad standing with Department X (the Russian version of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and he feared they placed a spy on his team that would kill him and confiscate the armor after a successful field test. Ironically enough, he suspected the spy was Alex Nevsky. The real mole was Boris Turgenev, and Nevsky was ruined after Vanko's defection.
• Antivillain: Vanko had no desire to hurt anybody, and only did what he did because the KGB forced him to.
• Badass Bookworm: He's the one who designed and built the Dynamo armour in the first place.
• Chronic Villainy: A noteworthy aversion, considering how frequent this trope is in comic books. Vanko's Heel–Face Turn sticked to his death (with no resurrection), with the writers choosing to instead bring back a villainous Crimson Dynamo through the use of Legacy Character.
• Defector from Decadence: Was only too glad to leave the USSR after Stark convinced him that his bosses wanted to have him killed.
• Evil Counterpart: Of all the Dynamos, he is the one who is the most obvious counterpart to Stark, as a genius inventor working for the Soviet Union.
• Evil Genius: Though with more emphasis on the "genius" than the "evil".
• Heel–Face Turn: He defected from the USSR and began working for Stark Industries.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrificed his life to save Iron Man from the Black Widow and the second Crimson Dynamo, Boris Turgenev.
• Mighty Glacier: His suit was not built for speed. The Unicorn suit (designed by Vanko himself) and later Crimson Dynamo armors were built to be sleeker and faster.
• Psycho Electro: His suit stored and discharged electricity.
• Science Hero: For the USSR.

Crimson Dynamo II

Turgenev as Crimson Dynamo II

Alter Ego: Boris Turgenev

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #52

"Boris does not walk around obstacles—it is easier to hurl them aside."

A KGB agent who donned the Crimson Dynamo armour to attack Iron Man and Anton Vanko in partnership with the Black Widow. He was killed by Vanko.

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• Brains and Brawn: The Brawn to Widow's Brain.
• Dumb Muscle: He was impressively strong even without the armor, enough to effortlessly lift an entire desk with his bare hands. Unlike Vanko, however, he wasn't a genius, and essentially served just as a muscle for Black Widow.
• Klingon Promotion: Aimed to truly earn the Dynamo title by killing Vanko.
• Shout-Out: His name is Boris and he's partnered with Natasha Romanov. The joke would be repeated by Boris Bullski and her.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Appeared in only one storyline, where he was killed off at the end.

Crimson Dynamo III

Nevsky as Crimson Dynamo III

Alter Ego: Alexander Nevsky

Notable Aliases: Alex Niven

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #15

"With the coming of the Crimson Dynamo, Iron Man is obsolete!"

A protege of Anton Vanko, Alex Nevsky was run out of the Soviet Union following his mentor's defection. Bitter at both Vanko and Stark, Nevsky became Alex Niven, and joined Cord Industries, planning to help the other company beat out Stark. He also tried to steal Stark's then-girlfriend, Janice Cord.

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• Bastard Understudy: To Anton Vanko.
• Becoming the Mask: He originally romanced Janice in an effort to hurt Stark, but ended up developing real feelings for her.
• Dangerous Deserter: From the USSR.
• Enemy Mine: Was forced to partner with the Titanium Man and the Radioactive Man when the three of them were trapped in Vietnam together.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Came to care about Janice Cord.
• Eviler than Thou: With Boris Bullski, the original Titanium Man.
• Evil Redhead: Depending on the lighting.
• The Exile: Exiled from the USSR due to his connections to Vanko.
• Freudian Excuse: Was thrown out of his country because of the crimes of his mentor.
• Killed Off for Real: Assassinated by the KGB.
• Love Triangle: Was in one with Janice Cord and Tony Stark.
• Named After Somebody Famous: The Real Life Alexander Nevsky was one of Russia's greatest heroes.
• Never My Fault: When the Titanium Man killed Janice, Nevsky blamed Stark for it, rather than accepting that it was his own actions (donning the Crimson Dynamo armour) that had made her a target in the first place.
• Renegade Russian: A Russian exile who hates the USA and USSR alike.
• Terrible Trio: While in exile in Vietnam, Nevsky was forced into an alliance with Radioactive Man and Titanium Man.
• Villainous Crush: On Janice Cord. Originally he was just trying to mess with Tony Stark, but eventually it became real for him.

Crimson Dynamo IV

Alter Ego: Yuri Petrovich

First Appearance: Champions (Vol 1) #7

The son of Ivan Petrovich, a friend of the Black Widow's, Yuri Petrovich was selected to be the new Crimson Dynamo by the KGB, who brainwashed him into believing his family had been slain by Western agents. Sent to kill the Black Widow, Yuri discovered the truth of what had been done to him, and turned on his masters. He was subdued and sent to a prison camp in Siberia.

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• Antagonistic Offspring: To his father, Ivan.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Brainwashed into hating the West and was very violent during this time.
• Renegade Russian: Why he was sent to the Siberian camps.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He's clashed with the Winter Soldier in modern continuity.
• Shout-Out: His helmet is very clearly modeled after the Master Chief’s from Halo.

Crimson Dynamo V

Bukharin as Crimson Dynamo V

Alter Ego: Dmitri Bukharin

Notable Aliases: Airstrike

First Appearance Iron Man (Vol 1) #109

"The Crimson Dynamo knows Iron Man, and you—brought down so easily—are no Iron Man."

The most famous (and competent) Crimson Dynamo, and certainly the longest running, Dmitri Bukharin was a Soviet superhero, rather than a supervillain. He frequently clashed with Tony Stark, as a member of first the Supreme Soviets, then the People's Protectorate, and in the process built up a strong respect for his enemy. Following the collapse of the USSR, Dmitri joined a new Russian team of superheroes (the Winter Guard) as Airstrike, though he continues to use the Crimson Dynamo armour as well.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: Intended to retire from being a superhero, only to be convinced by the newest Red Widow to rejoin the Winter Guard.
• Antivillain: Dimitri was not a supervillain—rather he was superhero who just happened to work for a dictatorial regime.
• Arch-Enemy: The Crimson Dynamo has always been in the running for the title of Iron Man's archnemesis, but it was Dmitri's time in the suit during the eighties that truly cemented this.
• Captain Patriotic: The only Dynamo who truly lived up to the ideal, acting as defender of his nation no matter what.
• Colonel Badass: Held this rank in first the Soviet, and then the Russian army.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Since the fall of the USSR, Dmitri has become a friend of Stark's, so much as to give him a Bear Hug during Stark's escape from Norman Osborn in Dark Reign.
• Elective Broken Language: Trolls Norman Osborn by pretending his English is very bad.
• Enemy Mine: Was forced to ally with Stark on several occasions.
• Eviler than Thou: With Boris Bullski, the Titanium Man, who he was sent to capture on behalf of the KGB. They still don't like each other.
• Good Counterpart: Recruited into the Winter Guard to fill the place left by defector Galina Nemirovsky (Dynamo XIII). Of course since he wore the Dynamo armour long before she did, you could also see her as his Evil Counterpart.
• Good Versus Good: Even during the Cold War, Bukharin was never an evil man. He just happened to work for a government that ensured his goals were frequently at cross purposes with Iron Man.
• Heel–Face Turn: Toyed with. Bukharin was never a bad man, but he worked for a pretty awful government. When the Soviet Union fell apart, Bukharin signed on with Russia's new democratic government, making his relations with Iron Man and other western heroes far better.
• The Leader: He and Red Guardian alternate command of the Winter Guard—Red Guardian is officially in command, but since Bukharin has more experience than the rest of the team combined, he can and does take the lead.
• Military Superhero: As both Dynamo V and Airstrike.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Stayed loyal to the USSR and Russia to the end, no matter how often they disappointed him.
• Powered Armour: As Crimson Dyanmo V and as Airstrike. The suits' abilities included:
  • Arm Cannon: Mounted on his wrists.
  • Power Palms: His main weapons.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: What he blasts with.
  • Rocket Boots: What he uses to fly.
  • Super-Strength: Very strong enough to wrestle with Stark on occasion.
• Super-Soldier: Was one as Dynamo V and continues to serve as one as Airstrike.
• Ret Irony: Bukharin was close to retiring from serving as the Dynamo during the Armor Wars storyline, but he was resigned to give his life, if need be, to stop the renegade Iron Man. Subverted when Stark disabled the Dynamo, declaring that "No one dies today!" He'd be proven wrong, but Bukharin did survive.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Russian state.

Crimson Dynamo VI

Shatalov as Crimson Dynamo VI

Alter Ego: Valentin Shatalov

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #255

"To them, this was a uniform of metal and nothing more. None of them have earned this armor as I have."

A colonel-general in the KGB, Valentin Shatalov forced Dmitri Bukharin to cede the title of Crimson Dynamo to him. He then redesigned the armour, becoming Crimson Dynamo VI. Following the collapse of the USSR, Shatalov was part of a conspiracy that aimed to return Russia to Stalinism. His superiors took the armour from him after a failed mission to retrieve the Titanium Man.

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• Chest Blaster: The only Dynamo whose armour featured a chest mounted weapon.
• Dirty Commies: A far more fervent example than previous Dynamos. While Vanko, Petrovich, and Bukharin loyally served the Soviet state, Shatalov was a dedicated Communist, who sought not only the revival of the Soviet Union, but a return to Stalinist policies.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: When Stalinism is your end goal, and you are willing to cross most lines to do it, you are definitely operating on this trope.
• Eviler than Thou: Like Nevsky and Bukharin before him, Shatalov had a bad run-in with Boris Bullski, the Titanium Man, who broke his arm and knocked him out of commission.
• Former Regime Personnel: Left without a country by the fall of the Soviet Union, Shatalov wants to restore his home.
• Four-Star Badass: A colonel-general in the KGB.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: With Stark, courtesy of "Freak Quincy" and Devastator's control satellite. This led to an injured Shalatov asking Stark to don the Dynamo armor to defeat Bullski.
• Make the Bear Angry Again: His goal was to revive the USSR under Stalinist control.
• No True Scotsman: Used this argument when describing why he deserved the Crimson Dynamo armour more than any of his predecessors had.
• Renegade Russian: One with dreams of bringing back the USSR.
• Secret Police: A colon-general in the KGB he acted as this.
• The Spymaster: During his time in the KGB.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Vanished from the scene after losing the Crimson Dynamo armour.

Crimson Dynamo XIII

Nemirovsky as Crimson Dynamo XIII

Alter Ego: Galina Nemirovsky

Notable Aliases: Ultra-Dynamo

First Appearance: Hulk: Winter Guard (Vol 1) #1

The thirteenth Crimson Dynamo, Galina Nemirovksy is the first woman to don the red armour. Trained by the Russian military to be a member of the Winter Guard, Galina has since gone rogue, and has clashed with Iron Man on a few occasions.

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• Ace Pilot: One of the best pilots in the Federal Dynamo program, which is what initially earned her the right to don the armour.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy: The first female Dynamo.
• Breast Plate: On her Powered Armour no less.
• Dangerous Deserter: After fleeing Russia and taking the Crimson Dynamo armour.
• Dark Action Girl: One of the only female rogues among Iron Man's enemies, she's acquitted herself well in their clashes thus far, earning this title.
• Former Regime Personnel: A former Russian pilot turned criminal mercenary.
• Humongous Mecha: The Ultra-Dynamo armour that she was originally tasked to fly verges on this. It was several times her size, with the limbs being operated from the cockpit.
• Military Maverick: We know that Galina was fired for insubordination, though the exact details have not been revealed.
• Military Superhero: A Russian army veteran selected specifically to assume the identity of the Crimson Dynamo.
• Mysterious Past: Very little has been revealed about Galina so far, including why she left the Winter Guard and why, given a lack of prior contact between herself and Stark, she chose to ally herself with Ezekiel Stane and The Mandarin.
• Powered Armour: Originally flew the Ultra-Dynamo version of the armour, which is upgraded to the most modern standards. Zeke Stane and The Mandarin granted her an even more high-tech, but more traditional looking (and much more form-fitting) version.
• Renegade Russian: Abandoned the Winter Guard and Russia to become a criminal.
• Super-Soldier: Specifically trained by the Russian government to assume the mantle of the Crimson Dynamo, she was granted the Ultra-Dynamo armour, which was far superior to previous Dynamo armours.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Her armour's hair.
• Unlucky Thirteen: The thirteenth Dynamo, she abandoned her nation and took her armour with her, becoming a criminal mercenary in the vein of Titanium Man.
• Villain Team-Up: She joined The Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane's collective to try and help take down Tony Stark, receiving a number of upgrades in the process.

Fin Fang Foom

Fin Fang Foom

First Appearance: Strange Tales (Vol 1) #89

"No place on Earth will give you safety, mortal, when Fin Fang Foom strikes!"

An alien dragon who landed on Earth in ancient times but was awakened in the 20th century to conquer Earth.

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• Aliens Are Bastards: Despite being awakened from eternal slumber by a human, he still decides to act against humanity.
• Alien Fair Folk: An alien who happens to look like a dragon. Note that there are actual dragons in the Marvel Universe, but they're not directly connected to him. Even his debut story, which hadn't established yet that he was an alien, describes him repeatedly as a "dragon-like creature."
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Yes, he is a giant alien Chinese dragon who knows martial arts that he uses when he fights other giant monsters like It the Living Colossus.
• Alliterative Name: Fin Fang Foom
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Extremely large dragon who rivals some skyscrapers.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He can have quite the ego and enjoys bellowing his presence for all to hear.
• Breakout Character: Foom is easily the most enduring and prominent of all the pre-Marvel monsters and still has quite a presence in modern media. Just about every hero you can name has encountered the big green guy at some point.
• Brought Down to Badass: In the delightfully silly but (perhaps sadly) non-canon humor title Fin Fang Four, thanks to Reed Richards, he and three other monsters were shrunk to human-size in the hopes of rehabilitating them. This didn't make him any less fearsome though as he's still a highly intelligent dragon with Martial Arts skills and flaming breath.
• Character Development: While not completely debased of it, over time Foom has reevaluated where his destructive nature was taking him, and has sought a more harmonious existence.
• Defector from Decadence: Inverted. He and his cohorts defected to decadence when they left their home planet. Their fellow Makluans were noble and good-natured, and not interested in attacking other worlds. Foom and the other Makluans who left wanted to use their amazing powers to conquer other species.
• Depending on the Artist: Does he have wings? How big are they? How long or flat is his muzzle? Does he have pointy talons, or squared-off fingers with human-like nails? Does he wear purple shorts? Plus, he's occasionally orange instead of green.
• Dirty Communists: In his first story, he is awaken by a Taiwanese Adventurer Archaeologist and manipulated into attacking Communist Chinese soldiers, preventing an invasion of Taiwan.
• Genius Bruiser: He's way smarter than you'd initially expect of a giant rampaging dragon. He was the navigator of the starship that left his home planet.
• Godzilla Threshold: In his first appearance, a young scholar whose family had fled communist China to Formosa (now Taiwan) deliberately awakens him and baits him into attacking an invasion force the communists had planned to send against Formosa. Afterward, he successfully tricks Foom back into his lair and puts him back to sleep.
• Heel–Face Turn: In Fin Fang Four, he abandoned villainy to become a pacifist. He has converted to Buddhism, regularly plays chess with Reed Richards in the park, and works as a chef. He's still a grouch, though.
• Horrifying Hero: When he's fighting alongside Earth's heroes, since he's a giant angry green dragon.
• Kaiju: Evokes this feeling especially around buildings.
• Large Ham: He's a Kaiju created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. What did you expect?
• Let's You and Him Fight: Has thrown down with Thor and the Hulk.
• Magic Pants: Has these for some reason. They're purple.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Foom's species, the Makluans, are all terrifyingly powerful giant alien dragons like him. They could probably conquer everything in sight if they wanted to...but they're generally compassionate and good-natured. Foom and his cohorts left their home planet of Kakaranthara, AKA Makluan-IV, because they were annoyed that their kin did not want to start conquering their neighbors.
• Odd Friendship: Develops one with Broo during Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda.
• Our Dragons Are Different: For starters, this one is an alien, and has an uncannily human-like face.
• Really 700 Years Old
• Red Baron: "He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains and Whose Back Scrapes The Sun."
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Originated as a one-off monster from the period just before Marvel focused on superhero titles in the early 60s, and was retconned into the mainstream Marvelverse in the 70s, but didn't become an enemy of IM until the early 90s.
• Rule of Cool: In his debut story, he picked up a chunk of the Great Wall of China in his arms and snapped it like a whip at the soldiers attacking him. It made absolutely no sense and it was awesome.
• Sizeshifter: His size varies from Kaiju to small enough to work in a kitchen.
• Supreme Chef: During his time among the puny humans, he found his calling as a chef. If you thought Gordon Ramsey was tough...
• Team Dad: For the Fin Fang Four, being the oldest and most experienced.
• Transformation of the Possessed: Foom's body was at one point destroyed after a battle with Iron Man, but his spirit manifested in a small jade dragon statue. Said statue was stolen by a troubled youth named Billy Yuan, and transformed the teen into a Dragon-like monster before absorbing hundreds of reptiles to recreate Foom's massive body.
• The Unpronounceable: His real name is implied to be this.
• Yellow Peril: Like the Mandarin, he's based on negative Chinese stereotypes from the 50s and 60s.

Firebrand

Firebrand I

Alter Ego: Gary Gilbert

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #27

"I am the voice of your children, Mister — the non-meek who intend to inherit the Earth!"

Gary Gilbert was the son of an unscrupulous businessman who came to hate his father's unethical actions, and American capitalism in general. He became convinced that a violent revolution was necessary to overthrow the American government and capitalism, and used his scientific talents to create a suit of flame-throwing Powered Armor. Calling himself Firebrand, Gilbert became a costumed terrorist who repeatedly clashed with Iron Man. He was killed by Scourge, resurrected by the Hood, and then killed again by the Punisher.

---

• Abusive Parents: Gary's father, Simon, was an abusive control freak. Few tears were shed when Gary killed him.
• The Alcoholic: Struggled with this for some time.
• Alliterative Name: Gary Gilbert.
• Foil: To Iron Man. While Tony Stark is an industrialist who inherited his company from his father and took it to greater heights, Gilbert was a child of privilege who grew disgusted with the upper class and became a violent 60s-style revolutionary.
• Legacy Character: The designs for the Firebrand armor would later be stolen by a man named Russell Broxtel, who used the costume as a more conventional supervillain. When he died fighting Spider-Man, the costume ended up in the hands of a nameless criminal who was killed by Deadpool.
• Playing with Fire: His suit could project and manipulate flames.
• Powered Armour: His mechanical suit, which was equipped with flamethrowers and jets.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: His original goal and motivation.
  Iron Man: Anxious to join whoever's paying you to turn Northside into a battleground, Firebrand?
  Firebrand: You'd like to believe that, wouldn't you, Avenger? That I'm just part of a neat little criminal plot? Or maybe a commie, a pinko... that'd be easy to handle, too. Well, I'm just an all-American boy, Iron Man; one of those wide-eyed innocents who started out to make the world a better place. I sat in for Civil Rights, marched for peace, demonstrated on campus, and got chased by vicious dogs, spat on by bigots, beat on by "patriots", choked by tear gas, and blinded by mace until I finally caught on. This country doesn't want to be changed! The only way to build anything decent is to tear down what's here and start over.
• Villain Decay: While Tony upgraded his technology, Gilbert did not. He was eventually defeated by Rhodey in a Curb-Stomp Battle while Rhodey was piloting the Model 4 Iron Man armor, and his successor has been defeated by the likes of Spider-Man, among others. Gilbert also abandoned his efforts at revolution, instead becoming a "talent agent" for fellow supervillains.

Firebrand III

Alter Ego: Richard L. Dennison

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 3) #4

"You control the weather and you think you can fool people into thinking you're a god! But I'm Firebrand — I am the unfettered fury of the world itself, crying for justice!"

A radical environmentalist terrorist, Rick Dennison was exposed to an experimental plasma that mutated his body, turning it into living flames. The terrorist group Flaming Sword, eager to have a supervillain on their team, refashioned his containment tank into an armored battlesuit and conditioned him to be their primary operating agent. He battled Iron Man on several occasions.

---

• Animal Wrongs Group: Originally, until he eventually joined RAID, an AIM offshoot.
• Ax-Crazy : Will kill anyone for his goals.
• Legacy Character: Third person to use the Firebrand codename.
• Mutant: More of a mutate but has elements of this.
• Playing with Fire: Was made out of flames, and could control them at will. Uses fireballs and can be Wreathed in Flames.
• Power Limiter: His harness, that allows him to control his powers.
• Pyromaniac: What experimentation made him.
• Western Terrorists: A environmentalist who took his experiments too far.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: A terrorist who gained great power and great desire to kill people.

Firebrand IV

Alter Ego: Amanda (surname unknown)

First Appearance: Invincible Iron Man (Vol 1) #513

"Bringing a stealth suit to an exoskeleton brawl? Not smart."

Recruited by The Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane for their supervillain collective, the woman known only as Amanda has become the fourth Firebrand. Since The Mandarin's defeat, she has gone onto act as a costumed mercenary.

---

• Affirmative-Action Legacy: The first female Firebrand.
• Cyborg: After Ezekiel Stane's modifications.
• Dark Action Girl: She certainly tries, though her record against Iron Man is not that good to date.
• Evil Redhead: Has flaming red hair.
• Fiery Redhead: Unsurprisingly.
• Hired Guns: Has worked for Mandarin, Columbian drug lords, and Spymaster II over the course of her career.
• Legacy Character: The fourth supervillain to go by Firebrand.
• Only One Name: Her last name is unknown.
• Playing with Fire: She emits superheated plasma blasts.
• Pyromaniac: She hasn't gotten a lot of characterization, but she definitely seems to get a kick out of burning people and property.
• Villain Team-Up: Amanda's a joiner. She first appeared as part of Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane's supervillain collective. She later allied herself with Living Laser and Vibro to do mercenary work in Columbia, before joining up with Spymaster II's plan to assault Stark Tower.
• Villainous Friendship: With Blizzard II, to the point where he stayed behind to fight Iron Man and allow her to escape.

Ghost

Ghost

Notable Aliases: John Morley

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #219

" I don't sabotage corporations for the money, I do it because I hate them. And I want them dead."

An expert thief, hacker and saboteur who's often hired to break into Stark Industries. He's just as liable to screw over his employers as he is to help them. He has created his own powered suit that gives him the ability to phase and to become invisible, he can extend his powers to other objects as well. Having long since lost his humanity and sanity- he always wears the suit, smells terrible, and rants about bringing down capitalism and all corporations.

He originated as one of Iron Man's foes, and appeared as a member of the Thunderbolts during the "Dark Reign" and "Heroic Age" eras.

---

• Anti-Hero: As of late.
• Ax-Crazy: To the point that Spymaster cuts him off from his employment, citing Ghost's instability.
• Black-and-White Insanity: He thinks in binary terms. Stark, as a rich person, is bad. However, during their fight in Thunderbolts, Tony reveals he is, at that point, broke. Since Stark is no longer rich, he's no longer "the enemy", and Ghost stops attacking him.
• Bomb Throwing Anarchist: Hates corporate America with a passion.
• Boxed Crook: When he joins the Thunderbolts.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Sees hidden threats everywhere. He even believed that a crossword puzzle in a newspaper was a form of communication for a secret group.
• The Cracker: A hacker on par with Stark, the only system The Ghost deems impregnable is the Baxter Building.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was once a brilliant engineer and programmer, working for a paycheck, doted on by his employers, and started up a relationship with a cute girl at the office. Then she suffered an untimely "accident". Then he did as well. Only a special piece of tech he'd been working on saved him, but he went quite mad, and went after his former employers, having realized they'd blackmailed his lover into pretending to like him so as to give him reason to stay.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Usually hires himself out to Corrupt Corporate Executives like Norman Osborn and Justin Hammer, seeking to ultimately destroy them as well.
• Eviler than Thou: When the Kingpin hired him to steal some experimental vibranium metal, the Ghost ran into Ultron, who was hoping to use the metal to upgrade his robotic body. Ghost was expecting Iron Man and assumed that he could beat Ultron just as easily, but the resulting Curb-Stomp Battle taught him otherwise.
• Foil: Everyone knows Iron Man's true identity, while in the case of the Ghost no one knows his identity.Both were victims of a group that wanted to abuse the genius of each for their own purposes. The similarities and yet deep-rooted differences were mainly demonstrated at the meeting of the Avengers and Tunderbolts: Both have a sense of justice and both run before they go. But Ghost is much more extreme, Iron Man is Tony Stark, but Ghost is only Ghost.
• Geeky Turn-On: Gets way too excited about examining data than should be allowed. Moonstone even wonders if she should be looking at him when he says it.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Even he's not sure what side he's on nowadays. Even when he's helping the heroes he actively goes out of his way to screw over Iron Man, for the sheer fact that the two hate each other.
  • After Secret Empire he seems to be a villain again, backing Baron Zemo in his bid to take over HYDRA.
• Intangiblity: His suit enables him to become intangible. He is also able to make other objects invisible and intangible.
• Invisibility Cloak: His suit enables him to become invisible even if he's tangible, which can be a problem when an opponent does something to reveal his outline like set off a sprinkler system.
• I Was Quite the Looker: If his origin in Thunderbolts is accurate, back before his life went to Hell, he actually looked pretty good. Despair first led to him getting out of shape, and then by the time he's Ghost, he's become thin, emaciated and foul-smelling. Even some of his earlier appearances that showed him out of costume depicted him as a fairly regular-looking guy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ghost may be a calculating paranoiac, but he did also save his Thunderbolts teammates lives several times over.
• Light Is Not Good: Dressed in all white.
• No Social Skills: When not wearing at least his mask, Ghost is a very socially awkward individual, unable to even speak to others. Also, wearing his intangibility suit for extended periods has had a deleterious effect on his interpersonal skills, as it has made him almost completely uncaring of anybody else. This, unfortunately, has reached the point where he seldom ever takes the suit off for any reason, with the associated stink and thus even less motive to stay for long in his presence.
• Noble Demon: He's a mentally unstable crook for hire, but he's got standards and tends to only target people that arguably deserve to get screwed over. He's also willing to help people in need and has worked with the heroes on many occasions.
• No Name Given: Aside from John Morley. In his origin, he made sure to delete any and all traces of his past identity from all databases.
• Mad Bomber: Is an expert bomb maker and loves to laugh when he successfully destroys a corporation using explosions. He likes it to stay there and let the debris flow through him.
• The Pig-Pen: Ghost doesn't take much interest in personal hygene. Moonstone has a vomiting fit after he gives her CPR.
• Professional Killer: Most notably in Stark Disassembled.
• Properly Paranoid: Obsessive in the extreme - which tends to pay off with alarming regularity. During his tenure with the Thunderbolts, he discovered a teammate's parachute had been sabotaged. He only discovered the damage in his third check of the equipment before the mission.
• Psychic Block Defense: His helmet shields him from telepaths, what makes sense for his paranoid character.
• Psycho for Hire: His paychecks are more or less secondary to being given an excuse to sabotage corporations. He only values money for financing his vendetta against businesses.
• Self-Destructive Charge: The Ghost had been trying in his first appearance to destroy a experimental generator for Stark Enterprises, since Stark Enterpises' entire future depended on it, destroying it would cause the company to go under. However, being close to the generator was screwing with the Ghost's gear, and Iron Man was worried that if the Ghost got much closer, he'd kill himself. Stark chose his employees over Ghost's life and let Ghost do his suicide run - Ghost reappeared after it.
• The Sneaky Guy: Takes this role in a team as he has excellent sensors and it's nearly impossible to detect him because of his invisibility
• The Smart Guy: His observant character helps his team by finding solution to unknown problems.
• The Spook: Very, very little is known about him. Not even his real name is known to anyone. Not even Ghost himself seems entirely certain of what his life was like before he became a supervillain.
• Stealth Expert: Being able to be intangible and invisible as well as being a prime hacker makes Ghost one of Marvel's best stealth characters.
• That Man Is Dead: He's very insistent the man he was died in the explosion. After all, he was there.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Being intangible helps making grenades a viable weapons choice for close combat as the explosions can't harm him.
• Tele-Frag: Used an intangibility based variation on Spymaster once.
• Unperson: He erased any trace of his former identity after he became Ghost. Even in his own flashbacks, his name's bleeped out.
• Verbal Tic: Ghost is famous for his gargling "Hehhnn"s.
• Vigilante Man: Ghost destroys corporations or secret groups he deems evil without payment because he feels that the law itself is too corrupt to go after them. Ghost is willing to work with those organization, but plans to destroy them from within.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ghost believes that by destroying the government and corporatist structures, the world will be set free.

Iron Monger

Iron Monger I

Stane as the Iron Monger

Alter Ego: Obadiah Stane

Notable Aliases: The King

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #163

"I have always believed that the essential part of winning is to enjoy your opponent's humiliation at losing. That is the real reward of the game."

President and CEO of one of Stark's rivals, Obadiah Stane orchestrated Tony's return to alcoholism, costing him his company and his identity as Iron Man, before buying him out. He subsequently developed his own suit of armour and engaged the returned Iron Man in battle as the Iron Monger.

---

• Bald of Evil: His hair fell out when he saw his father Zebediah commit suicide.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Refuses to lose to Iron Man, committing suicide rather than accepting death or capture at his hands.
• Big Bad: For 40 issues (#160-#200) of the original comic, culminating in the Iron Monger arc.
• The Chessmaster: In both the metaphorical and literal sense.
  • Chess Motifs: His robotic henchmen were designed to resemble chess pieces.
• Control Freak: Obsessively so.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: There are no rules Stane will not break to win.
• Driven to Suicide: Blew his own head off rather than let Iron Man arrest him.
• Evil Knockoff: The Iron Monger armour is specifically based on Stark's designs.
• Expy: Started out as a younger Justin Hammer. Divergent Character Evolution, however, saw Stane eventually become the obsessive Sore Loser that fans remember so well, which helped distinguish the two. By the time Stane's arc was over, and he climbed into the Iron Monger suit, the similarities were gone.
• First-Name Basis: Before dying, he starts addressing Tony by name, even asking if he's allowed to do so.
• Flaw Exploitation: Used Iron Man's alcoholism against him. Iron Man later used Stane's reliance on remote control technology to run the Iron Monger suit against him.
• Flying Firepower: The Iron Monger could fly at subsonic speeds, and was very heavily armed.
• For the Evulz: Why did he dedicate himself to utterly destroying Tony? Well, partly just because he was bored.
• It Only Works Once: Very much averted. Stane upgraded his Chessmen to improve on their flaws, and perfected his mind control headphones for multiple uses.
• Kick the Dog: As the folder quote indicates, simply defeating an opponent was not enough for Stane; the loser had to be destroyed or emotionally broken for him to consider it a "real" victory.
• Killed Off for Real: Died in Iron Man #200, and so far it has stuck.
• The Man Behind the Man: Worked behind the scenes for a long time. He initially hired one off saboteurs who could not be traced back to him, deploying his Chessmen when he realized he needed to Summon Bigger Fish. Even then, Stark did not discover him until he was ready to reveal himself.
• Manipulative Bastard: Whether it was using Indries Moomji to break Stark's heart or mind controlling Bethany Cabe, Stane's favorite tactic was emotional manipulation.
• Mecha-Mooks: His Chessmen.
• Narcissist: Stane had a classic narcissistic complex. Once Stark and Rhodes figured this out, they were able to use this weakness against him.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He didn't have any real experience fighting in powered armor, and relied on remote control technology to do much of the work when he used the Iron Monger armor against Iron Man.
• Parental Abandonment: His mother died under unknown circumstances, and his father committed suicide while playing Russian Roulette.
• Power Copying: Stane's engineers created the Iron Monger armor based on some early designs Tony Stark made but hadn't completed.
• Powered Armour: As the Iron Monger.
  • Power Palms: What he uses as blasts.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Favoured orange and purple suits in civilian life.
• Smug Snake: Stane was certainly intelligent, but not quite as much as he thought he was. When he bombed Tony's new Circuits Maximus startup and killed Tony's friend Morley Erwin, Stane expected that Tony would suffer a Despair Event Horizon and fall off the wagon. Instead, it prompted Tony to make his new Silver Centurion armor and teach Stane the hard way that He's Back!.
• Sore Loser: To a pathological degree. Obadiah was nearly phobic of defeat, and would go to ridiculous lengths to put it off.
• Unbuilt Trope: Obadiah Stane was a fairly early example of the Corrupt Corporate Executive in superhero comics, and as such has some oddities for the trope - such as the purple and orange costume he wears in his first appearances.
• Villainous Legacy: A few people using their own knock-off Iron Monger armors would appear in the years after Stane's death, though none of them were Big Bad material of their own, simply working as flunkies.
• Worthy Opponent: When Tony finally bests him, Stane commends Tony as this.
• You Have Failed Me: When Stane's original "Knight" Chessman, Fletcher Higgs, is captured by Iron Man, Stane has his Bishop break Higgs out of prison... then has Bishop drop Higgs to his death as punishment for his failure.

Iron Monger IV

Zeke as Iron Monger II

Alter Ego: Ezekiel "Zeke" Stane

First Appearance: The Order (Vol 2) #8

"This isn't the future of warfare — this is the face of asymmetrical warfare. Welcome to the 21st century."

Obadiah's son, Zeke Stane is an international anarchocapitalist libertarian terrorist, with no particular agenda, a burning hatred for Tony Stark, and a penchant for improving on other's designs and internalizing machinery. He is responsible for the collapse of Stark Industries early in Invincible Iron Man, and subsequently allies with his father-in-law, The Mandarin, to wreak further havoc.

---

• Avenging the Villain: Blames Tony for Obadiah's suicide.
  "Sins of the father, huh? Always got a way of coming back."
• Bald of Evil: His modifications to his body result in the loss of his hair.
• Big Bad: Of The Order and the Five Nightmares arc.
• Bio-Augmentation: Zeke has augmented himself to be a biological version of Iron Man, using his own body's energy reserves to fly and generate repulsor blasts.
• Cast from Calories: Zeke bioengineered his own body to be able to fire repulsor blasts like Iron Man, but doing so burns a lot of energy. He compensates by consuming a very high-calorie goo.
  [squeezing a tube into his mouth] "Here comes 20,000 calories just like mom used to make."
• Daddy Issues: Torn between the desire to avenge his father and show him up.
• Demoted to Dragon: When he teams with the Mandarin.
• Enemy Mine: Is forced into one with Iron Man after he realizes that The Mandarin has no intentions of letting him live.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He tells a group of Big Tobacco executives that even as the guy that gives weapons to murderers and freaks, he considers them to be evil.
  "I might deal to murderers, but you guys — you guys are addicting kids and then murdering them yourselves."
• Evil Genius: Of a lesser variety than Tony. Tony compares him to a guy who invented the sandwich by piecing together existing foods rather than inventing entirely new foods.
• Evil Knockoff: To the point of it being his Fatal Flaw. Zeke can modify Iron Man's tech like nobody's business, but he can't make his own. The Iron Monger II costume is a direct knockoff of both Stark and Obadiah's designs because Zeke can't come up with anything better.
• Fatal Flaw: Zeke is imitative rather than innovative, and relies on other people's technology. He also has no hand-to-hand combat experience. When Iron Man disabled all Stark technologies, Zeke was easily defeated by an unarmoured Stark. He also inherited his father's narcissism, meaning that he must defeat his opponents in a manner that proves his intellectual superiority.
  Tony: Zeke Stane doesn't just want to beat you. He wants to gloat and explain. The guys don't do that much anymore, but Zeke's a throwback, a classic of the genre. He has to be properly cited. He never gets that while he's waiting to be celebrated, you're actually calculating eight ways to kick his ass.
• Foil: Zeke's creator has described him as a second Tony Stark, younger, sharper, and ever more obsessed with the future, and playing open source anarchist to Stark's closed source capitalist. For all his genius, however, Zeke is unable to come up with original ideas of his own, and relies on the work of others, where Iron Man is an innovator of the first order.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Massive ones along one side of his face, courtesy of his fight against Iron Man.
• Healing Factor: Engineered one into his own genetic code.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Or rather, your mother. Sunset Bain is, see below.
• Mad Scientist: Or more of mad reinventor, because he doesn't make anything new.
• The Man Behind the Man: To the Order in his first appearance, and to Wakandan rebels in Black Panther.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Teen Villain versus middle-aged hero.
  Iron Man: You're a monster!
  Zeke Stane: I'm a businessman. And you're a relic, Grandpa!
• Parental Abandonment: Mom is nowhere in the picture, and Dad committed suicide.
• Powered Armour: Dons a suit that protects him and ventilates the heat from his internal weapons.
• Required Secondary Powers: Zeke has bioengineered himself in such a way that he can fire repulsor blasts using his own bioelectricity, increases his healing, and so forth. However, he has to consume a very high calorie paste in order to keep his blood sugar up, and his armor chiefly acts as a way to vent heat from his body, as he hasn't figured out how to keep his flesh from burning off.
• The Starscream: To The Mandarin, whom he and Sasha were always intending to depose.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Gives one to Iron Man after murdering the Mandarin.
  Iron Man: This isn't how we do things!
  Zeke Stake: This is exactly how I do things! Look at what this guy did to us. To all these people, Tony. Look at what we just stopped him from doing.
  Iron Man: There are rules. There are laws.
  Zeke Stane: And they all stop working in the face of things like that! The rules break down when you can't improvise in a crisis. That's how I did things. That's how he did things. This is how you win this stuff, man. You literally destroyed a possible alien intelligence, for God's sake. What makes you the hero and me the villain here?
• Terrorists Without a Cause: Zeke's an open source ideological terrorist, with a credo of "change" and not much else. He sells not only his technology, but his designs themselves to anybody who will buy.
• Transhuman: Views himself this way.
  "This isn't evolution. This is really intelligent design."
• Western Terrorists: Blew up Stark Industries because he hated them.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Sasha Hammer.
• Villain Team-Up: With the Mandarin, who then proceeds to unite almost every Iron Man villain then active into a Legion of Doom. Forms another one with the Fenris twins when he needs to Summon Bigger Fish to fight Black Panther.

Justin Hammer

Justin Hammer

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #120

"Have you ever wondered where some of your foes get the money to develop their weapons, pay their bail, replace their broken equipment? It is my pleasure to offer sanctuary and financial aid to those gentlemen and ladies...for a mere 50% of their profits."

A corporate rival of Tony's, Hammer was also the secret financier behind numerous attempts on Tony and Iron Man's lives. He engineered Stark's first alcoholic breakdown, leaked his designs to most of his enemies, and assembled several collectives of costumed mercenaries to battle the hero, outfitting the likes of Blizzard and Whiplash I/Blacklash I with improved equipment.

---

• Affably Evil: He's quite polite and charming in person, to the extent of sending Tony flowers when the latter was shot by Kathy Dare.
• Arch-Enemy: The third major contender for the title, alongside The Mandarin and the Crimson Dynamo. From his involvement in almost every major arc of the eighties and nineties, to his legacy that continues to this day in the form of his daughter and granddaughter, to the simple fact that he and Stark hated each other, Hammer was an archetypal archfoe, not for Iron Man, but for Tony Stark. Even after his death, Hammer Industries remains one of the few viable rivals to Stark's various enterprises.
• The Big Bad: Of the Demon in a Bottle and Armor Wars I story arcs, among others.
• The Chessmaster: Hammer always got the ball rolling in advance, and would try to exploit any situation to his advantage, even buying out Stane International after Iron Monger's death.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: John Romita, Jr. and Bob Layton modeled his appearance on Peter Cushing.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: To make a good contrast to Tony. Not only does Hammer use underhanded methods to succeed in business, but he also finances criminal activities in exchange for a cut of the profits.
• Diabolical Mastermind: During his initial appearance in Demon in a Bottle, Hammer stayed in the shadows, operating from a personal ship off the coast of Monaco. He operated entirely through proxies, and even his business concerns were all shell corporations that could not be traced back to him. Though Hammer Industries later became public, this aspect of his character was never entirely dropped.
• Disney Villain Death: Bad Blood ends with Hammer frozen in a block of ice and then dropped into space.
• Driven by Envy: At least a part of Hammer's motivation is his envy of Stark's wealth, his renown, and his connections within the military-industrial complex.
• Evil Brit: Born in England; he later moved to Monaco.
• Evil Counterpart: To Tony Stark, rather than Iron Man. Hammer's crooked business practices, criminal dealings, and war-profiteering contrasted with Stark's above board actions and attempts to get out of the military business. Even Hammer's personal habits and appearance — his choice of suits, his preference for smoking over drinking, his age — all serve to make him the opposite of Stark.
• Evil Genius: Perhaps moreso than any other Iron Man foe, Hammer was forced to rely on his brains, as his advanced age and lack of combat skills meant he could never confront Iron Man directly.
• Evil Old Folks: To contrast to the younger Tony. Hammer's age is never explicitly stated, but he's old enough to have a granddaughter who's in her twenties.
• Flaw Exploitation: He was the first villain to try and exploit Stark's alcoholism during Demon in a Bottle, beating Obadiah Stane to it by years.
• Frame-Up: Framed Iron Man for murder during Demon in a Bottle.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Classic evil smoking, complete with cigarette holder.
• Greed: Hammer was motivated by greed more than anything else. He wanted to get rich, and he was willing to hurt anybody in order to do it. No matter how rich he got, it was never quite enough.
• Harmless Freezing/Kill It with Ice: Hammer was last seen inside a block of ice, drifting into space. Whether he's really dead has never been confirmed.
• The Hedonist: Introduced living on a mansion-sized yacht, and often wearing a fancy bathrobe - his combination of fabulous wealth and secrecy lets him enjoy whatever luxury he chooses.
• Lean and Mean: An emaciated old man.
• The Man Behind the Man: To numerous supervillains during the eighties, supplying them with high-tech weaponry.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Typically sported the most fashionable suits.
• Mind-Control Device: He and MODOK once used one to turn War Machine against Iron Man.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Hammer was many things, most of them dangerous, but a fighter he wasn't.
  • The notable exception being Bad Blood. Suffering from terminal cancer and eager to defeat Iron Man before he dies, he finally engages Iron Man in battle, albeit as a Flunky Boss.
• Nouveau Riche: Seems to hit all elements of this.
• Rival Turned Evil: Hammer was already evil, but it was his rivalry with Stark that drove him into associating with costumed supervillains.
  Hammer: My power and holdings in the business world are second only to your own. In fact, Stark International has been something of a thorn in my corporate side for some time now.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Part of the reason he never really faces justice for his crimes.
• Self-Made Man: Of the crooked variety.
• Villain Team-Up: With MODOK, among others.
• War for Fun and Profit: A fairly classic war profiteer.

Living Laser

Living Laser

Alter Ego: Arthur Parks

Notable Aliases: The Laser, Light Boy, Titanium Man

First Appearance: Avengers (Vol 1) #34

"You've made a grave mistake, Iron Man, in thinking I'm an easy opponent."'

Research scientist Arthur Parks went crazy after his girlfriend dumped him for a wealthy banker's son. Deciding that power was the way to get women, Parks created a pair of wrist-mounted laser blasters and became the costumed supervillain the Living Laser. After an accident converted him into living energy, he became one of the most dangerous of Iron Man's enemies.

---

• And I Must Scream: He cannot feel, smell, or taste. He is also constantly fighting to keep his body's photons from dissipating, which has happened before.
• Ax-Crazy: Showed shades of this when he was still human, his transformation was the final catalyst that officially pushed him into homicidal madman territory.
• Containment Field: His armour has one, which prevents him from flying apart.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Took on the form of the second Titanium Man during Armor Wars II in order to trick Iron Man into revealing that he was the same one who fought the Laser in the past, and not a replacement for the one that, as far as the public knew, died at the hands of Firepower in the first Armor Wars.
• Determinator: One early story had him sent to get an Artifact of Doom called the Serpent Crown. Laser briefly wore the crown to boost his powers against the Avengers. Usually, people who wear the crown either end up addicted to its power or the servant of Set, the elder god it is linked to. He is one of the few villains to show no ill effects of wearing the crown.
• Dumb Muscle: Subverted. Parks is a brilliant scientist, but his obsessions and neuroses severely hamper him. At one point, James Rhodes defeated Parks by luring him into a containment device on the pretense that he could resume his scientific work.
• Enemy Mine: Sided with Iron Man and Iron Monger II when The Mandarin's collective fell apart.
• Energy Beings: Converted into living light.
• Even Evil Has Standards: During Armor Wars II, when Iron Man is getting Mind Raped by Overlord, Parks, rather than finish off his weakened opponent, postpones their battle until Stark can regain enough strength to engage him in a fair fight.
• Foil: To Ulysses Klaw, a mad scientist who has been converted into a being of pure sound. While neither of them are particularly sane, Klaw keeps the Laser grounded in reality whenever they work together in the Masters of Evil.
• Flying Firepower: One of the upsides of being made out of laser energy is that you can fly and shoot at the same time.
• Hired Guns: At first. These days he's more prone to just killing anything he can get his hands on.
• Horns of Villainy: After being transformed into an energy being, his helmet's ridges became exaggerated to give this appearance. This became one of his iconic details for the '90s and early '00s. His new purple costume no longer has them.
• Humanoid Abomination: A just barely humanoid mass of laser energy, with homicidal urges.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Used rarely, one early story while battling the first Quasar had Laser tell the hero not to get cocky and that he could make hard-light constructs as well.
• Intangibility: Can become intangible while in laser form.
• Light 'em Up: Controls light and all that entails.
• Light Is Not Good: Has light powers, became literally made of light and even has been drawn to invoke rainbows on occasion, but is evil or at least unpleasant most of the time.
• Master of Illusion: Can create false images by manipulating the light spectrum.
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: His fatal flaw; Parks has the potential to be a major-league supervillain who could easily curb-stomp any superhero that comes his way, but his obsessions and lack of imagination or ambition prevents him from being anything more than a small-timer.
• Not Good with Rejection: Contrary to the perceptions of him as Dumb Muscle, Parks is actually a brilliant scientist. His problem is not a lack of intelligence, but rather his extreme neuroses and hang-ups around women and rejection. The whole reason he became a supervillain in the first place was because of the Freak Out he suffered after his girlfriend dumped him.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He was such a joke, everyone (even other villains) called him "the Living Loser". Eventually, however, his abilities were amplified by Count Nefaria, and even though this was temporary, it eventually turned him into a being of photons, making him far more dangerous and a true threat.
  • The site Bring On The Bad Guys: The Villains of Marvel Comics indicates what he was like from the start. He went on a destructive crime spree, kidnapped the Wasp and tried to charm her into marrying him, and nearly took over a small Central American country, all while, as the site put it, "he was essentially just a nut with two zap-guns strapped to his wrists!"
• Powered Armour: Wears a suit of armour to contain his energies. Said armour also holds a number of weapons.
• Practically Joker: Received this treatment when John Byrne wrote him. The Laser had had a memorable turn in the early 80's as a sort of Bond villain for hire, and a follow-up appearance where Iron Man's defeat of him there drove him to mad vengeance. When the Laser next turned up under Byrne, he was a cackling madman who insisted that he was the only one allowed to kill Iron Man, with his combination of madness and lethality emphasized. He was less the calculating and traitorous mastermind that he had been before, and more like the Joker with enough power to threaten Iron Man.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: When he was a Jobber for the Avengers, he had borderline Yandere tendencies toward The Wasp and had some burgeoning rivalry with Captain America. As he became more of an Iron Man villain, both of these elements were dropped from his characterization (though he still locks horns with Cap every now and then).
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Is purple. When he was still human, his costume was green and orange, with a yellow zig-zag across his chest; he mimicked this form for some time after becoming pure energy.
• Stalker with a Crush: Had this dynamic toward the Wasp while he was still human.
  Living Laser: How can Janet van Dyne fail to fall in love with the man who is now mightier than Goliath himself?
• Super-Power Meltdown: How he became an energy being in the first place. His powers were super-charged and then drained by Count Neferia, causing his laser powers to build up. He works with East German scientists, who drain the excess energy and use it to power their satellites. When Iron Man arrives, they fight and his power builds up and he explodes before he can drain the energy out.
• Super-Speed: So fast as to be untouchable.
• Took a Level in Badass: First when he was converted into a real living laser, and then when The Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane upgraded him during Matt Fraction's run.
• Transhuman: Before becoming an energy being, he had diodes implanted in his skin in various parts of body so he could use his powers without his costume. Unfortunately, this leads to the events that caused his Super-Power Meltdown listed above.
• Villain Team-Up: Has worked with The Mandarin and Justin Hammer among others.
• Was Once a Man: For a while after becoming pure energy, Laser manifested himself in the appearance of his human form for a while, before discarding the guise altogether in favor of a more vaguely humanoid body of light.

Madame Masque

Madame Masque

Alter Ego: Giuletta Nefaria, Whitney Frost

Notable Aliases: The Big M, Krissy Longfellow, Gia Neff

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #97

" I must remain vigilant! Always vigilant! My enemies— They're all around me, always plotting! I must show no weakness! Must never drop my guard!"

The daughter of Count Nefaria, Giuletta ("Gia") was given to his retainer, Byron Frost to raise as his own daughter, Whitney. Convinced by her father to take over his criminal enterprises later in life, Whitney worked with Whiplash, Mordecai Midas, and Morgan Stark to acquire Stark Industries in a hostile takeover. After a three way confrontation with Iron Man and A.I.M. left her disfigured, Midas gave Whitney an ornate golden mask. Later meeting Tony Stark in civilian life, she became attracted to him, but did not take it well when she discovered he was Iron Man. Whitney has since seesawed between wanting to aid Stark and wanting to hurt him as badly as she feels he hurt her.

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• Arch-Enemy: She sees two different people as this; Bethany Cabe and, more recently Kate Bishop.
• Ax-Crazy: When she's at her worst.
• Badass Normal: No powers but still a dangerous threat to Iron Man. She's a superb athlete and martial artist while also being a skilled tactician. She's no match for heroic combat monsters like Black Widow and etc. but against your average Elite Mook, she'll kick their asses.
  • During Reboot she became possessed by demonic forces from an amulet she stole. It took both Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom to exorcise her.
• Big Bad: Of The Coming Of Whiplash, Stark Disassembled and L.A. Woman among others.
• Broken Bird: To the point where her mind has shattered.
• Cloning Gambit: During The Avengers (Kurt Busiek), he resolved years of Continuity Snarl regarding Whitney (that she kept dying and coming back and behaving differently each time) by declaring that the real Whitney suffered from deep paranoia, and for years had interacted with the world mostly through clones of herself, each of which had a slightly different personality. The last of these clones is killed at the end of that storyline, leaving only the real Whitney.
• Dating Catwoman: At times she and Iron Man fall into this.
• Destructive Romance: She demands to know if Iron Man ever truly loved her in Stark Disassembled. He tells her that it was a disaster and they were killing each other but that yes, he had cared about her.
• Distaff Counterpart: As a beautiful woman who suffered facial scarring and hides her face with a mask, a number of characters In-Universe compare her to Doctor Doom, her mask even has similar texture to Victor's.
• Expressive Mask: Depending on the Artist.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The injuries she sustained at the end of The Coming Of Whiplash left her face covered with evil scars. And even after they were healed, the mental scars never went away.
• Guns Akimbo: Always carries a .475 Wildey Magnum Revolver, as well as another handgun (it changes), and is prone to using both at once.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Count Nefaria's wife Renata died giving birth to Gia/Whitney. Though he rationalizes handing Whitney over to the Frosts as giving her better shot at a normal childhood, it's implied he harbored some resentment toward Whitney over Renata's death.
• The Mentally Ill: Diagnosed as clinically insane, and not without good reason.
• Most Common Superpower: Whitney is usually portrayed as pretty stacked, to the point that when Kate Bishop had to pass as her, she explicitly needed to use extra padding in her outfit to compensate.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Tried to do this to Pepper during Matt Fraction's run, and to Bethany Cabe on several occasions.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Played for horror.
  Madame Masque: I had a bigger stake in Tony's life than you'll ever have!
• The Queenpin: During her time as the Big M, and Matt Fraction wrote her this way in both his Iron Man and Hawkeye runs.
  Madame Masque: Gentlemen, this last quarter our profits were up beyond expectations for the twenty-first quarter in a row. You managed to make this company a fortune on both sides of a global recession. But they call me a supervillain.
• Scars Are Forever: Averted. Unlike many other supervillains that got disfigured, Whitney got her face back blemish-free. But she's a villain through and through and just as psychotic as she was when she was badly scarred.
  Wolverine: She doesn't even need the mask. She's crazier than you are.
• Secret Test of Character: One of her duplicates committed a Heroic Sacrifice to basically force Masque to put Count Nefaria and Iron Man through one. When Nefaria had a significant power boost and was basically planning to contaminate the world with ionic energy so that he could essentially control everyone, he was powerful enough to take on the Avengers and the Thunderbolts at once. Masque had developed a weapon that could depower Nefaria, but was so paranoid that she intended to use it only after her father had killed the two teams. Her last duplicate stole the weapon and tried to use it against Nefaria, but he immediately destroyed what he thought was his daughter. Witnessing her father's glee and Iron Man's horror at "her" death helped Masque realise that she was wrong, and thus played a key role in Nefaria's defeat.
• Sore Loser: Masque tends to take her defeats very poorly. Her recent obsession with Kate Bishop arose because Kate once knocked out Masque while on a mission; most other supercrooks would've just shrugged it off and moved on, but Masque went hunting for revenge over this fairly minor confrontation.
  Kate Bishop: You're a spoiled brat with daddy issues, Masque. And you need to move on and leave me alone!
  Madame Masque: Seriously, are you talking about me or yourself, Bishop? I genuinely cannot tell.
• The Starscream: To the Kingpin during The Amazing Spider-Man (2018).
• Unholy Matrimony: With The Hood, though she's still pining after Stark.
• Villainous Crush: On Stark.
• Yandere: Towards Tony Stark.

The Mandarin

The Mandarin

Notable Aliases: Gene Khan, Tim Borjigin, Mandarin Prime (Makulan Ring Designation)

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #50

"To know that you are superior— in mind, in body, in spirit. That is everything! To know that power is your birthright— to know what untold thousands exist on this world for no reason but to serve you— to channel their powers through your empire, be it of land or of business— channeling it upward to fuel you, to fuel your glory!"

Tony's most perennial foe and one of the rare Iron Man villains to survive in continuity from the sixties until the present day, The Mandarin is a descendant of British and Mongolian nobility who squandered all of his fiefdom's money on training in science, military tactics, and martial arts. Blaming civilization for his resultant poverty and homelessness rather than his own vanity and shortsightedness, he became an enemy of civilization. A martial arts master, the Mandarin's trademark weapons are his ten rings, crafted from alien technologies that he discovered and salvaged.

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• Affably Evil: He has a heart of stone, but he is always impeccably polite and well-mannered. He also has a strict code of honor, which he always makes sure to uphold. He once vaporized his favorite minion on the spot for using poison in a sparring session, and he also upheld the promises he made on at least one occasion when Iron Man defeated him in fair combat, such as stopping his efforts to prevent Stark Enterprises from setting up in Hong Kong.
• Arch-Enemy: Since the 1960s, when he was one of the few supervillains of note in the Iron Man comics. No supervillain has had a greater, or more lasting impact on Stark's life than the Mandarin has.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Descended from British and Mongolian nobility, and convinced that gives him the right to trample everyone else under foot.
• Artificial Limbs: Sported fake hands during "Haunted".
• Asian Buck Teeth: Sported these in his early appearances.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Done to the Iron Man armour itself on occasion.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Can kung-fu Iron Man's armour to bits by attacking the seams and other weak points. He also tends to psychoanalyse his opponents.
• Back from the Dead/Faking the Dead: Has done both on occasion.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: In modern continuity he tends to prefer these to his old school Oriental robes.
• Beard of Evil: Features a goatee alongside his Fu Manchu mustasche.
• Big Bad: Frequently. If somebody is screwing with Tony's life, chances are it is the Mandarin. He has been the mover and shaker in more major storylines than any other Iron Man villain. He also tends to take on the lead role in alliances between Iron Man's enemies.
• Blue Blood: Well, descended from royalty. It doesn't matter to anybody other than him, given how the monarchy was toppled a long time ago.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Would have been far happier living as an official in Imperial China.
• Breakout Villain: Audiences loved the Mandarin and so Stan Lee kept on bringing him back.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": During his early appearances, his costume featured a giant "M" on the chest. That has since been dropped.
• Captain Ersatz: Of Fu Manchu early on. These days he's more of an Asian Doctor Doom (or a Marvel Ra's al Ghul), but the links to Fu have never entirely been dropped.
  • Also of the East India Company, exploiting the locals to mine a Makluan ship just as the East India Company exploit the locals to mine Maluku spices.
  • His rings seeking out replacement Mandarins upon his death, with artificial intelligence and the phrase "you possess the necessary will", is reminiscent of the Power Rings of DC Comics seeking new Corps members.
• Captain Ethnic: Early on. These days, his affinity for Imperial China is much better explored and justified, helping to avert the trope.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Can keep up with Iron Man despite having no (official) superpowers beyond his mastery of his chi, going so far as to shatter the hero's armour with his bare hands.
• The Chessmaster: Likes to get the ball rolling on his plans months in advance.
• Depending on the Artist: His age varies enormously depending on who is drawing him.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: He must be in charge, regardless of how he ends up in power.
• Diabolical Mastermind: The Mandarin is an archetypal one, running a vast organisation from the shadows.
• Evil Genius: Tony Stark's technological rival in many senses, and a capable planner as well.
• Evil Old Folks: Pictured this way in "Haunted".
• Evil Sorcerer: Whether the Mandarin has magic at his disposal or not is Depending on the Writer; his rings are actually alien technology. He almost always has this vibe though.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • He's the descendant of kings, but grew up in poverty, and was left homeless after his aunt squandered what money they had. This dichotomy has enraged him ever since.
  • The Matt Fraction retcon suggests that the Mandarin was actually born into poverty and never had any noble lineage to begin with, and that his subsequent reinvention of himself as a sophisticated world-conqueror was meant to erase a past that he saw as humiliating.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: The Fu Manchu moustache and goatee are something of a tipoff as to his evil.
• Grandfather Clause: The degree to which the Mandarin is a Yellow Peril-style villain varies, but the reason he can get away with it at all is because it was an acceptable villain archetype when he was introduced.
• The Heavy: masterminds many events in iron man’s saga
• I Have Many Names: Gene Khan, Tem Borjigin, Zhang Tong.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Early stories had the Mandarin (who is Chinese) go on about "Karate" (which is from Okinawa/Japan). Several of his armored costumes throughout the years have also had a distinct Japanese samurai influence.
• It's All About Me: The Mandarin poses at having nobler motives, but at his core he's all about himself.
• Joker Immunity: Related to his aforementioned Grandfather Clause, the Mandarin's status as Iron Man's Arch-Enemy has kept him from being retired permanently despite his Yellow Peril persona no longer being considered acceptable in modern society.
• Ki Manipulation: he's able to use this to give himself the ability to go years without food or water, to amp his strength enough to go hand to hand with Iron Man, and to amp his karate-chops enough to destroy Iron Man's armor.
• Legion of Doom: Had one in the first ever Avengers annual, composed of the Swordsman, Living Laser, Power Man (the original villainous one), the Enchantress and the Executioner (some sources have dubbed this group "Mandarin's Minions").
  • He also had one in the 90s animated series, with Blizzard, Blacklash, Whirlwind, Grey Gargoyle, Dreadknight, Living Laser, MODOK, the Canon Foreigner Hypnotia and Justin Hammer all working for him in some capacity (though after his Disney Villain Death in the season premiere, many of these villains were incarcerated, while Hammer went off to work on his own; Blizzard, Blacklash, Whirlwind and Hypnotia all came back during the season finale).
• Mad Scientist: At times he borders on this, with some out and out insane experiments.
• Made Of Titanium: Under some writers, The Mandarin can harden his skin like iron, allowing him to destroy Iron Man's armour with his bare hands and withstand blasts from Stark's weapons.
• Manipulative Bastard: One of his talents, and boy is he good at it, having played Stark, Ezekial Stane, and various others when it suits him. His manipulation of Jack Kooning and Maya Hansen during the "Haunted" arc is particularly expert.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: The Mandarin sometimes dresses like a functionary in Imperial China, and sometimes like a modern day businessman. Either way, he is always dressed to the nines.
• Master Swordsman: A master of Chinese-style swordsmanship.
• Multiple-Choice Past: The Matt Fraction run strongly implied that the Mandarin's original backstory was a complete fabrication, and that his parents were an opium den prostitute and an unknown man (likely a customer or her pimp) rather than a British noblewoman and a proud descendant of Genghis Khan.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: a superhuman mystic chi-channeling martial artist AND a genius scientist AND a military mastermind AND a the owner of numerous corporations AND a crimelord.
• Paid Harem: Has maintained one on various occasions.
• Put on a Bus: Has happened in many of the later runs, due to the somewhat controversial nature of the character. For instance, during the influential Michilenie/Layton run, the Mandarin was mostly absent because they had trouble figuring out how to modernize him or incorporate him into their storylines. He became more prominent after John Byrne did a big arc with him called the "Dragon Seed Saga", before taking another long absence (nearly ten years). The Mandarin finally returned in Matt Fraction's run before being supposedly killed off and once again spending years in Comic-Book Limbo.
• Ring of Power: Ten of them, each with a different power.
  • Blow You Away: Spin, worn on the middle finger of his right hand.
  • Casting a Shadow: Nightbringer, worn on the little finger of his right hand can create zones of absolute darkness and shadow constructs. Likely a form of dark force.
  • Disintegrator Ray: Spectral, worn on the ring finger of his right hand. Needs a twenty-minute charge-up time.
  • An Ice Person: Zero, worn on the little finger of his left hand, emits waves of cold.
  • Gravity Master/Light 'em Up: Daimonic, worn on the thumb on his left hand. It also grants the user mind control.
  • Make Some Noise/Magnetism Manipulation: Influence, worn on the right hand index finger. It can emit sonic blasts and magnetic pulses.
  • Mind-Control Device/Master of Illusion: Liar, worn on the ring finger of his left hand, generates illusions and allows the Mandarin to control other people.
  • Playing with Fire: Incandescence, worn on the index finger of his left hand, emits flames and infrared radiation.
  • Shock and Awe: Lightning, worn on the middle finger of his left hand, fires electric blasts. Also an example of Psycho Electro.
  • Transmutation: Remaker, worn on right hand thumb. Can rearrange the atoms and molecules of a substance, or speed up or slow down their movement though with a very limited area effect.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • During the 1960s and early 70s, he made more of an effort to be a general supervillain rather than just be limited to Iron Man. He was the primary villain of the very first Avengers annual (with other Avengers-related villains, including the Enchantress and Executioner, the original Power Man, and the Living Laser serving as his minions), attacked the Fantastic Four during the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm, tried to use the Hulk as a pawn in his plans, only for Nick Fury to interfere, then briefly teamed up with the Sandman against the Hulk, abducted a famed peacekeeper in the Vietnam War who was then rescued by Captain America, and briefly tussled with Black Bolt and The Inhumans. He also did this during the Acts of Vengeance storyline, briefly brainwashing Psylocke into becoming his personal assassin, and fought a few members of the X-Men. After that, he's since stuck with being Shellhead's nemesis, save for an incident where he was targeted by the Punisher.
  • In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Mandarin's first true appearance is in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where he battles the titular character rather than Iron Man.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Wore a green and purple costume in his first appearances. He has long since done away with that, but still favors green for his traditional wear.
• Sinister Scimitar: Favors a similarly curved Chinese sword anyway.
• The Social Darwinist: His plan in "Haunted" was to unleash an airborne version of Maya Hanson's Extremis serum, which carried a fatality rate of over 97%. The Mandarin reasoned that the few humans strong enough to survive the transformation would effectively evolve into a new, greater species, which he believed was why the aliens granted him the rings in the first place.
• Take Over the World: Has been his goal since his introduction, though the methods have certainly varied.
• The Triads and the Tongs: Has maintained connections to them, depending upon the writer and time period.
• Tragic Keepsake: Zigzagged (subverted?) in the 1994 animated series. The rings he uses to mount the alien gems that serve as his Rings of Power are all he has left of his fiancee after she was killed/dragged away by Mongolian bandits. The tragedy is subverted in that he abandoned her to die in order to heighten his own chance of successfully escaping.
• Unexplained Recovery: He was killed by Ezekiel Stane at the close of Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man run, only to show up alive and well in the 2018 Punisher run (for one issue, before being dealt with).
• Unholy Matrimony: With Justine Hammer.
• Villain Team-Up: Often, but most notably during Matt Fraction's run on Invincible Iron Man. The Mandarin unites Ezekial Stane, Blizzard II, Living Laser, Melter III, Crimson Dynamo XIII, Titanium Man I, Whirlwind, Firebrand IV, Vibro, Chemistro, Mauler II, Firepower, Spymaster III, Justine Hammer, and Sasha Hammer into a massive conspiracy aimed at Tony Stark.
• Villainous Valor: Possesses a Code of Honor that he keeps. When he was defeated by Iron Man in a duel he lives up to his promise to no longer interfere in Stark Enterprises' Hong Kong operations.
• Visionary Villain: Mandarin always has big plans. As Iron Man comments during Matt Fraction's run, he knew Zeke Stane was involved in the plot when he saw their tech, and that Mandarin was involved when he saw the sheer scope of it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: "Haunted" made him an especially brutal one who was convinced that by releasing the Extremis into the atmosphere he was jumpstarting the next stage of human evolution.
• Yellow Peril: A classic example of this trope. He's long since evolved beyond the worst of it, but the difficulty in removing these elements has made him controversial in modern times.
  • Weirdly enough, the 90s animated series gave him green skin.

The Melter

Melter I

Alter Ego: Bruno Horgan

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #47

"Iron is the most important metal on Earth! By being able to melt it at will, I become the most powerful man in the world!!"

A recurring low-level threat, with the power to melt all forms of iron (and later all forms of metal) into slag. A founding member of The Masters of Evil.

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• Arms Dealer: His job.
• Chest Blaster: Had one of these, from which he projected his beam.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: What he was prior to his first incarceration.
• C-List Fodder: Not the most prominent villain, at least after the Silver Age. In fact, it's the fact he was so C-list that he was chosen to be killed by the Scourge of the Underworld.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Shot in the back by Scourge.
• Dumb Muscle: Overlaps with Know-Nothing Know-It-All. Horgan's intelligence level was probably about average (you don't get a degree in engineering without some book smarts), but that's not nearly enough to compete with a genius like Tony Stark. And once Horgan turned to crime, his complete lack of street smarts meant that he was generally useless unless a smarter teammate like Ulysses Klaw or Whiplash was there to supervise his shenanigans.
• Hired Guns: Frequently operated as a mercenary for other, better supervillains, like Baron Zemo and Justin Hammer.
• Legacy Character: Two other villains have taken on The Melter's identity since Horgan's death, the second Melter is a mutant who was employed by the Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane. The third Melter bought Horgan's equipment from the Hobgoblin (and used it to destroy Iron Man's Mid Life Crisis Car).
• Man of Kryptonite: Could easily destroy Iron Man's armour (provided he could hit it) with his special beam.
  • This was more of a problem with earlier versions of the armour, as the Model 4 had enhanced shielding to make it more resistant to elemental attacks. He comes the closest in Demon in a Bottle, where he and Blizzard pair their fire and ice attacks to break through Iron Man's defenses. Timely intervention by Bethany Cabe was the only thing that kept them from finishing him off.
• Ray Gun: Which he had two of that melted material and burned humans.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Has worn both purple and green and green and orange.
• Villain Ball: Would rather toy with Iron Man than, say, shoot him while he's cornered and can't dodge.
• Villain Team-Up: A founding member of the Masters of Evil, alongside Heinrich Zemo, the first Black Knight, and the Radioactive Man.

Melter II

Alter Ego: Christopher Colchiss

First Appearance: Dark Reign: Young Avengers (Vol 1) #1

"You remember you were kind enough to test us, to see if we were ready to join your team? Here's where we return the favor. Meet Norman Osborn's Avengers. The real Avengers."

A mutant who could use telekinesis to liquify any form of solid matter (something the original Melter needed technology to accomplish). Chris Colchiss had originally wanted to use his powers to be a superhero, and had sought to join the Young Avengers, only to be rejected by Patriot. Embittered by this rejection, Chris was recruited by Mad Artist Lisa Mollinari to lead the Young Masters, a group of teenagers she formed as an art project to see how alike good and evil really are. Chris made mistakes with his powers that got people killed, and he began to doubt the conviction of his teammates, whose bloodthirsty tendencies drove the group toward Punisher style vigilantism. After largely being shunned by the superhero community, the Young Masters were reimagined by Norman Osborn to serve as an Evil Counterpart for the Young Avengers. After the fall of Osborn and the Dark Avengers, Chris left the Young Masters and joined the co-op of Iron Man rogues assembled by the Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane. Fully embracing his role as a super-powered terrorist, Chris received training and surgery that gave him better control of his powers.

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See the Young Masters character page for more.

M.O.D.O.K.

M.O.D.O.K.

Alter Ego: George Tarleton

Notable Aliases: Damocles Rivas

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #93

"Once, I was a mere human guinea pig for the scientists of A.I.M.! But they did their job too well, and now, I am their master!"

The test subject for an Advanced Idea Mechanics experiment to create a living computer, George Tarleton gained superhuman intelligence and vast psionic powers at the cost of his humanity. Driven mad by the process, Tarleton dubbed himself M.O.D.O.K and killed his creators. Repeated clashes with A.I.M. and the Avengers resulted in Iron Man and M.O.D.O.K. developing a mutual emnity.

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See M.O.D.O.K.

Raiders

Alter Egos: Unknown

Notable Aliases: Raider 1, Raider 2, Raider 3

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #145

Edwin Cord, a rival to Tony Stark, was hired by SHIELD to develop a suit of Powered Armor for their agents' use. When the resulting Mauler suit was stolen (see the secondary Iron Man Rogues Gallery page for more information), the security breach seriously discredited Cord and his company, the Cord Conglomerate. Desperate to get back in SHIELD's good graces, Cord created a set of new armored warriors, the Raiders, and sent them to attack Iron Man at an electronics show. Iron Man defeated the Raiders, but Cord showed footage of the battle to a SHIELD representative in hopes of getting a new contract. The disgusted SHIELD agent arrested Cord on the spot.

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• Didn't Think This Through: Edwin Cord thought that having his men attack Iron Man at a trade show full of Innocent Bystanders would impress SHIELD enough that they'd buy his Raiders armor. He didn't think about the fact that the SHIELD agents would be pissed off at him endangering a bunch of innocent people.
• Evil Knockoff: The Armor Wars saga revealed that the Raider suits were some of the Powered Armor built with Stark's stolen designs. They were among the many armors Tony neutralized with his negator packs.
• Hand Blast: The Raider-1 suit allowed its pilot to fire various types of bullets and energy blasts.
• Inescapable Net: The Raider-2 suit was equipped with an energy-sapping net that could entangle a target.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Raider-2 suit allowed its pilot to generate an energy shield that could absorb blasts from energy weapons. Tony Stark liked this feature so much he incorporated it into a later version of the Iron Man armor.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: The Raider-3 suit allowed its pilot to fire devastating sonic blasts.
• Private Military Contractors: The Raider suits were piloted by mercenaries hired by Edwin Cord. After Cord's arrest, the Raider pilots became glorified robbers.
• Too Dumb to Live: A variant in that Edwin Cord's stupidity killed his business instead of him. The Mauler fiasco landed him in SHIELD's doghouse, and the fallout from his being arrested for the Raiders stunt forced him to sell his company to pay legal fees. Once Tony Stark got over the shock of reading about Cord's arrest, he bought a number of valuable Cord assets.

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Spymaster

Spymaster I

Alter Ego: Ted Calloway

Notable Aliases: Jake Jordan, Harmon Taylor

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #33

"We've played a game and you've lost. So take it as a gentleman would."

A master infiltrator trained by Taskmaster, the Spymaster specialized in industrial espionage, sabotage, and assassinations, and was the original leader of the Espionage Elite, a crew of former S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives who used their skills for personal gain. The Espionage Elite clashed with Iron Man and Daredevil on multiple occasions, usually doing the dirty work for the Zodiac organization. Spymaster would later resurface as a solo operative, taking contracts for Justin Hammer and Advanced Idea Mechanics.

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• Actually a Doombot: At least one proxy (Mark Sharen) has died in his stead.
  • Before that, he was hired by a renegade branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. to assassinate Tony Stark, he ended up killing a Life Model Decoy instead.
• Badass Normal: No powers without his armor, but a skilled boxer and martial artist.
• Bad Boss: Doublecrosses his accomplices in Infinity Heist so he could get their share of the reward for himself. Also, the various decoys he has let die in his place.
• Bad Guy Bar: Started running one called "The Black Market Club" after largely retiring from costumed villainy.
• Been There, Shaped History: When A.I.M. hires Spymaster to infiltrate Stark Industries, he is able to steal plans for Stark's space station and blueprints for several Iron Man armors. To maximize his profits even further, he sells this data to Justin Hammer. So Armor Wars is pretty much his fault.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: After his decoy is killed by Ghost, he largely retires from costumed villainy to become a black marketeer.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Spymaster was hired by Roxxon Energy to take out Ghost, but ended up working with him in an Enemy Mine against Iron Man. Spymaster was probably the only one who was surprised when Ghost doublecrossed and killed him.
  • Only not really. Turns out that Calloway suspected that going up against Ghost would be suicide, so he sent an expandable proxy named Mark Sharen to take all the risk. When Sharen was killed, Calloway decided to fake his death and retire on the money Justin Hammer gave him for stealing all those Iron Man tech schematics.
• I Have Many Names: Quite unlikely that Ted Calloway was his real name. He had also gone by Jake Jordan and Harmon Taylor.
• Killed Off for Real: In Infinity Heist when the Hulkbuster armor he is piloting blows up.
• Legacy Character: Two other Spymasters succeeded him. Nathan Lemon, who was eventually captured in Bad Blood, and Sinclair Abbott, who assumed the mantle after having Lemon murdered in prison.
• Master of Disguise: One of his many talents. He played Happy Hogan for a sap in his "Jake Jordan" identity.
• Non-Indicative Name: A spymaster is a largely administrative position, not a "master spy." Though he did oversee a team in his early appearances, after they were captured he worked mainly as a solo operative, and was more of a thief and assassin by that point.
• One Last Job: In Dark Reign and Infinity Heist. The latter turns out to really be his last.

Spymaster II

Alter Ego: Nathan Lemon

Notable Aliases: Number One

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol 1) #254

"What's that I hear knocking? Could it be opportunity?"

After the original Spymaster was believed to have been killed in a three-way confrontation with Iron Man and Ghost, the Taskmaster decided to create a new version of his Master Infiltration training program, with the valedictorian of the course inheriting the title and equipment of the Spymaster. Lemon enrolled in the Master Infiltration program under the alias Number One, and proceeded to cheat and murder his way to the head of the class. Hailed by Taskmaster as one of the best students he ever trained, the new Spymaster led a revamped incarnation of the Espionage Elite. After being captured by Iron Man, Lemon was murdered in prison by his eventual successor.

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• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: It was with Lemon's appointment that Taskmaster officially established the clear lines of succession for the Spymaster identity: You can get in good with the current holder of the title so he passes the mantle on to you, Dread Pirate Roberts style, or you can just off the guy and take his equipment. Lemon killed quite a few rivals to earn his title, and killed many more to defend it.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Concludes that the Iron Man and War Machine armors have a weakness against EMP attacks after observing Tony's conservative usage of EMPs during previous battles.
• Bad Santa: Performs a Christmas heist disguised as Santa Claus.
• Bus Crash: Last seen getting captured in Bad Blood, and with Marvel prisons being what they are, we figure it's only a matter of time before he's up to his old tricks again. Nope. We're instead introduced to a new Spymaster who casually mentions that he inherited the mantle after paying Lemon's cellmate to murder him in his sleep.
• Christmas Episode: Lemon's first assignment as Spymaster is to steal an ornament from the Stark Industries Christmas tree.
• Deadly Graduation: Became valedictorian of the Taskmaster's Espionage Elite program by killing four of his classmates.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's this in Bad Blood, doing Justin Hammer's dirty work for the first part of the narrative, but dispatched well before Stark and Hammer have their final showdown.
• The Dragon: To Justin Hammer after Whiplash makes the first of many failed attempts to reform.
• Karmic Death: Lemon spent his career casually murdering anyone who got in his way... then Sinclair Abbott killed him and took all his stuff.
• Legacy Character: The second official Spymaster, succeeding Ted Calloway and preceding Sinclair Abbott.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Began and ended his career fighting Iron Man, but spent a lot of the moments in between pestering Captain America, She-Hulk, and Silver Sable.
• The Sociopath: Described in-universe as completely devoid of mercy or remorse.
• Starter Villain: He's the first supervillain that Jim Rhodes faced while wearing the War Machine armor^note This is not counting Rhodey's time in earlier versions of the Iron Man armor.
• You Are Number 6: For a long time his true identity was unknown, and he was known only as Number One.

Spymaster III

Alter Ego: Sinclair Abbott

Notable Aliases: Leonard Pimacher

First Appearance: Iron Man: Inevitable (Vol 1) #1

"You may be able to keep certain truths hidden from yourself, but not from me."

Tony Stark's business rival who desires to take over Stark Industries by adding a new meaning to the term "hostile takeover." Abbott adopted the identity of the Spymaster, which had been used by two previous Iron Man foes, both experts in corporate espionage and sabotage. In order to prove himself to the supervillain community, he tackled Iron Man on several occasions.

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• Big Bad Wannabe: Believes himself to be just as much of a threat as Mandarin. He has a long way to go before that happens, something he seemed to realize shortly before his (apparent) death.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Has a blade that can deploy from the wrist of his costume.
• The Chessmaster: Not on the level of Korvac or Mandarin (though he thinks he is), but he is quite good at formulating long-term plans.
• Clothes Make the Superman: The Spymaster costume is bulletproof, contains numerous concealed weapons, and is designed so that Abbott can attach various masks to it.
• Cool Mask: Not only does Spymaster's mask conceal his own face, but it serves as the base to which lifelike, fleshy mask disguises can be attached.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Corrupt rival who wanted to take over Stark Industries #233.
• Depraved Bisexual: Manipulated men and women alike with sex.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Genuinely fell in love with his mark when he infiltrated Stark Resilient, and did the best he could to spare him during his subsequent rampage.
• Hero Killer: He killed Happy Hogan.
• Immune to Bullets: The Spymaster uniform is kevlar lined, and will resist the impact of most firearms.
• Klingon Promotion: Assumed the mantle of Spymaster after having Nathan Lemon murdered in prison.
• Legacy Character: Abbott's the third man to use the Spymaster identity after Ted Calloway and Nathan Lemon.
• Master of Disguise: With masks that attach over top of his costume.
• The Mole: Infiltrated Stark Resilient on The Mandarin's behalf.
• Smug Snake: Very prideful, arrogant and full of himself despite being a spy.
• The Spymaster: Invoked by the name.
• Suicide by Cop: Forces the police to kill him. He's later revealed to have survived.
• Villain with Good Publicity: By day, he's a generous philanthropist.

Titanium Man

The Titanium Man I

Bullski's classic armour

Alter Ego: Boris Bullski

Notable Aliases: Boris the Merciless, The Commander

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #69

"Dos vedania Iron Man. Your grave awaits."

A Soviet agent, the original Titanium Man, Boris Bullski, conceived of defeating Iron Man on national television in order to score a propaganda victory against the United States. After his defeat, Bullski became a genuine enemy of Stark's, blaming the Armoured Avenger for his humiliation and loss of favour within the Communist Party. Since the fall of the USSR, Bullski has become a supervillainous mercenary, selling the Titanium Man's considerable firepower to whoever will pay the most—though he has never let go of his dreams of reviving the Communist state and avenging himself on Iron Man.

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• Alliterative Name: Boris Bullski.
• Back from the Dead: Killed in battle with Stark and Valentin Shatalov (Crimson Dynamo VI), Bullski was revived under unknown circumstances.
• Badass Boast:
  "I am real, puny fools. I am power unparalleled. I am...the Titanium Man. If you cannot accept the uselessness of your weapons then feel the overwhelming onslaught I direct at any who delay me in the task I must perform, and BELIEVE!"

  "Fool! Even a god is no match for the power of the Titanium Man!"
• Bigger Is Better: Averted. The reason the original Titanium Man armour is so large is because Bullski lacked the components needed for miniaturisation.
• Bio-Augmentation: Bullski's body was surgically altered so that he could fit into the Titanium Man armour. His size, strength and stamina were vastly increased, but at the cost of requiring that he be wired into the armour to stay alive.
• Body Horror: The surgical modifications that enable Bullski to pilot the Titanium Man also make it impossible for him to fully remove it. Beneath the armour his body is a mess.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Bullski's huge, loud, and fond of bragging.
• Captain Patriotic: With the caveat that the country he is obsessed with defending is dead. Created as a representative of the Soviet dictatorship, Titanium Man continues to act as its agent long after the country's dissolution.
• Dangerous Deserter: When Bullski went into exile in Vietnam he rapidly moved to the top of the KGB's hit list. Given he was in possession of a gigantic war machine at the time, this is not surprising.
• David vs. Goliath: Toyed with. While Bullski's armour is far larger than Iron Man's, giving him the appearance of the Goliath in their confrontations, Iron Man's better tech can make him the Goliath in everything outside close-quarters combat.
• Depending on the Artist: The Titanium Man always towers over Iron Man, but it's a question of by how much. Sometimes he's only a head taller. Other times—most notably in "Last Tango with the Titanium Man" he's pictured as standing at least ten or eleven feet in height.
• Dirty Commies: What he was at first. He still feels that Russia was better in the days of the USSR.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Bullski was a talented KGB operative, considered worthy of working alongside the likes of the Black Widow, long before he underwent his superstrength granting surgeries, or created the Titanium Man armour.
• Enemy Mine: While in exile in Vietnam, Bullski aligned himself with the third Crimson Dynamo, Alex Nevsky, whose girlfriend he had previously killed while trying to recapture him for the Soviet government.
• Evil Is Bigger: His immense armour, and following his surgeries, Bullski himself.
• Evil Is Hammy: Bullski can always be counted on to serve up classic, over the top supervillain dialogue.
• Evil Knockoff: The Titanium Man armour was built specifically to ape Iron Man's.
• Eviler than Thou: Bullski has frequently battled the Crimson Dynamos, clashing with Alex Nevsky (III), Dmitri Bukharin (V), and Valentin Shatalov (VI). In almost every case, he's been by far the less sympathetic of the two Soviet supervillains.
• The Exile: Was thrown out of the Soviet Union after a series of defeats by Iron Man. He later came back into favour and was able to return home.
• Former Regime Personnel: After the fall of the USSR Bullski became a hired agent, selling his talents on the criminal market.
• Genius Bruiser: Bullski was an effective manipulator and spy. He was also over seven feet tall, thanks to the medical treatments he required to fit into his gigantic armour.
• Green and Mean: Bullski's armour is typically dark green with lighter green highlights.
• Hired Guns: Has become a mercenary since the fall of the USSR. He's worked for a variety of clients, including Tony Stark.
• Husky Russkie: Bullski was big even before he had himself surgically modified. Now he looks like a man with gigantism.
• Legacy Character: There have been three Titanium Men, the second was fellow Russian supervillain Gremlin, the third was Kree warrior Captain Atlas. Bullski has outlived both of his would be successors.
• Made Of Titanium: His armour is an unusually literal case of this trope, being forged from green-painted titanium.
• Make the Bear Angry Again: Was part of Valentin Shatalov's plot to do this.
• Man in the Machine: Bullski cannot fully remove the Titanium Man armour, as his body will shut down without its life support functions.
• Manly Facial Hair: Often depicted with a beard while unmasked, and he is one of Iron Man's toughest enemies.
• Mighty Glacier: When compared to the Iron Man armour, Bullski's Titanium Man outfit is slow moving and crude, but grants him immense strength and durability.
• Military Superhero: Bullski's past as an agent of the KGB and Commissar in the Soviet army is a defining aspect of his character.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: A gargantuan Soviet spy in a suit of titanium armour.
• Powered Armour: With the following abilities:
  • Eye Beams: The giant yellow eyes in the original Titanium Man armour could fire force blasts.
  • Flying Firepower: Like the Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo suits, the Titanium Man armour is flight-capable and packs a hell of a punch.
  • Immune to Bullets: Nothing short of a large caliber anti-armour shell is going to pierce the Titanium Man's hide.
• Parental Substitute: At least, The Unicorn thought so, back when Titanium Man saved him and sent him after Iron Man under the alias "The Other."
• Power Palms: Emits beams of energy from the palms of his suit.
• Rocket Boots: A literal example. Unlike the Iron Man armour with its repulsors, the Titanium Man armour has jets built into its feet.
• Super-Speed: The Titanium Man armour can exceed the speed of sound at least.
• Super-Strength: Even without the armour, Bullski can lift one and a half tonnes courtesy of his physicality-enhancing surgeries. With the armour on, he can heft over seventy-five.
• Tractor Beam: Perhaps the Titanium Man's most iconic weapon, the suit emits a tractor beam from its helmet capable of paralyzing foes in their tracks, and pulling them towards the armour.
• Red Baron: "Boris the Merciless".
• Red Scare: Particularly in his first appearance, when Bullski's Titanium Man actually represented the USSR in a match with Iron Man, who represented the West; he wasn't so much a character as he was a symbol of Soviet dictatorship.
• Renegade Russian: Went rogue just before the fall of the USSR and stayed that way. In his anger, he actually blames Iron Man for his nation's collapse.
• The Rival: Bullski became Titanium Man solely to rival Iron Man. Since then the conflict has become very personal for him.
  • Rival Turned Evil: Bullski was always pretty nasty, but it was only after his first encounter with Iron Man ended in defeat that he became a genuine supervillain.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: His armor has been green since day one.
• Shout-Out: His partnership with Natasha Romanov is a shout out to Rocky and Bullwinkle's Boris and Natasha.
• Soviet Superscience: Bullski's armour is far beyond anything the real life Soviet Union could ever have come up with, though in an acknowledgement of that, it is cruder than Iron Man's armour.
• Super-Soldier: Bullski was modified into a giant and then granted his armour by the KGB and the Soviet military.
• Terrible Trio: While in exile in Vietnam, Bullski formed and led the Titanic Three, a trio of Communist villains including himself, Crimson Dynamo III, and Radioactive Man.
• Tin-Can Robot: The original armour invoked this, resembling little more than a massive titanium can with arms, legs, and a computer monitor head bolted on. Later versions have been somewhat more refined, but even the most advanced versions have never been what you'd call sleek.
• Villain Team-Up: Has worked with (and against) the various Crimson Dynamos, the Radioactive Man, Justin Hammer, and The Mandarin.
• The Worf Effect: He's one of Iron Man's most physically powerful opponents. In Ends of the Earth, he's manhandled by an upgraded Scorpion to showcase just how big of a threat a dying Octavius and his Sinister Six really are.
• Your Size May Vary: Happens a lot. While all artists can agree that Bullski is an enormous man and that the Titanium Man armour is even larger, few can agree on just how big he is, even within a single issue. In "Last Tango With The Titanium Man" he is simultaneously larger than a city bus, and able to fit into an armchair (to be fair the scene with the armchair is in Bullski's private hideout; perhaps he had it built to special order).

The Titanium Man II

Alter Ego: Kondrati Topolov

Notable Aliases: The Gremlin

First Appearance: Incredible Hulk (Vol 1) #163

"You mock me, but mark me well, Comrade Quartermain! Though I am still but a child, there is nothing the Gremlin cannot do!"

Originally a foe of the Hulk, Topolov built his own Titanium Man suit when Commissar Bullski went missing, and briefly served with the Soviet Super Soldiers. He was killed during the Armor Wars when Iron Man inadvertently ignited his titanium armor, causing the Gremlin to burn to death.

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• Accidental Murder: During the fight with Iron Man, Topolov got Tony in a bearhug while flying. Tony cranked up his boot thrusters to break out of the hold and ended up setting Topolov on fire as well. Since the battle happened on Soviet territory against a legitimate state agent (Iron Man broke in to steal copied Starktech) it created an international incident and Tony was forced to publicly fire his "bodyguard" Iron Man.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Gremlin's a bastard, but his death is so ugly that it makes you pity him.
• Captain Patriotic: Worked for the Soviet government, and was meant to take Boris Bullski's place as Titanium Man.
• Chest Insignia: Wore the hammer and sickle of the USSR on the chest of his jumpsuit.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Burned to death inside his Titanium Man armour, while Iron Man watched in horror.
• Depraved Dwarf: A twisted midget with a mind to match.
• Dirty Commies: Like Bullski before him, Gremlin was a Soviet operative.
• Evil Genius: Gremlin inherited his father's superhuman intellect.
• Evil Knockoff: Twice over. Gremlin's armour ripped off both Tony Stark and Boris Bullski. He later upgraded it with stolen Stark technology during "Armour Wars".
• Expy: Is modeled on his father, Yuri Topolov, who is himself modeled on longstanding Hulk adversary The Leader.
• Green and Mean: His Titanium Man armour was the same green as Bullski's.
• Irony: Boris Bullski was a giant who stood over seven feet tall. Gremlin, who tried to usurp his identity, was a midget.
• Killed Off for Real: Has not returned since his death by fire.
• Lamarck Was Right: Inherited his father's gamma irradiated body.
• Legacy Character: A two-fer, for both his father, the Gargoyle, and Boris Bullski who was presumed dead at the time. One of Bullski's later armours would incorporate Gremlin's design aesthetic as well.
• Mad Scientist: His original goal was to capture the Hulk and dissect him so that the USSR could create an army of Hulks.
• Made Of Titanium: His armour, like Bullski's, is forged from a titanium alloy. Unlike Bullski's, it proved vulnerable to fire, igniting during battle with Iron Man.
• Military Superhero: Was initially a member of the KGB, and later served with several Soviet Super-Teams.
• Mini-Mecha: Gremlin's armour was the same size as Bullski's, despite Topolov himself barely reaching Bullski's waist. Accordingly, the arms, legs, and head all had to operated by remote control.
• Mutant: Born deformed and hyper-intelligent due to his father's exposure to gamma radiation.
• My Brain Is Big: To the point of distorting his skull.
• Properly Paranoid: The KGB were trying to manipulate him during "Armour Wars" he just didn't realize how.
• Renegade Russian: Abandoned the USSR and refused to cooperate with the KGB in an operation against Iron Man, convincing himself they were only out to reclaim the Titanium Man armour.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Originally menaced the Hulk before clashing with Iron Man.
• Smug Snake: Gremlin had a highly inflated opinion of his own intellect, and his arrogance and paranoia undermined him frequently.
• Super-Intelligence: His intellect was heightened by his mutation.
• Xanatos Gambit: By refusing to cooperate with the KGB in stopping Iron Man, the Gremlin played right into their gambit; no matter the outcome, they would benefit in some way.

Ultimo

Ultimo

Alter Ego: The Doomsday Machine

Notable Aliases: Devastator, Destroyer of Worlds

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #76

"It doesn't matter how you die, really. The important thing is that I'm finally killing you."

A weaponized liquid metal construct created by an unknown alien race, Ultimo laid waste to numerous worlds until he was eventually defeated and crash landed on Earth (China, to be specific). The Mandarin finds his dormant body and decides to use him as tool against Iron Man. Ultimo has returned to challenge the Golden Avenger several times since, each time sporting an upgrade that makes him more powerful.

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• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Only 25 feet at first, but he has gotten bigger with each upgrade.
• Assimilation Plot: In Dark Reign, after it evolves into a sentient liquid virus that turns anything that comes into contact with it into silicon-based monstrosities.
  "I've instigated a submolecular process in the Basinville National Forest that's converting any vegetation it touches into metal. Within two weeks, the process will have spread to your entire planet."
• Back from the Dead: Frequently. Its true form being liquid might have something to do with this.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Many villains have tried to control him, but only the Mandarin has had any consistent success. Even Norman Osborn learned this the hard way.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Doesn't have much of a personality, vaguely explained origins and not much of a role besides being a threat.
  "I am Ultimo, an artificial intelligence programmed to eliminate all life on Earth."
• Humans Are Bastards: After gaining intelligence and reading War Machine's files, he begins to think this. Then Norman Osborn and Morgan Stark come along and make things worse. Cue the aforementioned assimilation plot.
  "This is what you people have done with life. I'm afraid you can't have any more."
• Humongous Mecha: He can be piloted on occasion.
• Kaiju: Evokes this as he moves across the Earth.
• Made of Indestructium: Ultimo cannot be truly destroyed. Blow him to bits, and he'll put himself back together again, anyone who has seen Terminator 2: Judgment Day (and probably a few who haven't) can tell you what happens if you melt him down into silver goo. The only way to really contain him is to keep pieces of him in high security SHIELD facilities across the world, and that was before he evolved into that pesky virus.
• Mechanical Monster: A 50 foot mechanical monster.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Devastator of Worlds.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Can easily be mistaken for a mindless killing machine, but his brain actually hosts a rather insidious computer virus.
• Robeast: Has a feel similar to this.

Unicorn

Unicorn

Alter Ego: Milos Masaryk

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #56

"Flee before the staggering horn of the Unicorn! Tell Iron Man I am here! Let him face me… if he dares!"

A Slovokian born KGB agent, Milos Masaryk was the handler for Professor Anton Vanko (the original Crimson Dynamo). Masaryk helped Professor Vanko build the original Crimson Dynamo armor, and field tested another one of the Professor's inventions, an experimental helmet outfitted with a "power horn" firing a projectile similar to Iron Man's uni-beam. Following Vanko's defeat and defection, Masaryk paired the helmet with an experimental armor that enabled him flight, set out to destroy Iron Man on his own, taking the name Unicorn after the helmet's unique design.

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• Alliterative Name: Milos Masaryk.
• Avenging the Villain: The first two Crimson Dynamos.
• Bald of Evil: His radiation treatments made him lose his hair. He gets it back when Korvac restores his health.
• Blessed with Suck: The same process that empowered him also gave him radiation poisoning.
• The Brute: While he was fairly intelligent in his early appearances, after his sanity slippage he becomes a glory seeking barbarian.
• Deal with the Devil: When his upgrades started making him sick, he would work with any supervillain who offered a cure for his condition.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Originally had no powers without his vest and helmet, but he was eventually given radiation treatments in order to give him superhuman strength.
• Former Regime Personnel: Originally a member of Department X, a KGB analogue to SHIELD.
  Unicorn: I've gotten everything out of you that I've wanted. And granted power like this, I've no intention of using it to serve the State... not when it can be used to serve myself!
• Fragile Speedster: Not Masaryk himself, but rather the armor. It was designed to be faster than the first Crimson Dynamo suit, sacrificing durability in favor of speed. So Masaryk was given genetic modifications to make him more durable.
• Hired Guns: Has worked for Doctor Doom, the Mandarin, Spymaster, and Korvac.
• Legacy Character: Four villains have worn the armor. The second Unicorn was a Renegade Russian who fought the Winter Guard. The third is an Australian distinguished by his blond mane and an actual horn on his helmet. The fourth is an unnamed criminal who bought some of Masaryk's equipment from the Hobgoblin. Masaryk has since become the sole bearer of the name.
• Parental Substitute: His attitude towards "The Other" (Titanium Man) is the most obvious symptom of his Sanity Slippage.
  The Unicorn: I have to kill Iron Man! I have to! To show The Other I'm still alive! So that he'll come to me, comfort me, l...love me!
  Iron Man (thought bubble): The Unicorn's really off the deep end! He's convinced that the Titanium Man is some sort of father figure! He's more like a lost child than a menace!
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Is usually part of one.
• Sanity Slippage: A side effect of the aforementioned poisoning. Even after the Avengers (possibly) cured the cellular degradation, they could not undo the damage already done to his mind.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Green and orange.
• Soviet Superscience: His armor grants him flight, the ability to generate force fields, and limited magnetic telekinesis.
• Suicide by Sea: An accidental case. After learning The Other's true identity, his degraded mind decided the quickest way to reach him was by walking to Russia. Iron Man had used up too much energy holding up a falling cargo ship, and couldn't recharge in time to save him.
• Third Eye: A cybernetic eye in the center of his forehead.

Whiplash / Blacklash

Whiplash I/Blacklash I

Scarlotti as Blacklash

Alter Ego: Marco Scarlotti

Notable Aliases: Mark Scott

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense (Vol 1) #97

"I will do what must be done… when the proper moment is at hand! Destroying one’s nemesis must be an act of inspiration!"

A former employee of Stark's, Marco Scarlotti became the costumed criminal mercenary known as Whiplash in an attempt at getting rich quickly. Following a string of defeats, Scarlotti began working for Justin Hammer, who renamed him Blacklash. Since his death in a battle with a rogue Iron Man armour, the Whiplash and Blacklash identities have been used by several other villains.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His titanium whips, which could cut through most substances, and even damage Iron Man's armour.
• Badass Cape: Until his second time going by Whiplash, he always sported a cape.
• Badass Normal/Empowered Badass Normal: Scarlotti originally had no superpowers, no fancy technology, and no enhanced reflexes, taking on Iron Man with only his skills and his whips. After Justin Hammer upgraded his arsenal to include cybernetically controlled whips, he may have edged into Empowered Badass Normal territory, though only just.
  • During their last fight in The Mask in the Iron Man, even his punches were doing some damage. It's implied that he had been enhanced by the Power Broker, which would also explain his Sanity Slippage.
• Bondage Is Bad: At the end of his life, when he went back to being called Whiplash, Scarlotti had taken to dressing up in BDSM gear as his costume, including a mask with a zipper for the mouth hole.
• Bulletproof Vest: Scarlotti goes this one better—his entire costume is woven with high-quality kevlar, making him more or less bulletproof. Not that it'll stop most of the weapons in Iron Man's arsenal.
• Chronic Villainy: Scarlotti repeatedly tries to quit supervillainy, only to be drawn back in.
• Consummate Professional: During his time as Hammer's right-hand, Blacklash had this attitude, putting the mission before everything else.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's this in his final appearance in The Mask in The Iron Man, he's killed in the third chapter, and the sentient armour becomes the villain for the remainder of the storyline.
• Dual Wielding: Carried two whips during his time as Blacklash.
• The Dragon: He was this to Madame Masque (then known as "The Big M") in his introductory arc (The Coming of Whiplash). During Demon In a Bottle he became one to Justin Hammer, and he held the position for the remainder of Michelinie/Layton run.
• High Collar of Doom: On the Blacklash costume.
• Hired Guns: A costumed mercenary, having worked for the Maggia, Hammer, and anyone else who would pay.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: A milder example than many, but let's face it—mechanical, cybernetically controlled titanium whips are damned cool.
• Killed Off for Real: During a battle with Iron Man, Stark's newly sentient armour kills Scarlotti against Iron Man's wishes.
• Legacy Character: Scarlotti has been succeeded in the Whiplash identity by Leann Foreman, an unnamed woman with a BDSM kink, and Anton Vanko (though only the unnamed one seems to have been directly aping him). The anonymous woman's male partner adopted the Blacklash identity for good measure.
• Mood-Swinger: Diagnosed as manic-depressive (what we would now call bipolar disorder).
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He's a bit of a joke to some, but at the end of the day, Blacklash was a going concern in the Iron Man comics from 1968 until the early 2000s, repeatedly taking on Stark's military grade arsenal with little more than his whip, and regularly fighting him to a standstill.
• Only in It for the Money: Once he began operating as a mercenary, this became Scarlotti's primary motivation.
• Professional Killer: Often employed by Hammer as an assassin.
• Psycho Electro: Blacklash's gauntlets contain an electrical charge which can be released as his "necro-whip" during emergencies.
• Sue Donym: Infiltrated Stark Industries under the name Mark Scott, which is essentially an Anglicized form of his real name.
• Took a Level in Badass: Every time that Hammer upgraded his whips. During his final battle with Stark, Scarlotti actually fought the Iron Man to a draw, before the armour went berserk and killed him.
• Villainous Underdog: Scarlotti with his whips and kevlar suit was badly outgunned by Stark's high-tech arsenal.
• Villainous Valour: It's been noted that fighting Iron Man with a whip, however special, takes serious testicular fortitude.
• Weapon Specialization: Wielded a mechanical whip of his own design. Hammer later upgraded his technology to equip him with two cybernetically controlled titanium whips.
• Whip of Dominance: He always wielded a Lightning Lash as his gimmick, but never fit any other criteria for this trope, until an attempt to revamp his character in Iron Man volume 3 had him take a BDSM-theme and he started dressing up in bondage gear, including a mask with a zipper for the mouth hole. He also shifted into a much more sadistic personality, with his dialogue focusing on hurting Iron Man. He actually remained that way until his death in the same volume.

Whiplash II

Alter Ego: Leeann Foreman

Notable Aliases: Snakewhip

First Appearance: Marvel Comics Presents (Vol 1) #49

A mutant girl with unrevealed powers, Leeann Foreman was a professional criminal who used adamantium whips attached to her gauntlets as weapons. She has clashed with various superheroes, including the X-Men and Spider-Man over the course of her career.

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• Affirmative-Action Legacy: The second person to use the Whiplash name, and the first girl.
• Amazon Brigade: Was part of an all-female group called the Femme Fatales.
• Dark Action Girl: A dark mutant girl.
• Dual Wielding: Dual wields adamantium whips.
• Legacy Character: Of Whiplash, until she changed her name to Snakewhip.
• Mutant: Though the exact nature of her powers is unrevealed.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: More associated with the X-Men and Spider-Man than with Iron Man.
• Weapon Specialization:: Used two adamantium whips as her primary weapon.
• Whip of Dominance: In Hunt for Wolverine she changed her villain name to "Snake Whip" and was given a more sexualized appearance and icy demeanor, while still wielding the whip as her gimmick weapon. She also gained an aggressive and sadistic personality when fighting the heroes with her whips but is shown to have an submissive dynamic with her boss Madame Viper, always being on her side performing trivial tasks and referring to her as "mistress".

Whiplash III & Blacklash II

Blacklash II

Whiplash III

First Appearance: Thunderbolts (Vol 1) #104

An unnamed duo who shared a BDSM kink, Whiplash III and Blacklash II debuted at the start of the Civil War, and were forcibly recruited into the Thunderbolts.

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• Battle Couple: Always seen together.
• Bondage Is Bad: Both their costumes are very bondage themed and both are definitely bad guys.
• C-List Fodder: They don't appear very often.
• Dark Action Girl: Whiplash III.
• Evil Redhead: Whiplash III is a redhead.
• The Faceless: They're never seen without the masks.
• Legacy Character: They've taken on two of Mark Scarlotti's identities.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Their real names have never been revealed.
• Whip of Dominance: They're both Lightning Lash-wielding villains with a shared kink for BDSM and are dressed for the part.

Whiplash IV

Alter Ego: Anton Igorevich Vanko

First Appearance: Iron Man vs Whiplash (Vol 1) #1

"There will be no justice for Tony Stark. There will only be vengeance."

A young Russian who saw his hometown destroyed by an out-of-control Iron Man armour, and vowed revenge, Anton Vanko donned a suit of armour equipped with two laser whips.

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• Blade Below the Shoulder: His whips deploy from his wrists.
• Canon Immigrant: Heavily based on Ivan Vanko, the Crimson Dynamo/Whiplash blend from the second Iron Man film.
• Cool Mask: His armour doesn't have a helmet; instead his face is covered by a single plate.
• Doomed Hometown: His town was wiped out as part of his origin.
• Dual Wielding: Has a laser whip attached to each of his wrists.
• Freudian Excuse: Saw his hometown, and his father, wiped off the map by a rogue Iron Man armour.
• Laser Blade: Laser whip, actually.
• Legacy Character: The fourth person to take on the Whiplash identity since Scarlotti's death.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: He's quite a few years younger than Stark.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. He shares his name with Anton Vanko, the original Crimson Dynamo. There's no connection.
• Powered Armour: Downplayed. Vanko's armour powers his whips, and gives him a modicum of protection from attacks, but it lacks the power of the Iron Man, Crimson Dynamo, or Titanium Man armours.
• Renegade Russian: Though one with no connections to the old Soviet Union or Communism.
• Revenge: Wants to avenge his town by going after Stark.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Continues gunning for Stark, even after he learns that Iron Man wasn't responsible for the attack on his village.
  • Revenge by Proxy: Tries to kill Pepper to hurt Stark.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: In his purple armour.
• Weapon Specialization: Has a pair of laser whips that deploy from his wrists as his primary weapon.

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