Iron Man - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Iron Man

That landmine put shrapnel two centimeters from my heart. My every movement allowed it to inch closer. I had to design a system to hold the shrapnel where it was. And incorporate it into a self-defense solution to get me out of captivity. It was the first time I'd had to design something that saved lives. It was a stopgap at best. I got home and put my money into a suit that'd keep me alive. I spent years in various versions of this brestplate, holding the shrapnel in magnetic fields. Until medical science caught up with me. And I could get the damn thing out. But I kept the suit. Kept tinkering with it. And I'm not sure why any more. Except maybe that it wasn't about THE future. But MY future. And it allowed me to pretend that I wasn't a man who made landmines. I went from being a man trapped in an iron suit to being a man freed by it. IRON MAN COMMAND SYSTEM ON. START.

—Anthony Edward Stark

Tony Stark was a playboy billionaire industrialist until a battlefield explosion left him with a damaged heart that threatened to kill him. He designed and built a suit of armor in a cave, with a box of scraps to keep his heart beating and to escape from the people who captured him, and in the process became the superhero known as Iron Man.

Currently, he can be found in Invincible Iron Man — this deals with the more superheroic aspects of Iron Man's adventures. Less politics, more shooting bad guys in the face with Repulsor Rays.

Until the end of Secret Invasion, there was a second title, Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D — a politics and espionage-based book, dealing with Stark's role as head of the international security organisation. The last few issues were handed to Iron Man's ally War Machine, who has now been granted his own solo series, which is his second.

A movie based on the character, Iron Man, was released in May 2008 with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. It did well at the box office, and as of June 2008 had a 94% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, making it the best-received movie of the year, tying with The Dark Knight. Go ahead, hum that Black Sabbath song. You know you want to.

He's now getting his own anime by Mad House for release in 2010. You can watch the trailer here

, and the concept has been better received by fans partly on the basis that 1) the Japanese know Mecha, and Iron Man has a Mecha Suit, and 2) it wouldn't be that far off the mark for the character to have adventures in Japan, since he's a businessman with corporate branches and rivals all over the world.^*

This Marvel Universe comic book provides examples of:

Action Girl: Love interest Bethany Cabe is a professional bodyguard and troubleshooter.
- His assistant Maria Hill fits too and Pepper is on her way having just found an armor made for her.
AI Is A Crapshoot: Whenever Tony makes AI for the suit, it either falls obsessively in love with him and/or goes crazy.
- An exception is the AI in the Hypervelocity miniseries, which saved his life and later sacrificed itself so a nuclear bomb wouldn't be detonated.
- The film subverted this in a passing moment where Stark was testing out a suit prototype just prior to the model Stark used as the actual Iron Man suit. Jarvis, now a sophisticated AI that usually minds Tony's mansion and is uploaded into whatever suit Tony uses to help control it, exhibits more common sense than Stark in the safety of testing the suit in its current condition. Ultimately Stark flew it even whilst "terabytes of calculations" still went undone that would certainly make the prototype more reliable. The suit prototype failed and Stark ultimately punched a hole through his mansion in a crash landing (as one of the trailers actually showed). For the rest of the film, however, Jarvis performed flawlessly as Tony's aid in the suit.
Animated Adaptation: Cartoon series in the 1960s and 1990s and an straight-to-DVD animated movie in the 2000s. Another one for Nickelodeon premiered in 2009, focusing on a younger Iron Man (to the dismay of fans who remember Teen Tony).
Arch Enemy: The Mandarin
Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: The Mandarin
Back From The Dead: If the Iron Man suit is destroyed, Tony Stark can just make a new one as long as he himself escapes harm.
- Even if he is harmed, Stark has an incredible resilience. He's been shot and paralyzed by a crazy girlfriend, he faked his death after his nervous system starting shutting down, and he was rebooted entirely after Heroes Reborn. Plus, most "future Marvel Universe" stories have Tony saving his brain patterns in his armor or in a computer after his death.
  - That piece of shrapnel in his origin story should have killed him, but he got his ass saved by Yinsen.
  - Somewhat lampshaded by Orson Scott Card, who gave him super-regeneration in his Ultimate Mini Series. Although, this now appears to be Discontinuity.
Badass Bookworm: Tony Stark is the exemplar of this.
Badass Normal: Out of their suits, both Stark and Rhodes can handle almost any threat until they can suit up.
Barrier Busting Blow
Beard Of Sorrow
Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Tony Stark during his Director of SHIELD period had some serious aspects of this. Especially during the Knauf's run.
Black Best Friend: James "Rhodey" Rhodes, aka War Machine (and occasionally Iron Man).
The Blacksmith: Tony Stark is one.
Break Out The Museum Piece: On various occasions, Stark has had to don his older armor.
Brilliant But Lazy: Somewhat. He can create multiple, formidible armors and a life support system ahead of the current time he made it in with extremely limited resources. While he actually does things with this, he can't be arsed to sit through a ceremony made for a friend and ally without falling asleep during the history recap.
Brought Down To Normal: The recent storyline World's Most Wanted has Tony feeling this way as he deletes his brain and loses his intellect, though his abilities decrease well below average ( Tony doesn't really see the difference ). In the current story Stark Disassembled, Pepper feels this way as her heart-mounted repulsor generator and armored suit are dismantled to reboot the brain-dead Tony Stark
Butt Monkey: Tony during the mid-1980s, when he spiraled downward into a status of a homeless drunk. He got better, but not before a long parade of indignities.
Character Derailment: See Strawman Political below.
Chest Blaster: See Power Crystal below.
Clingy Costume: Originally, Tony Stark had to constantly wear his breastplate to keep himself alive.
Clothes Make The Legend: His red and yellow armor, though far from the only set he uses, is emblematic of the character.
Comic Book Time: Stark was injured during a walk in ~~the jungles of Vietnam~~ ~~the Gulf~~ ~~China~~ Afghanistan, when he was already a millionaire industrialist and genius inventor. In the modern day, he's still in his 30s, 40s at most.
Complete Monster: Obadiah Stane, in the 1980's comics. His strategies involved the cruelest forms of psychological warfare possible; even as a little boy, he murdered a chess opponents' puppy to give him an edge in a tournament. To say nothing of what he did to Tony Stark...
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Stark himself is a generally honest businessman, but some of his competitors are not so ethical. As Iron Man, Stark often ends up defending his own holdings against the attacks of his business rivals.
Costume Copycat: Tony's downward spiral left him in no shape to pilot the Iron Man armor. Fortunately, Rhodey proved a capable replacement until Stark pulled himself together. In thanks, Tony would eventually make Rhodey an armored suit of his own called War Machine.
Crimefighting With Cash
Dating Catwoman: Madame Masque
Dork Age: Civil War and the aftermath. See Strawman Political, below. Before Civil War, there was his Face Heel Turn during the terrible "Crossing" storyline that led into Teen Tony and Heroes Reborn. Thankfully, much of that was retconned out in Avengers Forever.
Driven To Suicide / Suicide Is Painless: In the most recent storyline, Tony has decided to shut down his own brain to erase all the data in it and thereby foil Norman Osborn, doing so with a big grin, a lot of gallows humour, and a calm explanation to Maria Hill (when she attempts Reverse Psychology) that shooting himself in the head just wouldn't be reliable. Sure, he's fighting evil in a very tight corner, but them's not the actions of a sane and happy man.
- Well, he's not dead yet; he's in a coma. Doctor Donald Blake has power of attorney.
- As the Crimson Dynamo pointed out, if Stark really wanted to die with his brain destroyed beyond reading, he could have just jumped into a volcano. Naaah, This Troper is placing his bets on 'elaborately stupid and tragic cry for help'.
Embarrassing Middle Name: Anthony Edward Stark. Not much embarrassing, but he prefers not to make it well-known.
Evil Counterpart/Rival Turned Evil: Tiberius Stone
Flying Brick/Lightning Bruiser
Fridge Logic: If he had to hold the shrapnel in place with a magnet, why didn't he just crank up the juice to yank it out of his chest entirely, then have a team of doctors standing by to patch him up afterwards? "It would hurt like hell" isn't an issue since he could have been anesthetized for the procedure.
- It could easily backfire and either go the wrong way, or hurt something else in his body.
- Since it's really close to his heart, maybe there are just a bunch of major arteries in the way, or it's too close to them to risk moving?
  - Doesn't really explain it- The shrapnel got in. It already mustve messed those arteries up on the way in. why didn't they yank it out right away with the magnet is not answered.
Gender Bender: The problem with having a techno-organic supercomputer inside you is that someone might find a way to hijack it. Namely, a psycho Killer Robot with a severe complex that centers on one of your teammates. Tony was not amused when he woke up after being changed back to normal.
Guile Hero: Depending On The Writer, Iron Man can be shrewd and manipulative. Len Kaminski particularly wrote him this way.
Heart Trauma: Also part of his origin story.
Ho Yay: Steve Rogers and War Machine to some extent.
Humongous Mecha: Some of the non-canon stories have Tony piloting these, while the Hulkbuster armors (especially the most recent ones) verge on this trope.
- Rhody does have the War Machine Satellite, which can turn into a giant mecha.
IKEA Weaponry: For years, Tony has made Iron Man armors that collapse and store inside his briefcase.
Impossibly Cool Wealth
Insufferable Genius: Especially in recent years.
Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Tony Stark is this trope.
Jet Pack: The thrusters and repulsors of the armor allow Iron Man to fly really long distances.
- More like Jet Boots. The main verniers are on his feet. His back generally carries flaps for air stability and braking.
Lets You And Him Fight: Subverted in an issue where a rogue Tony ends up fighting War Machine (they've done this a couple times, mind you). It's staged to look realistic so Rhodey's superiors are happy.
Locking MacGyver IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!: His origin story. Admittedly in The Movie it makes sense, as the terrorists have ordered him to build them a missile.
Mac Gyvering: An arguable case considering that Tony Stark is a version of Angus MacGyver who happens to wear a complete high tech tool kit with him.
Made Of Iron: Well, duh.
- Modern stories have his suit made of composite metals and reinforced plastics, and not much iron at all. The lying cad.
- It's not the armor, man, that makes the Iron Man.
Mad Scientist: The Mandarin
Magic Versus Science: Stark is smarter than the average Flat Earth Atheist, acknowledging that Doctor Strange and other magical characters are doing something beyond his understanding, but he finds magic and its defiance of physical laws, even those of a superhero universe, profoundly irritating and uncomfortable. This has had some negative consequences recently, as his taking a sample of Thor's DNA in an attempt to figure out how his "godly" powers work resulted years later in Civil War's Thor clone, who ended up killing one of Tony's friends on the other side of the war.
Magnetic Weapons: The repulsor rays in the gauntlets are pure magnetic force beams. Instead of propelling a projectile, they create a variable push ( from " slam a Mook against a wall " to " blow a hole in a mountain " ).
Manipulative Bitch: Sunset Bain. Big time. Often opposes Tony Stark in his day-to-day business but also opposed him as Iron Man although she always manages to get other people to dirty their hands in her stead. She even manipulated Stark into working for her several times.
Mecha Mooks: Tony often uses old armors like this. When his body was possessed by Ultron and transformed into a robot version of the Wasp, the Avengers had to face an army of Mecha Mook Iron Man units.
More Hero Than Thou
My Real Daddy: David Michelinie and Bob Layton in the early 1980s transformed the character with such innovations such as his specialized armors and his drinking problem.
Never Live It Down: Tony's alcoholism, although his actions in Civil War are catching up in their effect on his reputation.
Off The Wagon: Tony is a recovering alcoholic and is frequently tempted to go back to the bottle during emotionally charged storylines.
Powered Armor
Power Crystal: On the chest and palms, function as Repulsor Beam emitters.
- Power Glows
Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Strongly averted. Stark plays hard, but he is quite publicly a sharp dealmaker and a genius engineer with a workaholic streak. He turned a significant fortune into a monumental one, and has lost it and recovered it at least twice. He's also widely considered to be brilliant by both civilians and heroes and is consulted on scientific, engineering and even medical matters.
Science Is Bad: Subverted in the sense that Tony Stark's scientific advances are meant to benefit mankind, but many of his enemies either try to steal Stark's knowledge for their own personal gain, or use their own scientific talents for evil. Science itself is not evil, but it can be used by evil people. At one point, Stark is compelled to destroy his armor so its secrets won't fall into the wrong hands, but then realizes that he has a responsibility to use his science smarts to defend against those who use their science for evil.
Science Is Useless: Subverted here to in that if you attack him with magic, don't expect much considering Stark is usually able to use his scientific knowledge and technology to beat any spell you throw at him.
- There was an awesome issue of What If wherein Tony became Sorcerer Supreme — but still used his armor. The whole issue was basically a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, climaxing with Stark beating and humiliating the Dread Dormammu singlehandedly. Basically, this version of Tony is like a heroic version of Doctor Doom, except better.
Sexy Stewardess: Tony Stark's private flight attendants are so sexy, they double as go-go dancers.
Shoot The Dog: Tony as Director of SHIELD.
Shoulder Cannon: War Machine
Spandex Latex Or Leather: None, powered armor!
Strawman Political: In the past five years, due to several authors' personal soapboxes regarding the US, Tony Stark has basically been turned into a caricature of every fascist stereotype ever known in a super-powered suit. He forced everyone with superpowers, super-intelligence, or whoever even used superpower gadgetry to conscript with the government into a superhero army in the name of national security. He hired supervillains to "arrest" ones that didn't agree and imprisoned the rest without trial. In a concentration camp located in a dimension which could nearly pass for Hell. And he's got a Nazi scientist for hire performing experiments on the corpses of young boys so he can create his own personal superpowered army. And according to Word Of God, he's entirely in the moral right and the greatest hero the universe has ever known. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of Discontinuity surrounding Iron Man.
Technical Pacifist: Tony comes off a bit too pacifist for some of his movie outings. In the animated film The Invincible Iron Man (which predates the live film by a year or so), he's explicitly called a pacifist (to the point that he objected to arming Rhodey at the beginning of the film, when his archaeological expedition was being attacked by cultists), and invented the dozens of Iron Man armors before his injury specifically as environment suits for exploring harsh environments, in the hopes of transitioning Stark Industries away from arms manufacture.
Technological Pacifist: Tony eventually becomes one
Technology Porn: Rather inevitable, given the premise.
Technopath: Tony after his Extremis upgrade.
Virtual Ghost: Occurs several times. Deconstructed in the Hypervelocity miniseries.
- It's still unclear if Hypervelocity is canon or not.
  - It's canon alright, takes place before Vol. 4 begins
  - and Tony 2.0 might be coming back real soon (if the covers has the Hypervelocity armour)
When All You Have Is A Hammer: War Machine. In his case, it's "When all you have is an electric minigun, a missile box and a crapload of other guns".

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