The Wellington Comic Lover's Guide to... Iron Man and Ironheart

By Gus

He's the cool exec with a heart of steel! She's the self-made teen genius! It's the Wellington Comic Lover's Guide to Iron Man and Ironheart!

Youth Youth featured

Tony Stark's best Iron Man Suit Ups via the Marvel Entertainment Youtube channel

Who is Iron Man?

While mortally wounded in a war zone, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark was captured by terrorists and forced to make weapons for them. Building a suit of powered armour in secret, Stark used his creation to save his life and escape his captors. Upon returning home, Stark repurposed his armour as a tool for good and became the Invincible Iron Man.

Later, a teenage tech whiz named Riri Williams built her own suit of powered armour in imitation of Tony, becoming the self-made heroine Ironheart.

Iron Man Origins

Iron Man first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39, which is reprinted in the Iron Man : the end collection. The 60th anniversary series I Am... Iron Man shows unseen adventures from Tony's storied career as the Armored Avenger.

Speaking of Avengers, Tony is also a founding member of that team, although initially he kept his identity a secret and pretended Iron Man was actually Tony Stark's bodyguard.

Iron Man: Director of SHIELD

After being exposed to the Extremis nanotech virus, Tony Stark becomes as superhuman as his armour, and when Civil War is won in his favour, he takes on new responsibilities as the Director of SHIELD.

The Invincible Iron Man

Coinciding with the release of his first movie, The Invincible Iron Man updates Tony Stark and his allies and enemies for the modern world. After being ousted from SHIELD after Secret Invasion, Tony builds a new company from the ground up and fights a war of corporate espionage against The Mandarin and the Hammer Corporation.

Invincible Iron Man reading order

Iron Man NOW!

In the Marvel NOW! era, Tony learns a startling truth about his origins (and his inadvertent hand in creating the Incredible Hulk), meets his long-lost brother Arno Stark, and sees his city of the future attacked by the Mandarin.

Superior Iron Man

During the AXIS crossover, Tony has his personality ‘inverted’, undoing his character development and reverting him back to a callous self-serving playboy. Powered by a dangerous new symbiotic armour, he dubs himself the ‘Superior Iron Man’ and begins a campaign of tech supremacy in San Francisco.

Invincible, Infamous, International

After Secret Wars, Iron Man continues as three series written concurrently by Brian Michael Bendis: Invincible Iron Man, Infamous Iron Man, and International Iron Man.

In Invincible Iron Man, Tony Stark invents a new armour that can mimic all his previous ones and comes into conflict with Captain Marvel over using a future-predicting superhuman to end crime before it happens, resulting in Civil War II.

Invincible Iron Man

After Civil War II, Invincible Iron Man reboots with inventor Riri Williams as the protagonist (see Ironheart below).

Infamous Iron Man

With Tony Stark out of commission, Dr Doom steps into a new suit of armour and takes over as Iron Man, attempting to redeem himself after years of villainy.

International Iron Man

In this miniseries, Tony Stark seeks out his birth mother after learning he was adopted.

These three Iron Man series conclude in The Search for Tony Stark.

Iron Man meets Big Tech

Rebranding as Stark Unlimited, Tony restructures his company to be on the cutting edge of new technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

Iron Man 2020

After being turned into an artificial intelligence, Tony leads a robot uprising against his brother Arno, who has taken over his company and his Iron Man armour.

The Iron God

Returned to his biological body and sporting a classic armour, Tony leads a team of heroes against the Avengers villain Korvac and gains control of the Power Cosmic.

Iron and Diamonds

In the most recent Iron Man series, Stark Unlimited begins to make mutant-hunting Sentinel robots behind Tony's back. This leads Iron Man to join the X-Men in a fight against his own company, even going as far as marrying telepath Emma Frost to gain citizenship to the mutant nation of Krakoa (see our blog on the X-Men's Krakoa era for more).

Cap and Tony

Since the superhuman Civil War, Iron Man and Captain America have been uneasy allies; Tony sees Cap as old-fashioned, while Steve sees Iron Man as someone who lets his ego get the better of him. Nevertheless, the pair make a formidable team when united by a common threat.

Ultimate Iron Man

In the original Ultimate Marvel universe (a publishing line that updated the Marvel heroes for the 2000s and helped inspire the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony is a celebrity tech mogul who helps found the Ultimates, this universe’s equivalent of the Avengers.

In the new Ultimate Marvel universe, a world created by the villainous Maker (see our Fantastic Four guide), Iron Man is Tony’s father Howard Stark, whose company controls the North American Union, one of this world's seven economic superpowers. Tony later takes up his own armoured mantle as Iron Lad and founds the freedom fighter team The Ultimates.

Who is Ironheart?

Ironheart explained by Marvel 101

Teenage inventor and M.I.T student Riri Williams built her own suit of armour, first as a replacement Iron Man while Tony Stark was out of commission and later as her own heroic identity, Ironheart.

This series is also collected as Ironheart : Riri Williams and Marvel-verse : Ironheart

In her first self-titled series, Ironheart teams up with Doctor Strange, Shuri and the Unstoppable Wasp to take down the nefarious Ten Rings.

This series is also collected as Ironheart : meant to fly

Ironheart is a member of the Champions, a team of young heroes who split off from the Avengers.

Other Iron identities

War Machine

U.S. Marine James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes is one of Tony’s oldest friends, even briefly replacing him as Iron Man. Rhodey later received his own armour and became the high-ordinance hero War Machine, serving alongside the Secret Avengers and Force Works.

Avengers vs X-Men is the only Marvel Comic so far to be translated into Te Reo Maori.  Here, Iron Man is called Tua Rino, and War Machine is called Toa Hiko.

When Rhodey was out of commission, the Punisher repurposed the War Machine armour for his war on crime.

Iron Patriot

When Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin) took over SHIELD from Tony Stark, he rebranded himself in a new red-white-and-blue armour as the Iron Patriot.

The Iron Patriot armour was later given to Rhodey (in reference to him adopting the identity in Iron Man 3).

Iron Lad

Iron Lad first appeared as the leader of the Young Avengers, a team of teenage superhumans who emulated the founding Avengers.

Another Iron Lad from a parallel universe joined the Exiles, a team of multiverse-hopping heroes.

As noted above, the young Tony Stark of the new Ultimate Marvel universe goes by Iron Lad, leading a team of freedom fighters against his Earth's clandestine world government.

Iron Cat

The criminal Black Cat created her own prefabricated armour during a raid of Stark Unlimited, which was later stolen by another super-thief, leading Iron Man and Black Cat to team up and recover it.