Real Name-- Anthony "Tony" Stark

Class-- hi-tech hero

Affiliations-- Avengers , Force Works

Scale of Operations-- New York (Stark Industries), Silicon Valley, Calif. (Circuits Maximus), and Los Angeles (Stark International)

Occupation-- inventor , corporate executive , adventurer

Powers-- No real superhuman powers, although he does have an above-average genius, especially with mechanisms and inventing.

All of Irosn Man's powers derive from his various armors--

• Mark I Grey/Yellow Armor: provided body armor and life support (as a pacemaker) as well as an increase to strength and endurance.
• Mark II Golden Avenger: provided body armor with many other offensive and defensive capabilities, including "repulsors" (force blasts,) rockets in the boots capable of flight, ECM (electronic counter measures providing invisibility to surveillence,) energy absorption (to re-power depleted batteries), "Uni-Beam" energy emmisions of light and heat, tractor beams, fire extinguisher, radio communications and full sensor array, and even roller skates (Mark II version only)-- all of which collapsed into a carrying case.
• Mark III Space Armor: provided rocket flight, body armor, and life support capable of supporting small trips through space, as well as providing other offensive and defensive capabilities (like the repulsors, ECMs, energy emmissions, sensor and radio array, and extendable grappling-hooks.)
• Mark IV Stealth Armor: provided rocket flight, body armor, and intensive ECM invisibilty in addition to other offensive and defensive capabilities (like the repulsors and ECMs)
• Mark V: As the Mark II Golden Avenger, with a redesign. (This is the "classic" Iron Man most remember from the late 70's / early 80's-- editor.)
• Mark VI Silver Centurion: provided rocket flight, body armor, and force field protection along with other offensive and defensive capabilities, such as repulsors, energy absorption, energy emmissions, full sensor array and radio communication, and ECM advanced enough to also aviod visual and camera detection. A booster pack was build to provide near Mach speeds.
• Mark III-B Stealth Armor: Actually, more like his Mark II Golden Avenger, but with a black design, augumented with the advanced ECM / camoflauge effect of the Mark VI Silver Centurioon.
• Mark VII Undersea Armor: A very bulky armor, capable of deep-sea salvage missions, and providing body armor, life support, sonar, sensor and radio array, aquatic propulsion, crampons (extendable claws on the feet for better traction,) electrical generation, torpedoes, and an ink-cloud projection. The outer suit of armor housed an emergency inner suit that could eject under emergency situations. The inner suit was also capable of the above schematics, within limits.
• Mark VIII: A redesign of his classic Golden Avenger armor, with force fields, plasma bolts, an EMP generator (electromagnetic pulse-- capable of shutting down all electrical devices in a 1 mile radius, including most of his own systems) and an anti-theft device which would cause the armor's circuitry to self-destruct if any attempt at duplication or analyzation is made.
• Mark IX (current:) Another redesign of the Golden Avenger armor, and including an image projector that projected holograms of duplicate Iron Mans.

History-- Anthony Stark was born to the family of Howard Stark (a wealthy industrialist) and Maria Stark, and he demonstrated his mechanical aptitude and inventive genius at an early age, enrolling in a college electrical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of technology at the age of 15. When he was 21, he inherited the family company, Stark Industries, and within a few years had turned it into a multimillion-dollar industry complex whose chief contracts were for weaponry and munitions for the U.S. government.

When he was in Vietnam supervising his U.S. munitions supply, Stark was fatally wounded in the heart by a booby trap and a piece of shrapnel was lodged in his chest. Gravely injured, he was captured by communists who informed him that within a week the shrapnel would penetrate his heart and kill him, unless Stark would agree to build a weapon for them and thereby receive surgery. Stark agreed, hoping to gain access to time and tools for his escape. Stark was taken to a laboratory with a fellow prisoner, the physicist Ho Yinsen. The two developed an electronically-powered suit of armor equipped with offensive weaponry and whose chest plate served as a pacemaker-like device that would allow Stark's heart to continue beating when the shrapnel entered it. Stark donned the armor, and Yinsen volunteered to serve as a distraction as the suit charged. The communist leader ordered Yinsen shot, but before he could reach Stark, the armor-clad Stark escaped, avenging Yinsen's death in the process. Stark stumbled across U.S. Marine James Rhodes, who had been shot down in the jungle, and helped him fight off an attack. The two escaped to an abandoned Communist hideout and stole a enemy helicopter to return to an American base.

Returning to the United States, Stark secretly kept himself alive through the use of the armored chest plate hidden underneath his clothing. Stark also redesigned the armor, intending to manufacture the "human machine" for sale to the public. However, Stark donned one of the armors in order to prevent thieves from stealing parts of the other copies. The experience made him realize that the suit was too dangerous to be publicly available. Later, Stark used the armor to stop a terrorist attack, gaining media attention. Discovering a new sense of purpose, Stark decided to fight crime as the heroic Iron Man. However, still wishing to retain some anonymity, Stark established the fiction that Iron Man was a paid bodyguard for Stark, wearing the armor Stark invented.

At first, Stark used his Iron Man identity only to combat spies and criminals who threatened Stark Industries, but he soon expanded his scope to battle any force or person who threatened the security of America or the world. Stark was instrumental in the organization and armament of the original world intelligence and law-enforcement agency known as SHIELD, and, as Iron Man, he became a founding member of the team of superhuman champions known as the Avengers. Stark even donated his Manhattan mansion to the Avengers for their exclusive use.

Over the years, Stark would constantly refine and modify the design of his armor to keep his armor state-of-the-art. Later still, Stark underwent a heart transplant so that he was no longer obligated to wear his metallic chest plate. Eventually, Stark decided for moral reasons to no longer manufacture munitions and devote his company to non-armament areas of technology.

The first time Stark battled with alcoholism was during the company change from Stark Industries to Stark International and was threatened with a hostile takeover at the same time personal problems threatened to overwhelm him. Although he managed to recover, he succumbed a second time to alcoholism months later. This time, he was attacked by industrialist Obadiah Stane, who managed to wrest control of Stark's company and drive Stark to virtual poverty. During this time, Rhodes, who had remained Stark's staunch friend and employee after leaving the military, took on the Iron Man identity in Stark's stead.

Eventually, Stark regained his sobriety and began his recovery from alcoholism.. He joined with his friends Rhodes and Marley Erwin and his sister Clytemnestra Erwin to form a successful company, Circuits Maximus, in California. During its brief existence, Circuits Maximus became a prestigious and successful firm.

While the armor was in his custody, James Rhodes became increasingly enamored of being Iron Man, and, upon
Stark's return to sobriety, feared that Stark would ask for it back. However, Rhodes had began to experience severe headaches caused by the fact that the armor's cybernetic helmet had never been properly adjusted to Rhodes' brain patterns. As a result, Rhodes' mind became addled and began to manifest hostility toward Stark. In the meantime, Stark had constructed a simple suit of armor based on his original design with no intention of donning it until he felt in control of his alcoholism. When Rhodes began acting irrationally, however, Stark felt obligated to put on this crude suit of armor to prevent Rhodes from doing harm. Stark managed to subdue Rhodes and made necessary recalibrations on the armor. For a brief time both Stark and Rhodes used their respective suits of armor as active "Iron Men," although Stark did so reluctantly.

Unfortunately, Obadiah Stane grew alarmed at Stark's steps toward recovery. He bombed Circuits Maximus,
injuring Rhodes and killing Marley Erwin. Desiring vengeance, Stark donned an untested armor design and sought out
Stane. Stane himself put on a suit of armor his engineers had built using Stark's plans and met Iron Man in
battle as the Iron Monger. Losing the battle against Stark, Stane committed suicide. Stark managed to reclaim control of his company, although he decided not to claim ownership of the company formally known as Stark International. Rather, he founded a new technological design and manufacturing company, Stark Enterprises, based in Silicon Valley in Southern California. Stark Enterprises quickly became a highly successful and innovative company.

Stark decided that although one is never truly cured of alcoholism, he could also not deny the responsibilities of
being Iron Man. He resumed his career as Iron Man and joined the formative west coast division of the Avengers.

Later, Stark learned that the corporate espionage agent Spymaster had stolen the plans for many of the secret technological innovations Stark had created for his Iron Man armor. Spymaster had turned the plans over to Stark's most powerful and antagonistic business rival, Justin Hammer, who in turn made the plans available to many criminals for incorporation into their own weaponry. Outraged, Stark resolved to deprive these criminals of his secrets, battling many criminals and other individuals (such as the United States' Guardsmen) who wore battle suits utilizing his technology and placing a device on them that would render their circuits inoperable. In the course of these battled, Stark accidentally killed the Gremlin who was using the Titanium Man armor. The government branded Iron Man an outlaw and sent an armored soldier, Firepower, to apprehend him. Stark ultimately faked his death, claiming that Iron Man was a renegade Stark employee. When he resumed his Iron Man identity with a new and more sophisticated armor, he claimed it was a new employee as Iron Man.

At one point, Stark was shot by Kathy Dare, an old girlfriend who was insane with rage of jealousy. Stark was left severely injured, paralyzed from the waist down. He could, however, fully function while in the Iron Man armor, and he remained increasingly dependant on the armor to the concern of his friends and teammates. Ultimately, a microchip device was implanted in his spine to enable him to walk again. However, his body later rejected the implant, and Stark's body was put in a cryogenic freeze. Stark legally died, and Rhodes took over running Stark's business and Iron Man identity. Stark recovered, however, and took on the mantle of Iron Man once again. Rhodes became disgruntled. He left Stark Enterprises to become a hero of his own design, War Machine, although Stark and Rhodes later repaired their friendship.

Subsequent activities led Iron Man to develop more ruthless tendencies. When involved with the Avengers in the interstellar Kree-Shi'ar War, Stark was among their number advocating vigilante justice against the Kree leader, the Supreme Intelligence. He soon helped disband the Avengers' west coast branch in order to set up the team Force Works under his own auspices, driving his teammates with the intent of being a proactive strike force. Stark was believed to have become a traitor to the Avengers, as he secretly murdered the Avengers' nanny Marilla, Avengers' associate Yellowjacket II, and even a Force Works public relations manager. He was actually under the mental influence of the time traveler Immortus, who hoped to push Stark's xenophobia to the point of madness in order to preoccupy Immortus' enemies, the Avengers. The Avengers sought help from a younger version of Stark native to an alternate timeline, and the two Starks fought, mortally wounding each other. Before he passed away, Tony Stark tried to redeem himself by providing plans for a pacemaker chest plate that would save the life of his younger self and would pave the way for him to be the next Iron Man.

The new Iron Man later sacrificed himself to the psychic menace known as Onslaught and was shunted to a pocket universe. Upon re-emerging from this dimension, Iron Man was reborn into an idealized version of Stark as he appeared before Immortus' manipulations, although he nevertheless contained the composite memories of both versions of Stark. Finding Stark Enterprises had been bought by the Fujikawa Corporation, Tony Stark set up a new business for himself, Stark Solutions, a technological consulting firm set up from a new base of operations in his Seattle home. He reassumed the Iron Man identity, and was on hand to reassemble the Avengers as well.

Once, Stark's archenemy Mandarin manipulated events to allow knowledge of Iron Man's secret identity become known to the world. However, after an encounter with the villain Controller, Stark used global mind-control technology to erase all knowledge of his dual identity, then shared this secret anew with several of his closest associates. About the same time, he discovered that close proximity to the electrical fields generated by his armor was ruining his health, although he quickly modified the armor to correct this.

At one point, Madame Menace manipulated events so that Tony Stark would unlock the programming of the robot and his former Avenger teammate, Jocasta, so that she would become the basis for Menance' new weapons systems. Recognizing Jocasta, however, Stark helped Jocasta to awaken, and Jocasta managed to turn the tables on Madame Menace, seemingly sacrificing herself yet again. In reality, Jocasta managed to survive by downloading her intelligence into Iron Man's computerized armor, where she reasserted herself. Jocasta's intelligence was placed within Tony Stark's computerized mansion, and she would help him with daily operation of his mansion as well as to procure information as needed.

Unfortunately, the armor Stark had created began to experience problems. Having downloading the consciousness of the robot Jocasta at one point, Stark was unaware that the armor had been affected by protocols programmed by Jocasta's creator Ultron. The personality of Ultron may have emerged, but the armor was struck by lightening, with the side effect of allowing the armor to become sentient. Stark was originally unnerved by the situation, but gradually wanted to accept the armor and guide it in its intelligence. The armor grew amoral, however, killing Iron Man's enemy Whiplash and trying to abandon Stark on a deserted island. Stark battled the armor single-handedly, but the battle affected his heart. Ultimately, the armor sacrificed itself by taking vital components of itself to provide a pacemaker-like chest plate for Stark. In respect, Stark buried the armor before returning home. He returned to a previous design of his armor for a brief period before implementing another sophistacted upgrade.

Stark was later contacted by the Sons of Yinsen, a quasi-religious cult founded in remembrance of Yinsen, the physicist that helped Stark create the original Iron Man armor. Unknown to Stark, the Sons of Yinsen had revived the once-sentient armor, which was contacted via remote by the head of Ultron, disembodied after his most recent encounter of the Avengers and in the company of the robot Antigone. The head attached itself onto the armor and took control of the Sons of Yinsen and the flying city that they inhabited. Stark and one of the Sons of Yinsen, in an Iron Man armor, confronted Ultron in his plans to use the cult to wipe out humanity, but it took Jocasta, once more downloaded into the armor by Stark, to defeat Ultron. Stark and his ally managed escape the floating city, which Ultron rigged to explode after his defeat, but failed to find a trace of Jocasta.