5 of the Worst Iron Man Stories You Won’t See in a Sequel

Iron Man 3 is now out on DVD & BluRay everywhere. This was teased as the final Iron Man movie because Robert Downey Jr wanted out of the franchise, but money talks and he signed on for more Iron Man/Avengers movies. Without RDJ, Marvel would be in a tough spot to find a captivating enough actor to lead the Avengers. Let’s be honest, RDJ made a B-list hero into a certified super-icon.

Now that we know there will be more Iron Man movies, I wondered what stories they will be using to continue the series. Much like Spiderman, Iron Man has a spotty background, so I’ve listed the stories that you absolutely won’t see in the next Iron Man sequel.

5 – New Suit Upgrades

Comic books have always been complete with camp. This was never truer than in the late 60’s. Iron Man and the Avengers were fighting SHIELD’s mandroids, and just when the Avengers were losing the upper hand, Iron Man unveils a secret within his suit.

In the middle of the battle, his boots open up to show roller skates. You read that right. Iron. Roller. Skates. He starts dodging the mandroids and taking them down, until Iron Man eventually trips on some wreckage. This is odd because Tony Stark is a billionaire genius and he chooses to put clumsy roller skates on his suit rather than just fly. Apparently, the first model of the Iron Man suit came complete with wheels, so he was probably just trying to go old school.

4 – Tony is a Walking Brain

The “Ultimate” comics line of Marvel’s well-known heroes gives writers a chance to rewrite origins and make the characters more modern. (see also: Dumbed down) In 2005, Orson Scott Card took over writing duties on Ultimate Iron Man and decided that Tony Stark as a tech genius was just too bland.

Instead, in this Ultimate version, Tony’s pregnant mother was developing a regenerative drug on monkeys. But, one of these monkeys goes nuts and and attacks everything and, somehow, bleeds into her mouth… (This is getting weird) Also, isn’t that how the AIDS virus started?

So when Tony is born, his parents realize that his skin is 100% neural tissue. He is essentially a walking brain. This is an issue because brain matter is extremely sensitive. However, his brain skin can regenerate quickly, ala Wolverine. His mom dies in childbirth, just to give him some survivor’s guilt to last for the rest of his life. His dad, Howard Stark creates a biological suit for Tony called Dermal Armor. This armor turns Tony’s skin blue, but protects him from everything. The only weakness for the dermal bio-armor is apparently a bath. It only takes soap and water to wash off the suit and make Tony feel unbearable pain. Apparently his arch-nemesis goes by the name Lex Loofa…. (sorry)

3 – His Suit Falls In Love With Him

I swear I’m not making the following story up. This really happened in the comics. Keep in mind, Iron Man was a mediocre hero at best and his comic series’ reflected that.

While flying in the Iron Man suit right around midnight on New Years Eve 1999, Stark was struck by lightning. Apparently that jolt, combined with Y2K, gave Stark a heart attack, while giving the actual suit life. When Tony awoke, He found that the suit was making him stronger than ever (much like Spider-Man’s black suit) and he enjoyed fighting villains. Stark started getting concerned about the suit when, after a battle with Whiplash, the suit took over and murdered Whiplash.

After Tony rejected the suit, it started to make threats about Tony’s girlfriend and pursue Tony. It wanted to “be one” with its creator again. After a battle with the sentient suit, Tony suffered another heart attack and was quickly dying. The sentient suit professed his love for Tony and sacrificed itself by giving its artificial heart to Tony. Tony begged the suit to not kill itself and offered to join with it one last time. The suit replied, “No more…Tony. Haven’t you done enough already?” and gave up the robot ghost.

I can’t believe I just wrote the previous two paragraphs.

2 – Civil War Turns Stark into a Supervillain

Civil War was a huge event in the Marvel world. Some people love it for the risks it took, but most see it as the beginning of the end for their favorite characters. After a massive tragedy, caused by a young group of heroes calling themselves the New Warriors, the Government demands that every superhero disclose their secret identity due to the Superhuman Registration Act. Tony Stark led a group that was more than willing to admit their identities to the public. On the other side, Captain America led the other half of the Marvel universe in defense of their privacy.

Tony Stark was pretty effective at getting heroes to confess who they were. Even Peter Parker took off his mask during a press conference and came out of the superhero closet. But several heroes still wouldn’t budge, so Tony got a little upset and basically became a supervillain. He created a clone of Thor, who actually attacked and killed resisters.

Even when that didn’t convince the good guys to register, he enlisted groups of imprisoned villains to “persuade” the heroes to register. All of this drama culminated in a giant war in New York. Captain America was about to take down Iron Man, but decided to give up (not wanting anymore bloodshed) and unmasked himself. When he was finally brought to court for his “crimes,” he was assassinated.

The reason this will never make it to the big screen is because people love RDJ. They would not be happy if he was seen as a villain in any form. Plus, with the overabundance of heroes shown, the movie would start to look a little like X3. Also, the fact that Iron Man is basically responsible for Cap getting killed would not be good for the kids going to see Avengers 4.

1 – Teen Tony Takes Over

The 90’s were a dark time for comic books. If it weren’t for great animated shows like X-Men, Spiderman and Batman the Animated Series, most fans would be willing to disregard the entire decade. It was a dark time that gave us Electric Superman, Spider-Man’s Clone Saga and the ridiculously muscle-bound freaks of Image comics. The 90’s were an especially dark time for Marvel comics. They pretty much gave up at one point and tried to mix up their entire character universe with their worst event ever called The Avengers: The Crossing.

In this series of comics, it appears that Tony Stark has been secretly killing of E-list members of the Avengers. He even goes so far as to kill the Avengers’ nanny and clears out The Wasp’s bank account. That is pure evil. Apparently, Tony has been under the control of the villainous Kang the Conqueror for a while now and Kang is now using Stark to destroy the Avengers from within.

The rest of the Avengers group together and realize that evil Tony Stark can’t be taken down by anyone….. except for Tony Stark himself. So they decide to do a little bit of time traveling. (Because that always helps a story) The Avengers recruit a 19 year old Tony Stark from the past and bring him to the present to defeat old Tony.

When young Tony and old Tony finally battle, old Tony rips out the heart of his younger self. (Wouldn’t he just disappear at that moment?) But old Tony feels remorse for it and ends up sacrificing himself to defeat the big bad. Before he dies, he gives the Avengers the schematics for a chest plate to save young Tony.

So, Tony Stark has secretly been a villain since the beginning of his crime-fighting career. When he went evil, the Avengers brought a younger version of himself to defeat him. And after he was killed, the young Tony Stark created new armor and joined the Avengers.

You should know that nothing in the comics is eternal. Each of the above stories was retconned within a year of getting published and most of these editors would hope that you never bring them up again. As bad as the previous stories are, at least they’ll never make a movie where Iron Man’s main villain is a walking joke and the bad guys spit fire…… Oh wait.