After decades of being Marvel’s resident futurist, Iron Man is on the verge of losing what makes him so special. Tony Stark’s genius allows him to rival gods and monsters using nothing but science. Iron Man’s technology is an extension of his mind, and his creativity is an even more useful power than many superhumans’ otherworldly abilities.
Iron Man has earned his A-list status, largely fueled by the MCU’s monumental impact between 2008 and 2019. However, that level of popularity isn’t guaranteed forever. In the comics, Tony Stark currently risks being overshadowed by flashier heroes and newer concepts.
No Marvel Character Is More At Risk Of Becoming Outdated Than Iron Man
Real Life Has Caught Up With Iron Man’s Power Set
Tony Stark looks at various holograms wearing his Iron Man suit of armor
Tony Stark’s entire identity is built around his technological superiority. Despite Stark’s human nature, Iron Man’s ultra-futuristic inventions place him on par with, or even above, mutants, gods, and sorcerers. Since the 1960s, Iron Man has stayed several steps ahead of real-world innovation, but at this point, real life is closing the gap.
Many of Iron Man’s once fictional breakthroughs are now a reality. Artificial intelligence, AI assistants, automated manufacturing, domestic 3D-printing, drones, facial-recognition security, instant global data access, autonomous vehicles, and military tech enhancements all exist nowadays. Over the past decade or so, billionaires and tech giants have also done more questionable things than Tony Stark and his enemies used to during the Silver and Bronze Age.
On top of that, Iron Man suffers from overexposure. Audiences are now used to seeing countless hyper-realistic, high-tech superheroes on the big and the small screen, with many of Iron Man’s classic inventions taken to the max thanks to state-of-the-art VFX. Visual effects are becoming more and more accessible to general audiences, and cosplayers now build screen-accurate Iron Man suits that look indistinguishable from Marvel’s. When average creators can reproduce Iron Man digitally and physically, Tony Stark’s “wow factor” weakens.
Iron Man Needs To Be As Futuristic Now As He Was In The Silver Age
Iron Man Has To Evolve With The Times
Tony Stark’s classic Silver Age Iron Man suit flies towards the camera in Marvel Comics art
For decades, Iron Man has represented technology that feels impossible, from sentient computers and flying gadgets to AI back-ups of Tony Stark’s consciousness. For Iron Man to remain relevant to readers and audiences who are more than well acquainted with this kind of tech in their daily life, Tony Stark’s technology must once again feel unreachable. Iron Man should exist multiple conceptual steps ahead of Silicon Valley.
Despite Robert Downey Jr.’s massive boost to Iron Man’s popularity in the MCU, the comics have largely failed to reinvent Tony Stark in any truly radical way. Comic-book Iron Man continues to be the same morally-gray hero who repeatedly loses everything just to jeopardize it, redeem himself, and start over. Without bolder changes to his status quo, or without changes to his look and his skills, Iron Man risks falling even further behind.
Aside from bigger narrative swings, Iron Man needs to regain his status as Marvel’s speculative forecast of humanity’s future. Tony Stark’s future advancements should come with philosophical consequences, and not just more visual upgrades or boosts to his suits of armor’s strength and speed. If there’s a fictional character who can serve as a technological ideal to strive toward, as well as a warning about technology’s dangers, it should be Iron Man.
Iron Man’s Updated Technology Poses A Big Narrative Challenge
Iron Man’s Tech Has Reached A Nearly Invincible Point
Iron Man Mark 72 suit of amor shows off its mysterium material at night
At his peak, Tony Stark designs faster armors than Quicksilver, durable enough to withstand attacks from Thor and Celestials, and armed with enough firepower to wipe out entire civilizations. If these Iron Man upgrades were permanent, Tony Stark would be able to neutralize most Avengers-level threats all by himself, rendering most of his fellows redundant and gutting all narrative tension in both his solo and his team-up stories.
This is why Iron Man almost never retains his upgraded suits and gadgets. Every time Stark builds the ultimate Iron Man suit, it’s promptly destroyed, abandoned, or rendered unusable. For example, if Iron Man’s Mark 72 armor became Tony Stark’s main suit, he could give most of the Avengers their well-earned permanent vacations. Combine Stark’s best armor with remote controls, and not even Stark himself would need to travel to the battlefield.
In theory, Tony Stark could end global disease or automate world defense altogether. As a result, Stark constantly sees his status quo getting reverted. Iron Man’s best stories always start from the very beginning, as the most exciting parts of Tony Stark’s journey are seeing him go from building shoddy armor in a cave with a box of scraps to building ultra-futuristic nanotech effortlessly. After that, there’s little else to explore.
However, challenges are opportunities, as Iron Man himself knows quite well. Just the concept of diving deep into the countless possibilities of the next decades’ forthcoming technological advancements provides Iron Man with many potential storylines. A detailed exploration of artificial intelligence and automated weaponry from Iron Man’s perspective could be more exciting and innovative than yet another god-rivaling suit of armor.
NAME
Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark
FIRST APP
“Tales of Suspense” #39 (1963)
Franchise
Marvel