Iron Man, the billionaire, playboy and superhero turns 60

A minor hero who became hugely popular thanks to the movies.

Entrepreneur Tony Stark, who fights crime (even evil rival companies) in the armor of Iron Man until fifteen years ago has always been a second tier character of Marvel compared to the various Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk, Fantastic Four.

Among other things, its creators were (in 1963, it celebrates sixty years of editorial life), not only the chief editor and writer Stan Lee and the designer and co-writer Jack Kirby, architects of most of the classic Marvel characters ( although to what extent is still a debated topic) but first of all Larry Lieber, brother of Stan (Lieber was Lee’s real surname then also officially changed), for the texts and by Don Heck for the drawings.

That’s why the protagonist, the rich industrialist and inventor Tony Stark who wears the Iron Man armor (designed by him) to fight the Bad Guys, doesn’t have an alliterative name like the various Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Bruce Banner (Hulk ), Reed Richards (head of the Fantastic Four), Matt Murdock (Daredevil), trademark of Lee’s characters.

For decades Iron Man has been a minor, often propaganda character: among his enemies are the communist super-villains of the Iron Curtain, he is the Cold War superhero par excellence, after all Stark, a charming playboy, is an arms manufacturer who supplies the american government.

At the end of the seventies, however, the scriptwriter David Michelinie and the designer Bob Layron arrive at the texts of the series, creators of a series of remarkable stories: the two write the plot together, the first then deals with the dialogues while the second inks the pencils of the various designers.

In a memorable cycle entitled ‹‹The demon in the bottle›› and designed by a then very young John Romita Jr., whose father (who died last June 12) was the then art director of Marvel (and historic author of Spider-Man ) John Romita Sr. and destined to become one of the columns of the publishing house himself, it turns out that Stark is an alcoholic.

At the end of the 1980s, again through the work of the Michelinie-Layton couple,. this time on pencils by Mark Bright (and with the contribution of the exceptional Barry Windsor-Smith) comes the long ‹‹War of the armor››, in which Stark, returned to wearing the armor of Iron Man after having temporarily stopped due to the problems with alcohol, he discovers that competing companies have appropriated his technology and are using it for criminal purposes.

However, he is always a man of order, in the following years Stark even becomes Minister of Defense and later opposes the rebels led by Captain America in the so-called civil war of superheroes.

The perception of the character changes in 2008. And it happens thanks to the meeting between a famous actor whose career has been waning for some time, also due to alcoholism problems (as happened to Tony Stark himself) which made him abandon a role important in the TV series Ally McBeal, and a genre, the comic book, which in a few years seems to have exhausted everything it could say.

The third ‹‹Spider-Man›› was rather disappointing and so was the third ‹‹X-Men›› and the impression is that the big budget films inspired by superheroes, which started in 2000 with the first ‹‹X- Men››, are already in crisis.

The first ‹‹Iron Man››, directed by Jon Favreau, was a great success and at the same time relaunched its protagonist, Robert Downey Jr.

The actor is simply perfect in the role of Tony Stark, putting a lot of himself into portraying the ironic and brilliant billionaire, superhero and playboy with a ready joke (so much so that the subsequent authors of the comic stories would be inspired by him in characterizing the character), is among the main architects of the film’s success, and his career is on the rise again.

The film is epochal thanks to the end credits scene (since then a constant of Marvel films) that sees Nick Fury. the director of the powerful secret service Shield (played by Samuel L. Jackson) introducing himself to Stark, saying: ‹‹You are part of a greater universe, but you don’t know it yet››.

With the first ‹‹Iron Man››, thanks to Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, the Marvel universe of comics begins to be replicated in the cinema. In the comics, in fact, the various Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man know each other, interact with each other, often unite to face common threats in the supergroup of the Avengers.

‹‹Iron Man››, is therefore the initial and fundamental piece of the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Marvel universe of cinema and TV.

In the space of a decade, until 2019 of ‹‹Avengers: Endgame››, Robert Downey Jr. plays the character a dozen times and for many fans after his death in the film the Marvel Cinematic Universe is no longer the same.

It is difficult for the actor to become Stark again, he was born in 1965, he no longer has the age or above all the desire to train to be a superhero, however Harrison Ford’s precedents (soon in the cinema again as Indiana Jones at eighty years old) and Tom Cruise (three years older than Downey Jr. and protagonist of the seventh Mission: Impossible››, in theaters at the beginning of July) lead us to be optimistic.

True, in ‹‹Avengers. Endgame›› Stark is dead. But in the Marvel universe of comics death is only a narrative device, it is probably the same in that of movies and TV series.