Iron Man: Fame as a Marathon: Not a Sprint

The transition from monsters to superheroes in the Silver Age was sometimes a...gradual one.

There's definitely a hierarchy amongst superheroes, and amongst fans, one of the discussions quantifying those hierarchies include not just the ability of one to trounce the other in combat, but also who is more relevant in the real world. If you look at house ads, promotions, merchandising and the like, you'd see a sort of recurring "core". A comic book A-List. While there can be a few constant linchpins, it can be surprisingly fluid as well. Even the Hulk and Wonder Woman have fallen out of trinities or quorums, every now and again. For the longest time, Iron Man would often be in that stable...if there was room enough. But for much of his existence, the armored Avenger was not quite the top of the heap. He was kind as popular as one could be without being a flagship. He would never reach the levels of prominence that Thor, Daredevil, or the Punisher would attain in their heyday. But he would also never sink to their levels of obsolescence. To put it bluntly, Iron Man was kind of "just there", albeit in a usually respectable way.

He certainly had a few things going for him. The design, when finally fleshed out, was a pretty spiffy-looking one. And having a main character adept in technology opened up an avenue for all kinds of options in storytelling. Plus, Stan Lee would claim that the debonair Tony Stark made him a popular figure with female readers. (Though it should be noted, as a historian, Stan Lee has always made a great storyteller.)  Plus, as I've mentioned before, having a concise, almost palpable theme is great way to stand out as a superhero. But there were downsides as well. The technology factor always made it easy for writers to come up with an idea, but it probably also meant they were never really challenged to think outside the box. The comics world is littered with dime-a-dozen champions and crooks alike who have their own apparatus, often a "power-suit". Sure Iron Man is undoubtedly the premier technology equipped super-guy, but it's still a category so brimming with factory-made efficiency, it can't help but inspire ennui.

The growing action figure provided a lot of possibilities.

 

It probably didn't help he didn't feature in the most ground-breaking stories. Much of the Marvel pantheon is attributed to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's lightning storm of imagination, with credit being given to Steve Ditko, a less prolific but still integral part to the birth of the "Marvel Universe." While all three men have done some work here and there on the character, the main artist of the strip was Don Heck, who, if the "House of Ideas" was considered the Beatles of comics, would most assuredly be the company's Ringo Starr. He plodded along, adequately enough, but was never stood out in any landmarks in the Marvel Age of Comics. His angst always seemed to pale compared to that of Peter Parker's, Bruce Banner's...even Steve Rogers's. The premise of having the chestplate keeping him alive was dropped pretty early on, and while the artificial heart he was given was often alluded to as some kind of internal Sword of Damocles, his troubles weren't seen as quite as dire as the rest of Marvel's signature outcasts'. As the late 1970's rolled around, writer David Micheline eventually came up with the idea of making him an alcoholic. This resulted in some impressively dark storylines that extended well into the 1980's. But even then, these stories were often overshadowed by works like Chris Claremont on X-Men, Frank Miller on Daredevil, John Byrne on Fantastic Four, and Walt Simsonson on Thor. The Iron Man stories, while considered very good, seemed almost a justification there was potential in the character, not something that redefined the medium.

 

Still, Iron Man was never too far out of the spotlight, as there was nothing particularly wrong being done with the character. He had his first shot at ascendency in the early 1990's. Toy mogul Avi Arad looked at Iron Man and thought he could be the cornerstone of a toy empire. At some point in the decade, it was felt Marvel's intellectual properties sould be sub-divided into their own "universes", for instance the X-Men, or its various supernatural characters. Iron Man was seen as a natural, due to his distinctly technological nature, and his base of operations in Los Angeles, separating him from the New York heroes, both in scenery and editorial mandate. His multiple armors (and often armor-clad adversaries) seemed ideal a foundation for a toyline that could surely thrive in the industry that made Transformers. However, this new direction suffered a myriad of problems. Some of Iron Man's troops (Scarlet Witch, Century) didn't particularly mesh with this technology theme, and the creative work...the comics, the cartoons...were often well below average in quality. Marvel soon filed for bankruptcy, hopes for a hydra of merchandising dashed, and Iron Man was simply folded back into the consolidated "Marvel Super Heroes" brand.

Ah, the 90's...

 

Iron Man spent much of the 2000's in the background, once again overshadowed, this time by the movie craze. By now his character had too many dark moments to be a beacon of neoclassicism, but he was naturally not a good icon for the iconoclasm that would sometimes pop up in the 2000's Marvel. A movie of his was always in the works--after all, a relatively less outlandish concept, and a nice, glamorous role for a leading man to play. The project attracted no less than Tom Cruise, amongst others. But ultimately, the comic's modest sales and lack of a driven director to champion of the project put it in development hell. A funny thing ended up happening, though. Marvel thought it would be a fine start for their own, hands-on movie projects. And a certain actor named Robert Downey Jr. signed on for the role. Downey had long been seen as so much squandered potential, who's personal demons had made him impossible to cast for insurance reasons. There was enough baggage in the character to draw upon Downey's impressive acting chops, but enough levity and glamor to make, what was essentially, an honest-to-God movie star turn. Underneath all the comic book special effects, Black Sabbath music, and high-tech jargon, what we got was pretty much the kind of stuff we would see from Cary Grant or James Stewart in Golden Age cinema. Downey's career was reignited, but because the character wasn't too iconic, it didn't overshadow or typecast him. The reception of the movie in turn raised the character's profile, who, with a sharp, easily merchandise-able look, could be put on T-Shirts and the like without having conform to whatever Downey looked like at the time. A strange sort of symbiotic duality in play.

 

But that's what served as the catalyst for his popularity. What has kept him at least kind of relevant for decades? What has allowed him to endure, when technology themed heroes are so easy to create, and yet so many have fallen by the wayside. As mentioned before, technology themed heroes are abound. It's said that entering a more technological age made him more relevant. But that may be an arguable point, as the possibilities of future technology have been fetishized  since the 1950's, at least. And your typical gearhead hero just feels trendy. Likewise, while we're in the cybernetic age, Tony Stark has never really been a "hacker" kind of hero...although he certainly knows his way around a mainframe. He's more a God of the Forge. He's Hephaestus. It could be said that, while Iron Man certainly takes to a cybernetic age like a duck to water, that he's so enduring can be laid at the feet of the opposite notion. In a lot ways, Iron Man embodies something older and more natural. Iron is not a specific invention, it's an element. It's something harvested, not invented. The films make a point there's actually very little iron in his suit's makeup. So while Tony Stark certainly can invent all kinds of ingenious doo-dads, in a way, he probably harkens more to a tribal leader from the hills wielding a claymore than some egghead in the lab. There's a very animist tradition in a lot of Marvel's more popular characters, and while Iron Man is often thought of the avatar of what we create, I think he often fits in because his name is about what we create from.

Who'd have thought a longtime superhero would make for a great star vehicle?

It'd be interesting to see where the character heads when Downey is finished with him. He'll always be around. And while a more machine-based society is something that won't slow him down, I think he's always held in there for more primal reasons, come to think of it. Ironically enough.