Iron Man

"Hero's are made by the path they choose, not the powers they were gifted with."

Backstory:

Iron Man, like knights of old, is identified by the armor he wears. The best-dressed of the Marvel heroes, he has changed his look frequently since his debut in 1963, but he can afford to: the man who wears the suits (and designs them) is wealthy inventor Tony Stark. So the man make the clothes, but do the clothes make the man?

Not only does Tony Stark have no super powers of his own, but the armor that gives him strength was also created to keep his damaged heart beating; he could not survive without his iron shell. Eventually his cardiac condition was corrected by a heart transplant, and a later that left him paralyzed was repaired with a microchip. So even without his high-tech costume Tony Stark is a mixture of man and machine, what science fiction writers call a cyborg.

Exactly who Stark might be without his armor is difficult to say. Writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck initially presented him as a suave playboy, part of a long tradition of rich men who have become masked heroes. Yet unlike most of his predecessors, Stark got his income from a specific source: he manufactured and sold weapons. This was a slightly sinister occupation, despite its undoubted utility, and there were hints that Stark was ambivalent about his role. When his business was menaced by a hostile takeover in a 1979 storyline, he collapsed into alcoholism, and a friend was obliged to take over temporarily the job of Iron Man. So the suit an function without Stark, but can Stark function without the suit?

Stark publicly proclaims that Iron Man is his bodyguard, and to avoid prosecution for his own violence he once announced that the man in the suit had died and been replaced. He might have been talking about himself, since he is empowered by machinery and sustained by another man's heart. Beneath his polished veneer, Iron Man may be the most troubled of Marvel's heroes, forever fighting to prove that his armor is not hollow.

Iron Mans Obituary

Everybody wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn't always roll that way. Maybe this time. I'm hoping if you play this back... it's in celebration. I hope families are reunited. I hope we get it back, in somewhat like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing.

God, what a world. Universe now. If you told me 10 years ago that we weren't alone, let alone you know to this extent... I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised. But come on, you know. That epic forces of darkness and light that have come into play. And for better or worse, that's the reality Morgan's going to find a way to grow up in. So I found a private area to record a little greeting in case of an untimely death on my part. Not that death at any time is ever timely.

This time travel thing that we are going to pull off tomorrow... it's got me scratching my head about the survivability of all this. But then again that's the hero gig. Part of the journey is the end. What am I tripping for? Everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to.

I love you 3000.

Suits:

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