6 Worst Things That Have Ever Happened To Iron Man In Marvel Comics

Robert Downey Jr.’s iconic portrayal of Iron Man in the MCU thrust the Marvel superhero into the mainstream, but he has a substantive history in the comics. He’s one of the comic book publisher’s heroes to have received the biggest turnarounds in terms of character development.

In that process of Tony Stark growing as a person and superhero, he’s also suffered some major setbacks as a result. These include his near-death experience during his origin story, as well as some crushing defeats at the hands of heroes and villains alike. Excluding external forces, some of the worst things to have happened to the genius inventor were by his own hand.

Tony Stark’s Severe Chest Injury

Like with many other superheroes, one of the earliest tragedies Tony Stark experiences is what made him Iron Man in the first place. As the son of rich industrialist Howard Stark, and losing both his parents in a car accident, Tony grew up to be a genius — albeit conceited — scientist. He took over his father’s company, Stark Industries, specializing in selling top-of-the-line military weapons.

But once he was kidnapped by forces led by Iron Man’s original supervillain Wong-Chu, Stark suffers a severe chest injury involving shrapnel embedded dangerously close to his heart. Of course, with the help of Professor Ho-Yinsen, this goes from being a near-death experience to his greatest asset. 2008’s Iron Man is one of the MCU’s best movies, and it retains that status thanks to director Jon Favreau’s execution in adapting this origin.

Being Controlled Into Killing A Foreign Ambassador

In a classic Iron Man story arc from the 1970s The Invincible Iron Man series, Tony finds himself dealing with the accidental death of a foreign ambassador. Iron Man kills him when his suit seemingly malfunctioned, causing it to set off his repulsor blast at a ceremony for the hero to represent Stark International.

This understandably causes Tony to spiral into a depressive state, where it was later revealed that Justin Hammer was behind his recent misery. Hammer found a window to elude Iron Man and gain control over his suit at will using a special transmitter device. This was an event with severe ramifications, including Tony’s psychological turmoil.

Falling Into An Ensuing Bout Of Alcoholism

Taking place in the same story arc — suitably titled Demon in a Bottle — one of the greatest Marvel Comics heroes deals with one of his biggest battles. It came in the form of alcoholism, which resulted in the aftermath of Tony being unknowingly manipulated into killing the aforementioned ambassador.

The police are apprehensive on Tony’s side of the story, but they let him go after confiscating his suit for inspection. Tony leans harder and harder into binge drinking to forget his problems, resulting in his life gradually falling apart. This illness, and addiction in general, are some of the deeper themes that Iron Man stories explore.

Captain Marvel Beats Him Down In Civil War II

The original Civil War comic book arc wasn’t too well received by fans, but it was succeeded nonetheless by Civil War II. This time, the event burst from the premise of an Inhuman claiming to see the future. This “fortune-teller” uses his precognition to fight crime before it happens, but Iron Man becomes frustrated by this concept. Attempting to stop crimes that don’t exist — or at least not yet — led to the avoidable deaths of War Machine and She-Hulk.

Captain Marvel is on the opposite side of this moral debate, leading to the eventual conflict. A supposed vision sees Miles Morales’ Spider-Man kill Captain America, prompting Carol Danvers to put him under arrest. Iron Man argued in favor of leaving Miles alone, leading to the former and Captain Marvel engaging in a brutal fight where the cosmic hero defeats Iron Man.

Tony Turns Into A Warped, Evil Personality Post-AXIS

The AXIS story arc in Marvel’s comics was a major crossover event involving the Avengers, X-Men, and a group of supervillains teaming up to fight off Captain America’s arch-enemy Red Skull. The World War II-era supervillain managed to obtain the power of Onslaught, which is a sentient entity made from the combined consciousness of Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men and Magneto from the opposing Brotherhood of Mutants.

Iron Man survived its events, but in the following Superior Iron Man comic series his mind was warped into something more corporately sinister. This saw Iron Man effectively become a supervillain, with Stark turning into a man embodying the opposite of everything he grew into for the better, plunging the world into mayhem in the process. On top of selling military weapons again, he created a modified version of the regenerative Extremis virus. However, citizens became addicted to it and forced a daily $100 subscription on it.

Getting Pummeled By An Enraged, But Intelligent Hulk

Another iconic Marvel superhero that dismantled Iron Man was the Incredible Hulk. The MCU certainly popularized the occasionally-hostile dynamic between these two when Hulk loses control, but Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man gave fans an iconic fight between them before. After looking into one of the eyes of Uatu, Tony and Bruce Banner see memories wash over them of how the latter became the Hulk.

Bruce becomes enraged at discovering that Tony had tampered with the gamma bomb that created him, resulting in an intense fight between the two. Even though Iron Man had no recollection of doing anything to cause the explosion, he’s forced to fend off an enraged Hulk. But to Tony’s horror, the fight is woefully not going his way because Bruce discovered how to change into the Hulk while retaining all his intelligence.

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