bouncing from a comment i made on
randomhappenstance (the place to be for action figure humor!), i've been encouraged to revisit that milestone event in
Tony Stark's life since he slapped that "transistor-powered" armor on to save his life:
- killed his best friend? (which?
Happy Hogan?
Steve Rogers?
Rhodey?)
- became a Stark raving serial-killing teenager?
- became a Stark raving drunk?
- became US Defense Minister? (a lot of good that did)
nyet to all the above. am talking about rewriting his own goddamned DNA and rebooting his own nervous system. long before Extremis and the
deux ex machina it became,
T-Stark already hacked his own genetics and with some help, raised himself from the dead. it actually makes more sense than just resurrecting a seemingly-dead character because some god or aliens just happens to have the technology to do so (exhibit A:
Colossus). i am eagerly awaiting how are they going to explain
Steve Rogers,
Jean Grey or even
Kitty Pryde, when
Marvel brings them back.
how the hell did Stark die anyway? well, if you think about it, it can all be traced back to ... love.
an ex-girlfriend,
Kathy Dare, watched too much
Fatal Attraction reruns and decided she's not gonna take it. anymore. hey,
if i looked like this (see below),
i'd shoot myself too.
spinal damage left Tones unable to walk, but not unable to don the armor. oh dear god, how he needs the armor even more. six issues after the shooting, a breakthrough has been found - thank the InterWebz! of course, it wasn't called the Internet yet at that time, and I Can Haz Cheezeburger was still not invented. resident brainiac Abe Zimmer ostensibly did the equivalent of a "Google search" and came up with some small company doing research for biochips that could regenerate and heal damaged nerves. huuuuuuzzzahhhhhhh!
in scoops Stark, buying the company, CordCo. however, ethical issues prove a bit of a snag, and no one at CordCo wants to experiment on Stark. enter Dr. Erica Sondheim, who gets Stark to sign waivers and proceeds to operate on the world's most wanted playboy. do we know if Sondheim is married, single hetero and available or a lesbian? juuuuuuuust asking.
why are all the others looking like they're trying to rip one out ... or worse?
operation complete! Tony Stark can walk again! ladies run screaming after him again!! i mean you should see all those self-pity moments prior to this - Stark being turned down by nubile females once they saw him in a wheelchair? you'd be depressed too. then shoot yourself.
of course, there's more to all these than meets the eye, as we learn that Stark keeps getting blackouts - such as mysteriously appearing in some swanky hotel room with a woman - and it keeps getting frequent ...
... and even worse, when he gets remote-controlled in broad daylight by a mysterious entity, and only some encephalo-thingamajig in his armor saves him. as the reader, we've known for awhile that this "mysterious entity" is one
Kearson DeWitt, disenfranchised engineer, teaming up with Stark Enterprises competitor
Marrs Corp (the inventors of
this killer 1987 single) to surreptitiously gain control of Stark using that biochip to fix his spine. so technically, Tony is trapped (again) in his armor.
fast forward to the inevitable showdown: fed up of being Pinocchio to their Geppetto, Tony and Rhodes figure out the Marrs Corp connection after finally reviewing CordCo's paper trail (that's a lesson, kids: always do your due diligence, otherwise known as homework). Tony brings the fight to them, but Rhodes has to don another armor and help Tony take down DeWitt, who's now in his own armor. but his motivations are never really explained to Tony himself. the consequences of the battle are not good, as the spinal nerve damage gets too severe, forcing Tony to use the armor as a crutch much more than he wants to.
but lo! hope shines from the East. the Chinese government wants to recruit the capitalist tool,
Iron Man, to help them fight off a reborn
Mandarin, who's already practically taken over their country (imagine that). the Mandarin, resurrected by a floating old man (not
David Carradine), finally all has his rings again, and they even have
Fin Fang Foom as their attack dog, er, dragon, but he doesn't know his benefactor's agenda. since this was published in 1991,
John Byrne doesn't shy away from taking a dig
at something that would net falsehoods if you Googled it from China.
under the guise of services exchange, they invite Tony, who of course can't say no when the services involves a saucy Eastern delicacy named Su Yin, who's merely the world's foremost expert on neurobiology (and why didn't Tones run to her the very first time, i have no idea). geeks loving geeks. i love it!
again, at the end of that Dragon Seed storyline, Tony had to team up with the Mandarin, who felt betrayed by the little old man, because the latter turned out to be a huge frickin' dragon himself, and all 10 of them (including Fin Fang Foom) were actually aliens who crashlanded on Earth millenia ago and were the real owners of the 10 rings. huge explosions later, the dragons are gone, the Mandarin seems to have disappeared, China snubs global press media (of course). Tony finds out that Su Yin is married to a paralyzed man (awwwww), but she develops a neuromesh for him to wear to extend his life even for just a bit. Tony goes against the grain and leaves Su Yin because he can't bear taking her away from her husband (that's rich).
being the man of action that he is, Stark doesn't sit still for too long, neuro damage or not. he gets involved in a space war (Galactic Storm crossover), a cold war (taking on remnants of the Soviet empire), and a final showdown with longtime nemesis Justin Hammer (where we witnessed the first appearance of the War Machine version of the Iron Man armor). but all things come to an end and Stark dies ...
... but not before putting other things into play, such as arranging for his body to be cryogenically suspended by his science team, doing legal maneuvers for his company in the event of his death, and - get this, this is the most important part - not telling his bestest and loyalest friend, James Rupert Rhodes, of what the hell was he planning.
with the public knowledge of his demise, a recorded Stark hologram bequeaths Stark Enterprises and the Iron Man armor (not yet called "War Machine") to Rhodes. imagine his glee on that part, second only to the news that his best friend is dead.
that position initially involved doing the day to day management of SE, facing the board of directors, and defending the company from the long line of losers who wanted a piece of Stark (or Iron Man). actually, Rhodes liked a little part of it - firing his greedy ex-girlfriend/SE PR Head Marcy Pearson for starters. then hooking up with Tony's gal pal Rae LaCoste. was there a message being sent out here, considering the former was African-American, while the latter was a blonde bombshell? juuuuuuuuuust asking. donning the Iron Armor for the nth time, this iteration was actually a great character building exercise for Rhodes - he has since been written as a human rights activist free from the encumbrances of corporate interests. that's kind of a wild card if you have a multibillion dollar lethal weapon at your disposal. lately though, they're making him into some kind of Autobot/Decepticon hybrid. WTF!?!
finally, the science team completes their Hail Mary play, the frozen Tony Stark goes through his memories for the nth time (there seems to be an editorial edict that every new writing team needs to spend an issue or two dwelling on his origin), and is elated to find machine code pouring into his central nervous system. its like discovering Lego bricks for the first time. the Technic version.
of course, this would all be much more impressive if writer
Len Kaminski wasn't
trying to pull a fast one over us, courtesy of the late Michael Crichton. go ahead, click the photo above, then check the link.
dinosaurs aside, this opens the door for a real true blue resurrection (of course Tony's gonna die a thousand deaths more after this), and also a rehash of Tony vs Rhodes circa 1983-1986. i mean, what else do you expect when Rhodes learns of the scam they pulled on him?
to Rhodes' credit, his loyalty to Stark is quite amazing and knows no bounds, considering the shit Stark always puts him through. even Sam Wilson (The Falcon) wasn't this committed to Steve Rogers.
and it all comes back to love. oh yeah, baby.
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Iron Man vol. 1, 242-289
