Marvel kills off Iron Man with a darker, more tragic sacrifice than the one Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark pulls off in the MCU’s Avengers: Endgame. Iron Man’s heroic sacrifice at the end of Avengers: Endgame will forever be known as the most heroic death in the whole MCU. It completes Tony Stark’s arc by turning a formerly self-centered warmonger into the universe’s savior.
Iron Man has died more than once in the comics. Sometimes at the hands of villains like Onslaught, and sometimes in odd circumstances like Civil War II. Of course, most of Iron Man’s deaths have been undone, rewriting his sacrifices and his betrayals. But The Crossing‘s controversial “evil, brainwashed Iron Man impostor” twist aside, Tony Stark has always fallen fighting for the greater good.
Iron Man Dies A Villain In Marvel Comics
Iron & Frost #3; Written by Cavan Scott; Art by Ruairí Coleman & Yen Nitro
Following the rise of the X-Virus and Doug Ramsey’s takeover, Tony Stark suffers a mutation that turns him into the Iron King. Sadly, Stark’s mutation replaces his consciousness with a cold-blooded artificial system, which keeps him trapped in a metal body. Despite Emma Frost’s attempts to bring the human hero back, Tony Stark is only able to recover his own body long enough to see Emma succumb to her wounds and the Iron King blow himself into pieces.
Usually, tragic deaths entail some sort of advantage. In Iron & Frost, War Machine dies a brutal death while trying to bring Tony Stark back to normalcy, Emma Frost’s chest wound claims her life while she tries to reawaken Tony’s consciousness, and Tony Stark himself fails to recover his body before the Iron King self-detonates. The Iron King pulls off his ultimate move just to bury Iron Man’s legacy in the Age of Revelation.
Iron Man Is The Perfect Character To Turn Into A Villain
It’s Easy To Believe Tony Stark Could Become Evil
Iron Man has always lived in moral gray zones. From the beginning of his journey, Tony Stark regularly builds powerful weapons and justifies extreme solutions in the name of protection. Not only does Stark’s fear of failure drive him toward authoritarian choices, but his pathological vanity also leads him to make extremely dangerous choices. In his hands, small ethical failures can easily escalate into outright tyranny.
Arrogance and control are baked into Iron Man’s personality as deeply as his heroism. Superior Iron Man is the clearest proof. Freed from moral restraints, Tony Stark rebrands himself as a corporate god-king who fully exploits his genius solely for self-serving purposes. Despite turning him into a full-fledged villain, Superior Iron Man is generally regarded as a groundbreaking chapter in Stark’s journey.
Other attempts like The Crossing and The New Avengers‘ Iron Apex have been less successful because they rely on evil impostors and convoluted plots. Superior Iron Man works because, while Tony Stark’s morals are inverted by Axis, his villainy still comes from his own flaws. Unfortunately, the Iron King doesn’t get enough time to develop as much as Superior Iron Man, but his brief stint is even more devastating.
- NAME
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Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark
- FIRST APP
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“Tales of Suspense” #39 (1963)
- Franchise
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Marvel
- Alias
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Iron Man