Ironman, the fantastic superhero was created out of the figments of the imaginative mind of the writer- editor Stan Lee. Interestingly Stan Lee through the character of Ironman exhibits the idea of a business superhero harping on the idea of “quintessential capitalist”. The character of Ironman as a weapon manufacturer proved to be a complete contrast to the spirit of the time. During the Cold war era the entire human race has been greatly disillusioned by the devastating consequences of the wars and greatly despised the War. Tony Stark / Ironman was a weapon manufacturer, was rich, was an industrialist and he set out to delineate a new image of the superhero as a wealthy, glamorous ladies’ man.

Ironman as Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark is a genius boy who is an electrical engineer from MIT and inherits the Stark industries after his parents’ accidental death in a car crash. Tony Start suffers from serious heart injury during a kidnapping where his captors had ordered him to design a massively destructive weapon for them. He instead creates an armor laden with technological devices to enable him to fight crime and escape captivity which eventually gives birth to the superhero- Ironman. The cover for Ironman is that he is Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. Ironman thus serves that end as he fights the threats to his company, such as Communist opponents Black Widow, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man, as well as independent villains like the Mandarin. No one suspects Stark of being Ironman as he cultivates an image as a rich playboy and industrialist. The competence with which Ironman plays the dual characters, is indeed remarkable and at the same time the plots turns out to be attention grabbing as Ironman passes through the vagaries of life..

Ironman is a member of the superhero team of Avengers and has been featured in several incarnations in the wide range of Marvel Comic series. He creates a power suit of armor, to save his life from his captors, which he decides to use to protect the world as Ironman. Tony Stark as Ironman thus becomes a super hero because of his armor which makes him invulnerable and provides him with super human power like the ability to fly. Ironman is ranked by Forbes among the wealthiest fictional characters on their annual ranking. Moreover Business Week grants him the rank as one of the ten most intelligent characters in American comics.

Ironman is an industrialist playboy and genius engineer. Tony Stark/ Ironman’s reliance on technology and intelligence, rather than the chance transformations of many other superheroes, reinforced the American faith in technological solutions to the military, political and ideological problems of the Cold War. Initially the Ironman storylines revolved round the issues of autonomy and government intervention in research and question of loyalty which the real- life American physicists and engineers were also facing. Ironman thus served Stan Lee as an instrument to explore the Cold War themes, particularly the role of American technology and business in the fight against communism. However, the Cold War themes relegated to the backdrop giving space to the contemporary concerns of corporate crime and terrorism.