Iron Man

Iron Man is the name of a fictional character as well as a series of comic book titles about said character published by Marvel Comics. Iron Man is the code name used by a costumed superhero whose real name is Anthony "Tony" Stark", a billionaire playboy who invents an extraordinary suit of armor capable of independent flight, enhanced durability and various onboard offensive weaponry. The character has showcased several volumes of his own comic book title and has played a major role in other titles such as the Avengers and Force Works. He has also appeared in several animated television projects as well as two feature length films and is one of the main characters in the 2012 film The Avengers.

The character of Iron Man was created by Marvel Comics pioneer Stan Lee, his brother Larry Lieber and artist Don Heck. He first appeared in issue #39 of the anthology title Tales of Suspense, which was published in March of 1963. Iron Man proved popular enough that he was given a serial in the series and remained one of the featured characters in the title until's it's discontinuation with issue #99 in March, 1968. From there, Iron Man made one more brief team-up appearance in the Iron Man and Sub-Mariner one-shot before branching off into his own ongoing comic book series, Iron Man, which was published from 1968 to September, 1996 totalling 332 issues. The series was later revived under it's original numbering sequence.

A second volume of Iron Man was published in 1996-1997, totalling thirteen issues. This series was published under the "Heroes Reborn" banner, and chronicled the lives of Marvel's flagship characters (minus Spider-Man and the X-Men) in an alternate reality. Following the discontinuation of the "Heroes Reborn" titles, all of the characters involved in those volumes were returned to the mainstream Marvel Universe (often referred to as the Earth-616 reality).

A third Iron Man ongoing comic book series began publication after the "Heroes Reborn" line concluded and began in February, 1998 and lasted until December of 2004 with a total 89 issues. The series was cancelled and then re-booted yet again that same year, taking a more hard-science approach to the character, as well as making another in a long line of upgrades to his trademark armor. This series also introduced the Extremis plot device, which created a complex fusion between man and machine, effectively turning Tony Stark into a cyborg - a literal "Iron Man". This series also crossed over into Marvel's 2006-2007 company-wide crossover event "Civil War". With issue number 16, the title of the series was slightly altered to Invincible Iron Man for the following twelve issues before being changed again to Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. with issue #29. Up until issue #35, the series also focused heavily on the supporting character of James "Rhodey" Rhodes, who also goes by the armored code name of War Machine. This volume was discontinued with issue #35.

In 2008, a second ongoing series title Invincible Iron Man went into production at the same time that Iron Man, Volume 4 was still being published. This series went on for 33 issues before resuming the numbering sequence of the original Iron Man volume, beginning with issue #500. The landmark issue is the total of all of the numbers from all five Iron Man ongoing titles combined.

In addition to the regular volumes, there have also been scores of Iron Man related miniseries, one-shots, graphic novels as well as an alternate reality counterpart called Ultimate Iron Man (which boasted two five-issue miniseries).