I...am...Iron...Man...

Iron Man

To be honest, Tony Stark didn't come out of Secret Invasion too well.

On the heels of Civil War, Tony Stark had been made the head of SHIELD and incorporated all his "Starktech" into that global defense force.  I'm not sure exactly what "Starktech" means, but it was apparently even hardwired into his own body such that when the alien invaders inevitably hacked his system and brought down all of Earth's defenses, Stark sort of crashed with it.

After the smoke had cleared, opportunistic politicians saw Tony as the perfect scapegoat and came down hard on him.  In the comics, this lead to some sort of weird system reboot in his brain (conveniently wiping any culpability for the dickhead maneuvers he did during Civil War).  I don't need to go that far exactly, but I do appreciate the excuse to gut all that Extremis gear that had pushed Iron Man so far from the "guy in a high-tech suit" concept.

wha-?

I admit, my ongoing concept for Iron Man stems from one mental image: Tony Stark in trouble and calling on his bodyguard all Johnny Sokko-like, and Iron Man launching from a silo at Stark Enterprises to fly to the rescue.  The twist is that once the Iron Man armor arrives on scene, Tony would surreptitiously slip into it, becoming Iron Man rather than being whisked to safety.  Everybody sees them both together, so they're none-the-wiser about the dual identity, and Stark gets to be Ironman in secret.

"Why," you ask, "would he need to act in secret when everyone knows he's Iron Man?"

The answer is that, following the debacle of Secret Invasion, the public loss of confidence in Stark both from the government and his investors lead him to the realization that the only way to keep his company afloat is to stop being Iron Man.

The opening story arc shows that he's hired someone else to be Iron Man (I'm thinking Michael O'Brien, a character with experience piloting some of Stark's powersuits, pending a quick review to make sure the character is still alive), only to see that person quickly overwhelmed and killed in action.  Tony can't put another person at risk like that again, and decides to continue being Iron  Man himself, but now must keep that role secret for the sake of his company.  He uses O'Brien's death to justify his need to keep the current Iron Man's identity private.

It's hard for me to pick a favorite IM armor.  Of course I'm a longtime fan of the classic MkV armor he wore for so many years, but I also appreciate some of the more modern takes on it.  Ideally, I'd like to see a blend between the classic form-fitting suits and the modern plated armor look.  Something that suggests iron plates, but without all the jutty and sticky-out parts some artists can get carried away with.  Something along the lines (if not exactly the lines) of the 'Bleeding Edge' armor which appeared in 2010.

In fact, this suit is almost perfect.  I wonder if there's a way to add back in the eye slits.  It was always nice to be able to see Tony's eyes through his visor.

Other than that, it's business as usual.  Tony tries to manage his company as best he can, while fending off corporate spies and foreign saboteurs on a monthly basis.  Although no longer in the defense industry, the scope of SE's projects mean there's no shortage of ways to put him in any number of dangerous situations around the globe.

Here's where I confess I have zero idea of who Stark's supporting cast is these days.  I know Happy Hogan's dead, and Pepper Potts recently sported the armored identity of 'Rescue,' but I'm pretty blank on anything else.  He might even need an all-new cast of supporting characters from which to hide is secret identity.