The Birth: Howard Stark; the founder of Stark Industries, America's leading munitions maker for the Cold War became a father when his wife; Maria Stark gave birth to a baby boy whom they named Anthony. Howard, who was an alcoholic, hated Tony for preferring books to sports. Tony soon showed signs of being a genius. At five years, he created things never seen before using only his Erector Set. Howard soon sent Tony to a boarding school where he excelled in his studies. When Tony was brought back home at the instance of his mother, he fell in love with Meredith McCall, the lovely daughter of Howard's business rival. So, Howard shipped Tony off to Europe. Tony filled his teen years with only fun and parties.
By about this time, his teachers found him to be a young prodigy. Tony graduated with a double major in Physics and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while he was still in his teens!
But tragedy stuck when Howard and Maria Stark died in a car accident when the brakes failed. Tony Stark was left a young millionaire. He also found himself C.E.O and owner of numerous companies.
Tony, by this time had well established himself as an unequalled weapones maker of the world. One of his plants in Southeast Asia had been losing supplies to a guerrilla leader named Wong Chu. While on his way to visit the plant, Tony and his plant manager; Toshiro Kanada were attacked by Wong's men. The duo ditched their jeep and fled into the jungle. Unfortunately, Wong Chu had laid bobby traps. Kanada tripped a mine manufatured by Stark International Munitions and was killed on the spot. Tony himself was badly injured - a piece of shrapnel lodged near his heart.
A now easy target, he was captured and forced to design weapons for Wong Chu in return for an operation that would save his life. Of course, Wong was lying. Working with Ho Yinsen; the greatest physicist of his time and another of Wong's prisoners, he designed a suit of armor that would keep his heart beating while also adding to his strength.
Just to buy Stark a few extra seconds to don the suit, Yinsen brought enemy gunfire to himself and sacrificed himself. Tony, in his suit of armor defeated Wong and his troops easily and then got back to America. He had been born again - this time as Iron Man !

His first appearance took place in Tales of Suspence #39.

The Alter Ego: Billionaire businessman, playboy, philanthropist and inventer; Anthony Stark, better known to his friends as Tony became a big player after his father died leaving behind his legacy for his son. Tony Stark, for some time was romantically involved with Virginia "Pepper" Potts, but as the magic fizzled out, she got married to Tony's friend and personal chauffeur, Harold "Happy" Hogan. Both are very] much like family to Tony and are among the inner circle who know of Tony's identity as Iron Man. Another old flame was Countess de la Spirosa, a woman who's temper got Iron Man into hot water after she was jilted by Tony. Much afterwards, for a long time he was close to Bethany Cabe. Later as she found her long lost husband, Tony moved on and found other women, none as interesting though.
Besides being Iron Man, Tony had to keep his place in the highly competitive business world. The pressure would be eased off with the bottle and eventually Tony Stark became into an alcholic. The liquor slowly consumed him, leaving him with nothing other than the clothes on his back. Everytime he recovered from detox something would happen that would make him find his way back to the bottle. On one instance, a hostile takeover by Stane Industries had him hitting the bottle so bad that he left his home and friends and ended up on the street living virtually the life of a wino. And every few bucks he'd find would end up in the pockets of a barman or a liquor dealer. During this time he met Gretyl; another excessive drinker. The winter had set in and Gretyl was due to have a baby but Tony, with all his influence and power was unable to find a decent nursing home for her. The baby was delivered on the steps of an old building and in the course of the night Gretyl froze to death. Tony himself had decided his life was not worth living any more and gave up all hope. But the morning came and the officers found Tony and the baby in a real bad shape. Both had survived the harsh night and looking down at the baby he had protected during the night Tony realized that life was precious. A renewed man, he threw away the bottle and soon found himself on his feet again.
Along with his pilot and best friend; Jim Rhodes, and with help from Clytemnestra Morley; a genius physicist they got a new company off the ground.
Time passed by and Bethany left her husband because of his drug addiction and retuned by Tony's side. She also became Tony's security officer. After Tony returned to Earth from the dimension where young Franklin Richards had transported all the heroes, he left Stark International in the running of his cousin Morgan Stark and their oriental partner; Fujikawa and went on to start a new compant called Stark Solutions.

The Legend: After Tony Stark escaped from Wong Chu, he began using his armor to fight against the injustice wreaked upon the hapless populace by the evil minded. Tony kept his identity secret and made it look like Iron Man was employed by Tony Stark as his bodyguard.
Iron Man was instrumental in founding S.H.I.E.L.D. ( Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division ). Much of S.H.I.E.L.D's hi-tech equipment has been designed by Tony and Stark International. Iron Man was also one of the founding members of the Avengers and at a time their leader. He left the group and went solo fighting oranizations like A.I.M. ( Advanced Idea Mechanics ), The Living Laser, Backlash, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo and Mandarin. There was a short period of time when Iron Man joined forces with Force Works a team which included the likes of Spider-Woman, Scarlet Witch, Century and U.S. Agent.

Besides Happy and his wife Pepper, Tony's friend and pilot; Jim Rhodes also knows his identity as Iron Man. He was Tony's personal choice as his stand-in for Iron Man on many occasions and Rhodey later on took on the job full tim when Tony was living his life as a drunk. Of course Rhodey could never use the armor to it's optimum since he never really knew all the knitty-gritty's that Tony had installed in the armor. It was Rhodey in the Iron Man armor who had fought in the second Secret Wars. As Tony returned to his super-hero role, Jim Rhodes donned another armor and took the name of War Machine but that gig didn't last long. Before any of these friends even imagined Tony in Shellhead's armor, it was Bethany Cabe who realized that Tony and Iron Man were one and the same; a fact she revealed to Tony when he had gone to Germany to rescue her and found her suposedly dead husband.
That was also the first time Iron Man used his "slealth armor" which was designed to avoid radar and sonar but it comprimised on weaponry for speed. Iron Man has changed his armor many times, each time improving on it.

The armor gives Iron Man incredible powers. The armor gives him superhuman strength and a certain degree of invulnerability while his jet boots give him the power of flight. There is an entire arsenal of weapons included in the armor like his chest uni-beam, repulsor beams that emerge from the gloves, disruptor beams and energy shields. He also has a multiple target-locking system and he can set the power level of his lasers and beams to a real destructive blast or a small concussive one. The helmet extends his normal vision to binocular, x-ray, infra-red and fluoroscopic vision as well. It also masks his natural voice so no-one will suspect his dual identity. The audio input can be used to amplify certain sounds or filter out unwanted ones.

Tales Of Suspense #39