Am I the Only One Who Hated Reading About Tony Stark's Bad Heart?
- Rick Moore
- a few seconds ago
- 4 min read
It’s sometime in the mid-1970’s with our hero Iron Man patrolling a middle school when his sensors detect…
“Oh no! Middle school bully Timmy is about to rob Myron’s lunch money! I’ve got to stop him!”
Swooping down, the Golden Avenger lands between the larger child and his victim. “That’s enough, Timmy. You need to head to class now or you’ll be tardy.”
“Sez you!” Timmy sneers.
“You’ve given me no choice but to…” Suddenly, Iron Man is seized by incredible pain in his chest. “It’s my heart again! Third attack in two issues! Can’t stand up…”
Crumbling to the cold concrete of the outdoor breezeway, our hero lies helpless before Timmy.
An evil grin stretches across the pimply young face. “Yer gonna be so sorry you did that!” He pulls out a black marker. “I’m gonna write a whole buncha dirty words on your armor and there ain’t nuthin’ yer gonna do to stop me.”
Valiantly, our hero attempts to muster his final reserves of energy, but to no avail. Before succumbing to unconsciousness, he shudders as he sees that the marker uses “permanent ink!”
Pardon my silliness, but in lieu of my weekly reviews of Iron Man, I want this special post to focus on the perhaps the most troubling aspect of being an Iron Man fan as a kid Namely, the ongoing saga with his heart problems. I hated any reference to them because I saw them making my favorite hero instantly become the biggest wimp on the comic book racks. But clearly others saw it differently.
In Marvel Masterwork’s “The Invincible iron Man Volume 7,” writer Gerry Conway states that he believes that Tony Stark’s heart problems are an essential part of his character, stating the following:
“He’s a monster.
But when he almost dies and finds his life dependent on the very technology that made him rich (and supposedly independent), Tony experiences, literally, a change of heart. He ceases to see himself as someone apart from and above the rest of mankind. In a way, becoming ‘broken’
makes him whole.
That’s what I like about Tony Stark, and why I embraced the opportunity to write Iron Man when it was offered to me. It’s also why, first chance I got, I ‘broke’ his heart again, and made him dependent on the iron suit once more, after other writers repaired his injury with a heart transplant.
Tony Stark is a man who becomes most human when he connects with a machine. The acknowledgement that he - and by extension, the rest of us - is ultimately dependent for survival on something other than his own will and genius, is a wonderful counterpoint to the dehumanizing egotism of our every-man-for-himself modern age.”
While I appreciate Gerry Conway’s perception of Tony Stark, I could not disagree more with resurrecting the heart issues. One of my key frustrations with Iron Man over the years is what I see as either a failure to note or deliberate attempt to deny the potential this character offers. Tony Stark is one of the greatest inventors ever. While the armor was initially designed for his survival, the wonders offered by his genius were not limited to keeping said heart beating. The armor’s potential - from strength to weaponry - combined with Stark’s brilliance should have had Iron Man ranked among Marvel’s upper echelon of heroes, including a rogue’s gallery that actually threatened our world and truly put him through his paces. Instead, far too many stories up to this time had him severely limited due to some weakness in heart - along with any multitude of armor malfunctions, lack of power, etc. Focusing on his continual weaknesses gave us lesser, even goofy villains such as The Scarecrow, Midas and Mister Doll along with an issue where he’s at the mercy of The X-Men’s Angel.
To specifically address Conway’s point about the bad heart bringing out the best in Tony Stark, I could agree that he was a better man after damaging his heart then before. But the circumstances that led to his becoming Iron Man changed him in many other ways, forging a true hero who knew he now had a larger role to play in the world. A bum ticker only limited him from achieving that potential - at least as I see it.
I’m also going to offer that all those issues of a perpetually weak Iron Man not only limited said potential, but his sales potential as well. I suspect that was the reason for the artificial heart replacing his damaged one a few years prior - putting to bed something that had become a tired cliche for our hero.
The reason I bring this up is that in reviewing this series, it seems that we cannot go more than ten issues without some aspect of his bum ticker becoming a factor. Fortunately, that became less of an issue after the first one hundred issues - where Tony Stark encountered an even more debilitating challenge with alcohol. But as a fan at that time as revisiting those issues now, it seems such a tired and needless limitation on a character with such an amazing potential.
Those are my thoughts. What do you think?
And you're cordially invited to check out my weekly reviews! This week, we dive into Iron Man #42 - where Tony Stark's girlfriend is transformed into a Demon Queen by someone who looks like a glam rocker! Don't miss it!
