There is always more in the comic books than what appears in the movie adaptations. Most of the Avengers were presented as baby-faced heroes vowing to protect the people, the Earth, or the Universe which includes the beloved hero, Iron Man.
Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark aka Iron Man has gained global fandom but sadly, his tenure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ended with Avengers: Endgame. But in the comics, Iron Man has more space to explore, even his darkest side where he turns into a monster.
The Darkhold: Iron Man
If you have seen MCU’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, you would have some idea of Darkhold— the Book of the Damned. When dark god Cthon wanted to toy with the planet Earth, Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch had to demonically tame Earth’s five superheroes— Spider-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, Blade, and Black Bolt to do Cthon’s bidding.
The power of the dark consumed these mighty heroes and turned them into unfathomable variants. In this tale by Ryan North, Guillermo Sanna, and Ian Herring avid comic book readers had seen a different variant of Tony Stark in The Darkhold: Iron Man in 2021.
Here, Tony Stark was injured after being captured outside America but he managed to escape with his suit of armor. Upon returning to his home, he was more obsessed with becoming more of himself— a hero the world desperately needed. But with the influence of the Darkhold, his obsession has become something else.
The Horrifying Iron Man Suit
Stark wanted a supersolid improved version of his suit of armor. However, In his attempt, he found his skin melting and bonding to the armor. It was horrifying but he and Pepper Potts worked very hard to free Stark from the suit. They shared a kiss promising a solution very soon.
He failed. Soon the suit completely immersed into his body dissolving the metals as it became inseparable. Eventually, Tony resonated with the suit as he descended into darkness and decided to clone it.
Further, he abducts Happy and his butler Jarvis and puts them into the suits he cloned, it melts their skin but they survive and follow Stark’s new devastating journey while Potts sees all the madness through the security camera.
The dark tale of Iron Man won’t go with the current MCU scenario, one can be assured of that. Marvel President Kevin Feige has allowed the debut of the Darkhold in the MCU but there was very little explicit body horror or gore as compared to the Iron Man: Darkhold tale depicts. But maybe in the near future, the tale might appear in the What If…? series but there is no way Feige would let Robert Downey Jr to immerse his Iron Man suit into his body.
