Iron Man: Everything You Need To Know, Part 1.

No doubt about it, it's one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year. Iron Man is Marvel Entertainment's latest blockbuster offering. The movie has enjoyed a stupendous amount of buzz, and fans only hope that Iron Man lives up to the hype.

I've seen the Iron Man earlier today. And it was awesome. Oh, and don't forget to stick around until after the end credits- a lot of people left the theater without seeing the kick-ass Samuel L. Jackson epilogue.

In any case, just like any good motion picture, it had spurred a lot of post-movie discussions. So I've been asked several questions about it- usually along the lines of: "Was that how it really happened in the comics?"

I must confess, I am no comic book geek, but I do know enough about Iron Man (I am a RPG geek though, and we did play a lot of Marvel Superheroes back in high school and college). So for everyone who needs a little brushing up on Marvel's Golden Avenger, here we go:

Iron Man the Marvel Comic

The idea of Iron Man first came about in 1963, and it was the brainchild of Stan Lee, together with Jack Kirby, along with writers Larry Leiber and Don Heck. It was Stan Lee who fleshed out the Tony Stark character, apparently drawing inspiration from Howard Hughes- a real-life multi-billionaire, inventor, adventurer and ladies' man.

Iron Man didn't have his own comic at first; his first appearance was on Tales of Suspense #39- a sci-fi and supernatural anthology title.

Interestingly enough, he started out with the clunky dull grey armor. By the next issue, his armor was now golden, and then another redesign happened by issue #48- this time with the more familiar red-and-gold body armor.

He finally had his own comic in May 1968 with The Invincible Iron Man #1.

Origins of Iron Man

Unlike many of the superheroes at the time, Tony Stark wasn't bombarded with radiation. Instead, he's a natural when it comes to machines, supposedly a boy genius of sorts. Plus he's independently wealthy, having inherited his father's multi-billion dollar company, upon his parents' untimely and accidental death (they died in a car crash).

The circumstances regarding the creation of Iron Man has been generally the same: Stark, as head of Stark Industries, goes off to check out the American war effort (in Vietnam in the original 1963 story, and then in Afghanistan in the 90's, and finally in the Middle East in the 2008 movie). He gets injured in an explosion, and the enemy captures him, ordering him to design weapons for them.

His injuries are pretty bad though, with shrapnel bits threatening to tear up his heart. A fellow prisoner (Yin Sen) constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from moving, thereby saving Stark's life. They then design a suit of powered armor in an effort to escape their captors. Stark uses the armor to escape, but Yin Sen dies in the attempt. So Stark uses the Mark I armor to blow up the enemy encampment, and flies off to rejoin the US forces, where he meets pilot James "Rhodey" Rhodes along the way.

The Iron Man Armor

Tony Stark has a workshop full of power suits, variants of the original Iron Man Armor as he constantly upgrades them, or creates one to fulfill a particular mission.

By default though, the Iron Man Armor gives Tony Stark protection against physical attack (i.e. most small arms fire) and energy attacks (via a force field), enhanced strength, the power of flight, life support, and an array of sensors and high-tech weaponry.

His main weapons are his repulsor rays (coming from his gloves), and the chestplate-mounted unibeam (which was originally just a spotlight, but in time has become a light-based weapon).

If you want more information on all the Iron Man armors, you can read up on Wikipedia here.

We continue our discussions on our favorite armored superhero with "Everything You Need To Know About Iron Man, Part 2", which you can read all about right here.

Cheers, everyone!