When did Tony Stark stop being a weapons inventor?

[Cypher]

I'm curious to read Iron Man, especially some early stories, but I wont be too interested if its just another "Guy makes weapons/works for the government" type deal. And also is alcoholism still a big part of the character?

[Mikekerr3]

I'm curious to read Iron Man, especially some early stories, but I wont be too interested if its just another "Guy makes weapons/works for the government" type deal. And also is alcoholism still a big part of the character?

He has started and Stooped selng weapons mltipkle times, as of the CW he was still selling them aftr stopping multiple times. Since then I have noideea.

he periodicly quits then they return him to the original status quo.

And Stark is still an Alcoholic, and handling it better than most people do. There are no ex-alcoholics People will scream like hell if he is cured from an incurable disease that lightly

[Vic Vega]

I'm curious to read Iron Man, especially some early stories, but I wont be too interested if its just another "Guy makes weapons/works for the government" type deal. And also is alcoholism still a big part of the character?

Stark started out as a industralist/weapons inventor and that is what he was up until the Vietnam era when he swore off weapons making for the Military.

Stark made an exception for SHIELD and contiuned to suppy them with tech also. He eventually even stopped doing that.

Because the Vietnam references date the character, most current retellings have Stark now either swearing off arms manuafacturing immediately after his origin story or shortly after it.

It doesn't help any that Marvel tends to portray this as if Stark had just quit arms manuafacturing yesterday.

[MattinDurham]

In my opinion, Stark is one of the more inconsistently portrayed characters in the Marvel U. Sometimes, he's portrayed sympathetically as embattled futurist (Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man, for example), sometimes he's portrayed unsympathetically as a callous technocrat.

[MichaelC]

He stopped in the early seventies, and that was the end of it for decades. Then Warren Ellis brought it up again and still wrote it as in the past, but pretended that past was, like, a year or two ago, recent enough that it still defined his public reputation.

[Dayle88]

I wouldn't say that any story falls under "just another guy who works with the government" though. You should be all good. War Games Epic Collection is a nice place to dig in, a period that bridges older style and modern style too.

[Cypher]

Thank you for the responses, gentlemen.

[runguy]

Stark started out as a industralist/weapons inventor and that is what he was up until the Vietnam era when he swore off weapons making for the Military.

Stark made an exception for SHIELD and contiuned to suppy them with tech also. He eventually even stopped doing that.

Because the Vietnam references date the character, most current retellings have Stark now either swearing off arms manuafacturing immediately after his origin story or shortly after it.

It doesn't help any that Marvel tends to portray this as if Stark had just quit arms manuafacturing yesterday.

Actually that has been updated with the Warren Ellis 2000's IM run to the Afghanistan 1990's War IIRC

[pageturner]

He never really has stopped has he? he is always inventing new tech and weapons for him or Avengers.

He stopped being a weapons dealer ages ago. At least 10 years in the MU time line

[megaharrison]

When Marvel got the idea making weapons was wrong for some reason. So all the superheroes run around, firing weapons and blowing shit up all day. But heaven forbid you sell it to them.

Anyway Stark will probably start selling weapons again in this "Superior Iron-Man" phase.

[Mikekerr3]

He never really has stopped has he? he is always inventing new tech and weapons for him or Avengers.

He stopped being a weapons dealer ages ago. At least 10 years in the MU time line

Were the CW, selling Weapons to SHIElD and selling Sentinels to ONE that long ago? He was an Arms dealer while he was running SHIELD

[Vic Vega]

Were the CW, selling Weapons to SHIElD and selling Sentinels to ONE that long ago? He was an Arms dealer while he was running SHIELD

Not entirely by choice.

There was a storyline prior to Civil War that had the government usurp the patents on most Iron Man tech because those patents were given under false pretenses.

"Iron Man" was Stark all along and not a test pilot or whatever lie he told the Government back then.

Long story short: Government contracters started trying to build Starktech but were blowing themselves up because they didn't know what they were doing.

Since the government will not stop building weapons based on his tech and Tony can't just Armor War hapless factory workers, Tony then becomes Secertary of Defense in order to be in a postion where he can oversee the constuction of all weapons built from his tech (because only an uber genius like himself has any hope of getting his stuff to work reliably).

Civil War happened not that long after Stark had gotten himself fired as Secretary of Defense, so he'd been in charge of Government weapons manufacturing for a while prior to joining SHIELD.

It was strongly implied that being the U.S. Secretary of Defense thing was why he got picked to be Fury's sucessor in the first place.

This was all just quietly dropped because it just got too convoluted after awhile.

Stark went from being an Industrialist to being Secretary of Defense to being Director of SHIELD and then BACK to being an industrialist again in what probably wasn't even 1 year in Marvel time.

[Mikekerr3]

Not entirely by choice.

There was a storyline prior to Civil War that had the government usurp the patents on most Iron Man tech because those patents were given under false pretenses.

"Iron Man" was Stark all along and not a test pilot or whatever lie he told the Government back then.

Long story short: Government contracters started trying to build Starktech but were blowing themselves up because they didn't know what they were doing.

Since the government will not stop building weapons based on his tech and Tony can't just Armor War hapless factory workers, Tony then becomes Secertary of Defense in order to be in a postion where he can oversee the constuction of all weapons built from his tech (because only an uber genius like himself has any hope of getting his stuff to work reliably).

Civil War happened not that long after Stark had gotten himself fired as Secretary of Defense, so he'd been in charge of Government weapons manufacturing for a while prior to joining SHIELD.

It was strongly implied that being the U.S. Secretary of Defense thing was why he got picked to be Fury's sucessor in the first place.

This was all just quietly dropped because it just got too convoluted after awhile.

Stark went from being an Industrialist to being Secretary of Defense to being Director of SHIELD and then BACK to being an industrialist again in what probably wasn't even 1 year in Marvel time.

It was solely by choice, He decided that selling Sentinels to ONE and arming cape killers were good ideas. Somebody else will do it if I don't is a feeble excuse for a six year old much less an adult He managed to make both legal and illegal profits of the latter

[The Thunderbolts]

This whole debate makes me excited about superior iron man, stark back to his old habits and whatnot