Marvel Comics has killed Iron Man several times, although he has always found a way to come back to life before much time has passed. Of course, as any comic book fan knows, death is only temporary. Iron Man is one of the longest-running characters in Marvel Comics, one of the original superheroes created when the company began, and one of the original Avengers. In the case of Iron Man, his death has been explained away in various ways. Tony Stark has faked his death. He has also uploaded his consciousness into an AI that was eventually returned to a cloned body more than once. He has also really died and been resurrected more than once.
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From faking his own death to returning to life in a new body, here are seven times that Marvel killed Iron Man in the comics.
7) Iron Man Fakes Death After Being Shot
The first time that Marvel Comics killed Iron Man was after the Armor Wars storyline. Tony Stark had already faked Iron Man’s death during that storyline, but he soon returned as Iron Man, claiming that he had hired someone new to take on the role. However, once this was done, a former lover of Stark named Kathy Dare shot him in Iron Man #242, causing him to be paralyzed.
No longer able to walk, Stark could still operate as Iron Man using the armor to do what his legs couldn’t do anymore. However, he tired of this and faked his own death two years later and had his body cryogenically frozen in Iron Man #284. This “death” led to James Rhodes taking on the War Machine armor, and Kathy Dare dying by suicide due to her guilt.
6) Terraxia Ripped off Iron Man’s Head in The Infinity Gauntlet
In the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, Thanos snapped half of existence to death to impress Death herself. This means he killed countless people, including several members of the Avengers. However, Iron Man died before Thanos snapped, and his death wasn’t technically at the hands of Thanos either. Instead, one of Thanos’s allies killed Iron Man in a battle leading up to the snap.
This was Terraxia, a being that Thanos created with the Infinity Stones to make Death jealous. Terraxia then made Thanos very proud when she decapitated Iron Man, killing him on the spot. Luckily for Tony Stark, he was resurrected after the Infinity Gauntlet events were undone in the comics.
5) Iron Man Dies at the End of The Crossing
One of the most infamous and despised Marvel Comics storylines in Avengers history was the Crossing event series. This series is polarizing because it claims that Iron Man had been a villain all along and was working as a double agent inside the Avengers for Kang. When the story started, Iron Man murdered a few allies and then betrayed the entire team when Kang was ready to attack.
The Avengers traveled back in time to find a young Tony Stark variant to come and help battle his older self. This worked, as the younger version convinced Iron Man to betray Kang, and he sacrificed himself for his team, dying in the process. The young Iron Man then stayed in the timeline, and fans rejected him almost immediately. Even when the Iron Man betrayal was retconned, making him a non-willing traitor, his reputation never recovered because when Marvel killed Iron Man here, they said his entire history was a lie.
4) Onslaught Kills Iron Man
The Onslaught event was done for one big reason. Marvel wanted to reboot the entire comic line, and this was a way to do so. Onslaught was a being created from the minds of Professor X and Magneto when Charles shut down his old friend’s mind, and their combined anger and trauma gave rise to a separate being. No one could beat Onslaught, even with all the Earth’s heroes combined.
This led to Onslaught killing the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, including Iron Man. After their deaths, the Avengers and Fantastic Four comics were rebooted, with new storylines and creative teams, featuring Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. Iron Man didn’t really die, nor did his teammates, but they were instead transported to another Earth Franklin Richards created to keep them safe and away from Onslaught.
3) Iron Man Died During World’s Most Wanted
After the Civil War storyline, Iron Man became the head of SHIELD and was dead set on bringing all the heroes who fought with Captain America to justice, or at least making them sign government agreements. However, after Secret Invasion ended and Norman Osborn gained power, Iron Man realized the government had no allegiance to anyone, and he became the World’s Most Wanted fugitive.
This all ended with Iron Man going on the run, with all the heroes’ secret identities programmed into his mind after he deleted them from SHIELD’s databases to keep them from Osborn. However, tinkering with his mind came with a cost. As he began deleting the information from his mind, he slipped into a coma and ended up brain-dead. Lucky for Stark, he had a backup created earlier that he could download into a new body.
2) Captain Marvel Killed Iron Man in Civil War II
One of the worst event storylines saw Marvel kill Iron Man again. This was in Civil War II. It was ironic because Captain America died after the first Civil War event, and this time, it was Iron Man who died. While Captain America’s death occurred after his surrender and arrest, Iron Man died while fighting Captain Marvel to protect Miles Morales.
At first, it seemed like he was brain-dead and in a coma again. However, this pretty much led to his death, and Iron Man was gone again. After this death, Marvel introduced Riri Williams, and she took over the mantle as Ironheart, while using an AI copy of Tony Stark’s consciousness to help lead her training. Iron Man eventually returned when this AI was uploaded into a new clone body.
1) Iron Man Died in Iron Man 2020
After Iron Man returned in his cloned body, a new series, Iron Man 2020, was launched. This series brought back Arno Stark, who was introduced in 1984 from Earth-8410. Here, he showed up on Earth-616, and he turned out to be Tony Stark’s half-brother. Arno decided Earth was in danger from an AI extinction event and decided to save the world by enslaving it.
Tony decided to stop his brother by enslaving him in an AI world similar to The Matrix, where Arno believed he had saved the world and could live on in the virtual world, no longer in the real one. However, to do this, Tolny had to give up his own physical body to pull it off, dying again, but with his consciousness living on in the AI world. Tony worked to get another artificial body made and returned to it. He then realized the ramifications and created a new body for James Rhodes, resurrecting him as well. No matter how many times Marvel kills Iron Man, he can always return in a clone body as long as his mind remains intact.
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