Born to Howard Anthony Stark and Maria Collins Carbonell Stark.I was a gifted child. By the way, I can be rather bold. At the age of 15 I entered the undergraduate electrical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where I graduated at the top of my class.At the age of 21 I inherited Stark Enterprises when my parents were killed in a car accident.During an East Asian conflict, Stark Enterprises developed mini-transistors that I thought would help the war effort. While checking on my plant, which had been plagued by sabotage, I was injured by exploding shrapnel and captured by warlord Wong Chu. Chu forced me and another captive, famed physicist Ho Yinsen, to create weapons for him. All the time the shrapnel was slowly working on my heart, killing me. Yinsen and I created an iron suit that would keep me alive and allow us to escape. During the escape Yinsen was killed, sacrificing himself to allow me time to change for the first time to Iron Man. With the suit I made short work of Chu and his men.
On my way home I met Helicopter pilot James Rhodes-a.k.a. War Machine - and returned to America. After I arrived, I worked to improve the Iron Man armor and made Iron Man my personal bodyguard to disguise my identity. In the early years I became the corporate sponsor of the superhero group the Avengers and as Iron Man help found the group with Thor, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and the Hulk.
