While "wunderkind" weapons manufacturer Tony Stark was in Vietnam he stepped on a Communist-planted land mine. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel ripping through his body. He was then captured by fiendish commies, led by warlord Wong Chu, and forced to use his inventive genius to build them a super weapon. Sick and weak, with the shrapnel working its way toward his heart, he constructed a chest plate to keep his damaged heart working. Then, while pretending to build his captors a mighty weapon, he expanded the chest plate, devising a super powered armor suit for himself-- which enabled him to fly and fire repulsor rays. After defeating his communist captors he returned to America to fight crime and the global expansion of Communism as Iron Man, the Crimson and Gold Avenger, lovingly referred to as Shellhead.
