As Tony Stark leads a robot revolution against his brother Arno Stark, it’s important to understand why Tony is the ideal candidate for such a task. After all, over the past few decades, Iron Man has gone from a man in a suit to something more akin to RoboCop, as the cutting edge between man and technology gets blurred… and the moral lines between them harder to draw.

Iron Man first appeared with his bulky Mark I armor in Tales of Suspense #39 in 1963. Even in his first appearance, Tony Stark was mixing the technological with the biological by way of an iron chest plate to protect Stark’s heart from embedding shrapnel. Though it initially functioned as a pacemaker, this concept was eventually abandoned over a decade later, as Tony’s armor become more advanced. The famous Arc Reactor, at the heart (no pun intended) of Tony’s appearance in the MCU, was clearly an updated version of the pacemaker Tony receives in his first appearance (but it wouldn’t appear in the comics until 2008).

Tony Stark would certainly take a huge step towards becoming fully cybernetic with the controversial Extremis storyline in 2005 by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov. After nearly dying while battling a nanotech-powered enemy, Tony injects himself with nanomachines which literally manufacturer the armor from within his own body, allowing Stark to not only access his armor from anywhere, but also giving him new abilities like a healing factor and enhanced physical attributes. With the armor fused directly into his body, Tony stores the necessary material within the hollow of his bones while also integrating nanotubes directly into Stark’s mind. Like many of Ellis’ stories, the Extremis was based on cutting-edge nanotech research. However, the change was divisive among fans, with some not quite being comfortable with Tony’s armor emerging as his second skin. The Extremis armor was effectively shredded during the events of Secret Invasion after the Skrulls directly targeting Tony’s next-gen capabilities, forcing him to use older armor suits instead.

Despite the loss of Extremis, Tony would retain his cybernetics with his Bleeding Edge suit, which debuted in Invincible Iron Man #25 by Matt Fraction and Ryan Meinerding. Introduced as the next stage of armor development post-Extremis, the armor was still accessed from within Stark’s body upon his mental trigger. Despite the nanotech origins, however, the Bleeding Edge armor was far sleeker and more in keeping with the fighter jet feel of traditional Iron Man armor. The advancements were all powered by an arc reactor, similar to the one used by Iron Man in the MCU. However, this variant was ultimately removed from Stark’s body after he decided to (briefly) retire from Iron Man altogether.

While Iron Man has largely shifted away from nanotech of both the Extremis and Bleeding Edge armor, the majority of Tony Stark’s subsequent armors remain somewhat connected to his cybernetics since Stark himself remains posthuman. To complicate matters, his resurrection post-Civil War II begs the question - just how much of the original Tony is left? This comes full circle in the current Iron Man title, as Tony and a small group of A.I. allies lead a robot revolution. Tony himself can identify with these androids if only because he is, at least partially, one himself. More to the point, the two consistently upgraded parts of Tony Stark’s physiology are his heart and his brain, proving that Stark is literally technological at his core. And if that doesn’t force Iron Man to ask all the same questions as Alex Murphy – or the artificial intelligence with Murphy’s memories – we don’t know what could.

Iron Man 2020 #2 is available now.

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