Born in 1917 Howard Stark worked his way up from the poor son of working class parents,
to an inventor and industrialist earning fame and millions of dollars before the age of 25.
A brilliant young man growing up in the lower east side of New York City, he saw that people
in the lower classes had little opportunity for success through honest work, and so learned
to lie and manipulate, becoming a savvy businessman to make his fortune.
In 1939 he founded Stark Industries, a technology company primarily focused on weapons research
and production, supplying the American government throughout the second world war and beyond.
Howard Stark also developed a personal working relationship with the government, joining
the Manhattan project and the Strategic Scientific Reserve.
In 1943, Stark worked with Abraham Erskine on a Super Soldier Serum which turned Steve
Rogers into the superhero Captain America, who used a near indestructible shield made
out of a rare metal found in Africa known as Vibranium.
However they were not able to reproduce the results of the Super Soldier Serum as Abraham
Erskine was assassinated by an agent of Hydra.
After the war, the Strategic Scientific Reserve became an espionage agency called SHIELD,
with Howard Stark serving on the leadership council, and as a result his deep ties to
the government remained throughout his life, with Stark Industries becoming the nation’s
biggest supplier of weapons and advanced technology.
In 1946, Stark Industries hired Anton Vanko, a Russian scientist who eventually rose to
work directly with Howard Stark, helping him study the Tesseract, an ancient artefact of
immense power that had been in the possession of the Hydra leader Red Skull before he was
defeated.
However the project soon suffered a setback as Stark accused Anton Vanko of trying to
sell this new technology to the Soviet Union, resulting in his termination and deportation
back to Russia.
As a result Anton Vanko died in poverty, and his son Ivan developed an unyielding hatred
for the man who betrayed his father.
Although Howard Stark had envisioned the Arc Reactor to be a clean source of energy to
replace nuclear power, he was limited by the technology of his day, and so stored the work
away in the hopes that his son, who was being groomed to take over Stark Industries, might
one day complete the project.
To help Howard Stark run this ever growing corporate power, he had Obadiah Stane his
friend and second in command, who was with him since the beginning, contributing too
much of their earliest work.
Unfortunately Stark’s long years working for SHIELD and the government made him many
enemies, including the people of Hydra who sent a mind controlled agent called the Winter
Soldier to assassinate him and his wife in 1991.
Obadiah Stane then became Interim CEO of Stark Industries, taking over the business until
Tony Stark was old enough to take his father’s place.
Growing to enjoy to fame and adulation that came with being the leader of Stark Industries,
Stane resented returning to a lower position when Tony Stark, a brilliant scientist and
inventor in his own right came of age.
And so in in the late 2000s, Obidiah Stane hired the terrorist organization Ten Rings
to kill Stark while on a business trip to Afghanistan.
Although Tony was badly injured in the attack, Dr. Ho Yinsen, another of their captives,
built a small device combining an electromagnet with a car battery, and surgically implanted
it in Tony’s chest to stop the shrapnel from doing further damage near his heart.
For a time this saved him, but Tony quickly realized he needed a more longterm source
of power for the device and so created a mini version of the arc reactor developed by his
father and Anton Vanko.
In order to defeat their jailers, they then built a battle suit powered by the Arc Reactor,
however Dr. Yinsen had to sacrifice himself to give Tony Stark the time necessary to complete
his work so could escape.
Deeply moved by the man’s death, his first major announcement after returning to America,
was that Stark Industries would no longer manufacture weapons of war.
Given the enormous financial cost this would have to Stark Industries, Obidiah Stane used
it as evidence in his continued attempt to takeover the company, even developing his
own battle armor, based on the materials recovered from Afghanistan.
Eventually Stark, wearing what came to be known as the Iron Man suit fought and defeated
Stane in his Iron Monger suit, reclaiming his place as CEO of Stark Industries and moving
the company in a new direction away from weapons manufacturing and towards clean energy and
other advanced technologies.
He initiated this new phase by bringing back Stark Expo, a wildly popular exhibition for
the latest tech, made famous by his father.
Unfortunately this then became the scene of yet another superhero battle, when Ivan Vanko
also known as Whiplash hijacked Hammer Industry drones, though he was ultimately defeated
by Iron Man and his friend War Machine, both wearing suits developed by Stark Industries.
After these events, Tony realized his personal projects and duties as a superhero left him
little time for the company, and so named his trusted friend and personal assistant
Pepper Potts and the new CEO.
Under her leadership, Stark industries continued to thrive, with the newly built Stark Tower
in New York City, entirely powered by the Arc Reactor, serving as their headquarters
while hiring Tony’s former bodyguard Happy Hogan as their chief of security.
With Stark Industries continuing ties to the government, Iron Man and other superheroes
like the Avengers, they gained access to previously unknown technologies from other worlds, even
creating their own division responsible for cleaning up after large scale battles and
alien attacks.
As a result, civilian groups like the Toomes Salvage Company lost their contracts with
the city, putting many out of work.
Furious over the loss of their employment and the biggest contract they ever had, Adrian
toomes turned to a life of crime, selling weapons made from the alien technology they
had already salvaged while harbouring great resentment and hatred towards Stark Industries.
With the business doing well under its new leadership, Tony Stark continued to develop
JARVIS, an artificial intelligence system so sophisticated it was used to help create
a new system known as Ultron.
This new AI program was originally designed as a peace keeping force, though it quickly
turned on its creators and wreaked havoc against the Avengers.
Ultron was aided by Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, twins who held a deep hatred for Stark Industries
which manufactured the weapons that killed their family.
And so to seek revenge they volunteered for Hydra experiments which used the Mind Stone
from Loki’s sceptre to turn Wanda into Scarlett Witch, able to manipulate energy with her
mind while Pietro Maximoff became Quickilver, gaining super speed.
Yet in the end, when they learned Ultron was planning to wipe out most of humanity, they
turned against him and joined the Avengers.
Meanwhile Tony Stark and Bruce Banner decided to use JARVIS to help create yet another super
being named Vision, who was powered by the mind stone, and played pivotal role in defeating
Ultron in the battle of Sokovia.
With the introduction of alien technologies and access to unique items like the Tesseract
and Mind Stone, Stark Industries made massive technological improvements within a decade
of the Battle of New York, even beginning to work with Nano technology, to create a
new Iron man suit as well as an Iron Spider suit for Peter Parker during the war for the
infinity stones.