If Tony Stark is dead, who will be Iron Man?
- I'm Lorraine. - I'm Langston.
I'm Ryan.
And we are taking your Marvel questions
with the hashtag MarvelQuestions because it's a new year,
and we got answers for you.
Yeah, it's really cool.
So we got this one question in from Jessica on Facebook.
She asks, if Tony Stark is dead, who is Iron Man?
Hashtag, MarvelQuestions.
Well, don't worry.
We'll explain.
That was very exciting.
Yes, that was quite terrifying Tony Stark is dead.
We all know this.
In the comics, he died during Civil War II.
But now he is back, so now you're
wondering how did this comic book character come back.
- I am. - They're always coming back.
Yeah.
You asked the same thing.
Well, this current Tony Stark is a combination
of an AI version of his brain scan and a 3D-printed body.
He's been melded together to create the current,
in Marvel universe, Tony Stark.
But this is not really a person, right?
It's kind of like a-- - Well--
Reprinted comic.
We don't know, but we're going to get into that.
This has not been made any easier by the fact
that during this senate committee hearing--
Tony loves those-- he is questioned
about his involvement with an incident
involving a corrupted AI.
And Tony Stark says, hey, I might be an AI.
I don't really know, which all of his friends
are kind of like, oh, no.
You done did it again, Tony.
Oh, who else but Tony?
But this leads to the question.
If Tony Stark is really an AI, is he even Tony Stark?
And what's more, can he be trusted to be Iron Man?
Now that you have opened that can of worms, who is Iron Man?
Spoiler alert-- not Tony Stark, not anymore.
What?
That's right, because it's going to be his secret brother.
What?
Put the lid back on that can of worms, Lorraine.
I can't.
The lid is off, and we're here now.
So Tony found out that he had a secret, tucked-away brother,
Arno Stark.
He is the biological son of Tony's
parents, Howard and Maria Stark, whereas Tony was adopted.
But he was hidden away in secret,
and he was very sick as a child, so he
was raised in an iron lung.
So this kid is not super socialized,
not great with people, I feel has
some sociopathic tendencies, which can be great in that he
is very methodical.
He's very intelligent.
He's definitely a Stark.
Also, does not-nice things sometimes
as long as they meet his ends to the point
where when he was working with the sentient robot Jocasta
to upgrade her, Ultron busts in-- a big, bad, evil robot--
and is like, hey, I'm going to steal this woman.
[LAUGHTER]
And he's like, well, you're going
to keep doing the work on her that I've been
doing upgrading her systems.
He's like, yeah, no problem.
He's like, cool, man.
Aces. Aces.
Have a great day.
That's so Ultron.
LORRAINE: Oh, and since Tony may not be a person anymore,
Arno took control of Stark Industries.
And that means he's got all the Iron Man suits.
So what does this all mean?
It means ultimately, we are going
to have the most tough, potentially
scary Iron Man that we've seen.
I'd like to say that Arno will really
do whatever it takes, whether it's in good taste or not.
Fair.
OK.
So Jessica asked this question.
We have a sense of who Iron Man is going to be,
what's going on with Tony Stark.
Well, we have a new book coming out called "Iron Man 2020."
It seems very appropriate, being the year 2020.
That's this year.
Yeah!
And it's written by Dan Slott and Christos Gage
with art by powerful Pete Woods.
So good.
I can't wait for this.
Now, this series picks up with Arno Stark as Iron Man.
And as you mentioned, he's going to do whatever it takes.
He's going to take the name.
He's going to take all the gear, all the tech,
all his brilliance, all his weirdness,
but he's going to go forward and tackle any disaster,
any problem in the way that he thinks is the best.
But not necessarily the most moral.
No.
We're going to see how that pans out.
So while that's going on, we also have to follow Tony Stark,
because he's Tony Stark.
We've got to know what's going on with him.
So he's going through his own existential crisis,
trying to figure out, is he AI?
Is he a human? is he alive?
Is he dead?
Is he something completely different?
And that's going to be a whole story for him.
There you have it.
And if you want to get even more insight into everything
that we've been talking about and more,
check out the "Iron Manual 2020--" what a good name--
which is free at participating comic shops the same day.
And actually, Lorraine and I are
going to be doing a bigger deep dive into "Iron Man 2020--"
all the characters, all the stories.
We're going to do that on "This Week in Marvel" podcast.
You can check that out as well.
Yeah.
And do you have burning Marvel questions?
If you do, ask them, and use the hashtag EarthsMightiestShow,
hashtag MarvelQuestions, baby.
We'll see you next time.
- I'm Lorraine. - I'm Ryan.
And I'm Langston.
And this is Marvel.
Your universe.
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And fun fact-- "Iron Man 2020," the whole universe-- it's
been about 40 years since we first did this.
Ah.
Ooh.