The Marvel Universe is a strange place… and that even extends to more grounded heroes like Iron Man. The ways that Marvel’s history can intertwine and twist real-life figures can be rather bizarre. Sometimes, this means that Iron Man ends up wearing armor inspired by one of his father’s greatest enemies while working for SHIELD.
In April of 2010, Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver released SHIELD #1, a miniseries detailing the secret history of the superspy organization spanning back centuries. The series would connect SHIELD to real-world geniuses like Leonardo Di Vinci and Isaac Newton with bizarre sci-fi implications. In the first issue, Agents Nathaniel Richards (father of Mister Fantastic) and Howard Stark (father of Iron Man) do battle in 1955 New York with a cybernetic supervillain capable of moving across time. Very quickly, it becomes apparent that this creature is actually famous inventor Nikola Tesla. While Tesla does form a temporary truce with Richards and Stark underneath Rome in 1960, it’s very clear that Tesla sees both agents as his bitter enemies.
In that same month, Marvel was releasing “Iron Man by Design” variant covers to promote the release of Iron Man 2 later that summer which put the Armored Avenger in various armors inspired by the multiverse. One such cover was done by the then-new artist Mike Del Mundo for Daredevil # 506 which displayed Iron Man in a Tesla-inspired steampunk design. It’s unlikely as Del Mundo was creating the cover that he was aware of what Hickman and Weaver were planning for Nikola Tesla and Howard Stark in the pages of SHIELD.
Nonetheless, the idea that Tony Stark would embrace the design style of a man who saw his own father as a sworn adversary is fascinating. Tony’s relationship to his late father has always been rather complicated. Howard was a very tough and cold type of old-style patriarch who clashed hard with Tony’s more relaxed and freewheeling personality. This is probably most clear in International Iron Man #5 which shows a young Tony accusing his father of not loving him and making his life miserable at Howard’s own funeral. As such, it’s not entirely implausible that a variant of Iron Man would take influence from one of Howard’s prominent enemies as an intentional dig.
The intricacies of the Marvel Universe’s secret history can make for some funny coincidences. Hickman’s use of real-world figures like Nikola Tesla ended up turning a casual historical nod from a cover artist into a bizarre Oedipal statement. Nevertheless, the connection between Tesla and Iron Man makes for an interesting wrinkle to Del Mundo’s fantastic steampunk design.
Source: Marvel
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