The History of Iron Man, part 2: The Golden Avenger

Tales of Suspense #39 was a hit and so was Iron Man so, in the next issue of Tales, Stan Lee decided to bring him back.

Iron Man's second story featured him fighting a giant caveman called Gargantus, who in the end (spoiler alert) turned out to be a robot controlled by aliens. As silly as it sounds, this kind of story was likeable in the early 60s. Earlier in the issue, Iron Man had saved some people at the circus when the big cats got loose, but was saddened when he heard the people commenting on how fearsome and ugly he looked in his cold grey armor. And so, Tony Stark painted the suit gold.

Gold has been on almost every variation of the suit since 1963 when it first debuted.

Iron Man became the central character of the Tales of Suspense series indefinately and in the months following his shiny makeover he had many adventures fighting Communists, monsters, robots, aliens, and Warlords.

But the most significant event in Iron Man's run since his origin wasn't in his own magazine.

In September of 1963 Stan Lee again created a new super team: The Avengers! Instead of creating original characters for a team, however, he dicided to collect some of Marvel's more outstanding independents and get them together to fight the mad menace of Loki, Thor's foster brother and God of mischief and deception. Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, The Wasp, and Ant Man joined forces to defeat the fiend, and, accomplishing victory, realized the potential of a super team. And so, with Iron Man shining brightly in his golden armor among their ranks, Earth's mightiest heroes--The Avengers--were born.