The History of Iron Man, Part 3: Red Hot, Red Armor

Now that Iron Man was starring regularly in his own magazine, Tales of Suspense, and his team magazine The Avengers, Stan Lee felt ready and comfortable to move the character forward in new ways. But as Iron Man's popularity increased, Lee noticed a distinction in the success of Tales of Suspense over other super hero magazines--Iron Man received more fan mail from women than any other superhero. The reason for this was unclear, but many Marvel editors had hunches. Perkaps it was because Tony Stark was portrayed as such a stud and so attractive to women in the comic that he was attractive to women in real life? Perhaps the women liked that the Iron Man comics all took place in upper-class situations, where famous stars, fancy cars, and nice houses were regularities, due mostly to the wealth of the main character. Stan Lee's own theory was that women loved Iron Man because he was a strong man with a weak heart, women felt nurturing and caring of him, because he was so vulnerable in this one aspect, which he kept secret from the general public.

Inside Iron Man's fictional universe, he continued to defeat villain after villain, mostly communists, month by month. But Stan felt he was repeating the same formula for his Iron Man stories. Iron Man would get attacked by a villain, barely survive, almost run out of juice for his heart, barely recharge in time, then come back and beat the villain using some new idea or invention. In Tales of Suspense #48, he tried to kill two birds with one stone: Provide a new and exciting villain and plot for Iron Man, and do away with the high frequency of his recharging. The answer was Mr. Doll, a villain who made voodoo dolls of his enemies that would cause them real pain. He defeated Iron Man once, and Tony barely escaped and charged his heart in time to survive. But he realized his armor was too clunky and too much of a strain on him. So he built a new suit, one that was more streamlined, more compact, but just as tough, and now sporting a hot rod red paint job as well as the original gold. Not only did the lighter suit make Iron Man more powerful and less bulky, providing less strain on his heart, but Mr. Doll did not have a doll for it, and Iron Man was able to defeat him. The design varied, but the red and gold design has recurred ever since.