What’s up with Ironman?

Ironman, just like Batman, has always been one of my favorite comic characters. But when I compare them, I can’t help but still prefer Batman… And by far.

But when you really look into it, their stories are quite similar. They’re both rich industrialists/playboys who lost their parents when they were kids. Then they somehow decide to do the good around them, and use their wealth to design and build top-notch technological tools that will help them do so. Their stories start off so similarly I’ve always thought Ironman was Marvel’s answer to Batman… And as Stan Lee mentioned it before, he always wanted Ironman to shine and be able to stand next to the ones of the likes of Spiderman, but Tony Stark never quite made it there.

So I’m wondering… What made them SO different in the eyes of comic books readers when they’re actually so alike? In a “rich orphan” kind of way…

First, I thought Ironman’s popularity could have been much higher if Tony Stark actually was the only one who could wear his armor… Maybe they should have designed the magnetic breastplate, which was keeping the shrapnel bits from entering his heart, in a way that could have allowed it. Like someone without this “feature” would not be able to power up the suit or something like that. But later on, Marvel heals Tony Stark via heart implant which makes the breastplate useless… Bad call, I’d say…

Why? Because that would have made him unique… He would have been the one and only Ironman. Take Wolverine as an example: the original idea was Logan was a beefy kinda guy wearing gloves equipped with retractable claws, and that was it. This character never really took off before they actually made the claws parts of Logan’s own skeleton! Then a whole new story appeared and it got people sucked in…

But again… Batman is not the only one who can wear his crime fighting tights… Alfred could appear as Batman too for as far as I know, so it’s not uniqueness that gives him the edge over Ironman… So it could be anything from his badass costume to his detective skills. Maybe it’s just that more talented/creative writers and artists worked on Batman? Maybe readers prefer the noirish atmosphere in those stories? Or maybe the marketing team over at DC comics was better? Personally, I’ve always laughed at Ironman’s aliases (The Golden Avenger, Shellhead) and I’d rather be called The Dark Knight or The Caped Crusader, so yeah, maybe it was really marketing that did the trick.