As Mister Doll, Nathan Dolly uses a voodoo doll to torture and blackmail businessmen into signing over their fortunes to him. When his third victim, a steel tycoon named Charleton Carter, is forced to cut all ties to Stark Industries, Iron Man decides to investigate.

A boy genius, Stark entered MIT at the age of 15 and graduated just two years later with a Master's degree in chemical engineering.

With his physical body on the verge of death, Stark puts his mind/consciousness into a mainframe, turning himself into an AI system akin to J.A.R.V.I.S. As an AI, Stark can walk around as a hard-light object and gains the ability to remote control his vast armory of Iron Man suits.

After his parents were killed in a car accident, he inherited his father's company, Stark Industries.

A former boxer with a history of losing fights, Happy Hogan is hired by Tony Stark as his chauffeur and personal assistant after Happy saves Tony's life in Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963).

Despite not having any superpowers, Kathy Dare is probably the most frightening woman Tony has ever dated. She began to grow jealous of the other women in Tony's life and shot him when he broke up with her in Iron Man #242. Although the bullet left him paralyzed for a time, Tony eventually recovered. But Kathy killed herself, believing him to be dead.

When he discovers that the United States military is using his technology, and its defective nature nearly causes a disaster which Iron Man barely manages to avert, Stark accepts a Presidential appointment as Secretary of Defense.

Rumiko started dating Tony largely as an act of rebellion against her parents who disapproved of him. As repentance for sleeping with one of his business rivals, Rumiko later arranged for Tony to acquire sufficient stock in his old company for him to reclaim it.

In Tales of Suspense #74 (February 1966), a desperately ill Happy is mutated into a giant, savage, nearly mindless, superhumanly strong humanoid known as the Freak when doctors try to cure him using a cobalt ray machine powered by Stark's experimental "Enervator" device.

The character was co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby.