Max Steel

### Birth and Adoption

The biological parents of Tom Stark were two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Amanda Marie Armstrong and Ja'em Mk'rah (Otherwise known as James Maxwell McGrath), who met during a courier mission. After Jim saved Amanda from an assassin, they got to know each other and fell in love.

Following a a two-year relationship, Amanda became pregnant. A week before giving birth to the baby, during the test of the Turbo Star, things went horribly wrong: Jim was nearly killed and later sent to the vacuum of space while Steel was temporarily shut down. It was later revealed that Jim was found by OblivAeon and his armada, and was the main source of energy to OblivAeon's Alphalink. Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. was mislead that Jim was dead, even though Jim's legacy was kept alive at S.H.I.E.L.D., through things such as Steel in his Ultralink Sphere, and some holograms in his homage.

Traumatized by this development, Amanda asked S.H.I.E.L.D. to ensure her future baby would find a safe and happy home. However, director Nick Fury followed the same procedure used for unwanted pregnancies in the agency, and the baby was left in an orphanage in Sofia, Bulgaria after Amanda birthed him in a local hospital. Fury's associate and famous industrialist Howard Stark learned of this, and decided to find the baby and adopt him, keeping the name Amanda wished he retained: Thomas.

In addition to Howard and his wife Maria suffering the latter's inability to give birth again, they needed to find a healthy boy to act as a decoy in place of their secret first born, Arno Stark. Arno's gestation had been extremely difficult, and his birth was only made possible with the help of an alien robot, the Rigellian Recorder, who had agreed to help the baby survive in exchange of the opportunity to bio-engineer him, so he could accelerate humanity's technological growth in the future.

However, as 451 genetically modified the baby in womb, Howard had discovered the robot hid some sort of kill switch, that would compromise the life of his son in the future, for which Stark developed a "biococktail" to interfere with it behind 451's back. Once Arno was born, 451 left the Earth. In a turn of events, Howard's interference with 451's machinations had caused the newborn to become fatally ill. The Starks had decided to keep the baby hidden in the Maria Stark Foundation Hospice. In addition to filling the void left by Arno's fatal illness, Tom's adoption would prevent 451 from learning of Howard's meddling if it ever returned to the Earth.

### Early Life and Education

Tom grew up completely unaware of Arno's existence or that he was adopted. While loved unconditionally by Maria, Tom suffered from a strained relationship with his father, both due to the contrast of Tom's sensitive and reclusive nature with Howard's glorification of physical prowess and Howard's ever-increasing drinking habits, which caused him to verbally abuse Tom and suffer from mood swings. This last factor caused Tom to turn to electronics as a coping mechanism at barely five years old, as he started to believe hardware to be comprehensible and reliable, whereas people were unpredictable and hard to understand. Tom's world couldn't find order, but the things he built did.

In order to toughen his son, Howard sent Tom to boarding school at the age of seven, much to Maria's dismay. The following years, Tom learned of discipline of body and strength of character as Howard intended, while spending his free time reading alone. At the age of thirteen, the stories of Thomas Malory opened Tom the doors to a new world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself, of chivalry, honor, and armored heroes.

After boarding school, Tom joined an undergraduate program at MIT at the age of fifteen. He would effortlessly graduate as class valedictorian with double majors in physics and engineering. When he was seventeen, Tom met Meredith McCall, his first love and, unfortunately, the daughter of Howard's greatest business rival. Their relationship didn't develop beyond being a summer love, due to the combined interference of Meredith's father and Howard. Meredith was sent to live with relatives, and Tom was scheduled to go to Europe for education, with neither being told where the other was.

The break-up was numbed by Tom's school routine at Cambridge University in England, where he met another girl named Cassandra Gillespie. Worse luck, Cassandra was also the daughter of a rival weapons manufacturer of Howard. Their relationship and Tom's attendance to Cambridge were both cut short by Howard, who believed the recently-established relationship to be nothing but a way for the Gillespies to get information on Howard through Tom. Tom doubted Howard and even tried to run away with Cassandra, but she eventually admitted that while she had fallen in love with Tom, their relationship did start as a ploy of her mother.

Around this time, Tom met Dr. Ted Slaght during a symposium. The physicist became a mentor to Stark, and taught him values beyond the importance of science, like the significance of guiding the search for knowledge with an ethical compass, and carrying an open mind.

Tom's mental dexterity caused him to drift into his 20's as shiftless thrill-seeker in the search for the challenges mundane life lacked. However, he would also lose interest of the dangerous hobbies he mastered, like skiing, parachuting and hang-gliding.

### Death of Howard and Maria Stark

When he was twenty-one, Tom's parents died in a car crash and he inherited his father's business, Stark Industries. Within a few years, he turned it from solely a munitions firm to a multi-national corporation with a range of interests covering virtually all types of contemporary scientific industry, and the leader at the cutting edge of electronics. Tom also bought the company that built the car his parents were driving when they lost their lives and fixed the flaws in their brake system.

Tom's new life as a CEO provided him with new challenges. But as the company grew bigger, his job became less exciting, and Tom fell into self-indulgence once again.

### Inventing the Iron Man Armor

While overseeing a military demonstration of his technology in an active war zone, Tom tripped a booby trap that killed his escort and lodged shrapnel in his chest. The gravely injured Stark was taken captive by the terrorist leader Wong-Chu, and was informed that within a week the shrapnel would penetrate his heart and kill him. Wong-Chu falsely promised Stark that if he built a powerful weapon, he would be allowed to undergo an operation to save his life. Even though Stark realized the tyrant was lying, he agreed, hoping to gain time and access to tools.

Stark was given access to a small laboratory with another captive, the renowned Asian physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Professor Ho Yinsen, whose work Stark admired in college. With Yinsen acting as his assistant, Stark designed and built an electrically powered suit of armor with a pacemaker-like device that enabled Stark's heart to keep beating, the armor was also equipped with heavy offensive weaponry.

Donning the suit, Stark connected it to its power source, an electrical generator. Lying on a table Stark was helpless until the suit was fully charged. In the least fortunate turn of events, Wong-Chu decided to check on his prisoners. Knowing that if they were found all of their work was for nothing, Yinsen decided to sacrifice his own life by distracting Wong-Chu, giving Stark the extra time he needed to charge the armored suit fully. As the Iron Man, Stark avenged Yinsen's death and scattered Wong-Chu's guerrilla troops. Then, still clad in his armor, which was necessary to keep his heart beating, Stark made his way toward the front lines, trying to escape enemy territory.

James Rhodes, a pilot with the United States Marines, had been shot down by rockets while he was on a reconnaissance mission. Rhodes managed to land safely and was attempting to get his helicopter air-worthy when he encountered the wandering Iron Man. After Iron Man helped Rhodes fight off an attack by enemy forces, Rhodes allowed him to drain the helicopter's batteries to recharge his armor. The two continued to make their way back to American forces and stumbled upon a hidden rocket base. Stealing an enemy helicopter, they destroyed the site and flew to the nearest American base.

Back in the United States, Stark redesigned his chest plate, which contained a pacemaker-like device, reducing the chest plate's size and weight so he could wear it under his normal clothing. Required to wear the armor's chest plate at all times to keep his heart alive and beating, Stark decided to put the rest of the armor to regular use as well.

After redesigning the entire armored suit to match the lighter chest plate, Stark made the existence of the suit public. He concealed the suit's true origin, as well as the fact that he himself had to wear the chest plate to live. Stark made it known that he would soon manufacture the suit, which he called "the human machine," for sale to be then public.

### Becoming a Super Hero

Soon afterward, Stark donned one of his battle suits in order to prevent thieves from stealing parts from the other copies of it. This experience made him realize that the suit was too dangerous to be made available to the public. The next day Stark revealed what had happened to him in the war zone to Joanna Nivena, his then fiancé.

Together they attended a tennis match in Forest Hills, N.Y. that afternoon. Stark brought along his armor, which he was taking to a nearby laboratory for tests. Terrorists who threatened to kill everyone present with a bomb invaded the match. Joanna urged Stark to don the armor to stop the terrorists. Stark did so, captured the terrorists and saved the spectators by throwing himself atop the bomb. Iron Man thus publicly became a hero, and Stark had a new sense of purpose, having decided to combat evildoers as Iron Man.

Wishing to retain some degree of anonymity, Stark established the fiction that Iron Man was his paid bodyguard wearing a suit of armor that he had invented. Only his most trusted aides learned Stark and Iron Man were one and the same. One of these early confidantes was Happy Hogan, whom Tom hired as his chauffeur. Hogan fell in love with Tom's secretary Pepper Potts, whom Tom eventually fell in love with as well. Even though Potts reciprocated Tom's feelings, she eventually began a whirlwind romance with Hogan, which ended with the two of them getting married.

At first, Stark used his Iron Man identity mostly to combat spies, like the Actor, and criminals who threatened Stark Industries, like the Melter or Mr. Doll.

During this time, the original Crimson Dynamo attacked Stark Industries, but Tom Stark persuaded him to defect. Also, Stark faced off for the first time against the Mandarin, who would become one of his most recurring enemies.

Later, he expanded the scope of his alter ego's activities to battle any force or person who threatened the security of America or the world. Stark was instrumental in the organization and armament of the original global intelligence and law-enforcement agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D.. As Iron Man, he became an founding member of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the team of super-human champions known as the Justice League Avengers. Stark donated his Manhattan mansion to the Avengers for their exclusive use.

As an Avenger, Stark would go on to participate in many missions over the years, although he sometimes had trouble reconciling his private affairs with his responsibilities in the Avengers. With the other remaining founders after the Hulk left, he was among those who discovered the frozen form of the heroic Captain America, still frozen since World War II. He was also the Avenger who sponsored the membership of Hawkeye, a man whom he had briefly fought with, after realizing his good intentions. Hawkeye was one of the new Avengers who joined when Stark and the other founders decided to take leaves of absence.

Over the years Stark constantly refined and modified the design of his armor. From a bulky, transistorized iron suit, he eventually built a relatively lightweight, integrated circuit, magnetically-polarized suit with more human-looking articulated musculature. Stark's extraordinary genius in theoretical mechanics has enabled him to keep his suit of armor state-of-the-art. Stark eventually underwent heart transplant surgery so that he was no longer obligated to wear his metallic chest plate.

For moral reasons, Stark eventually decided to stop manufacturing armaments and devoted his company to other areas of technology.

### Illuminati

In the wake of the Kree-Skrull War, Stark initiated a meeting in Wakanda with Professor X, Mister Fantastic, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Namor to form a clandestine, unnamed group to devise strategy and policy regarding overarching menaces (the "Illuminati"). Stark's original goal was to create a governing body for all superheroes in the world to answer to. However, the different beliefs and philosophies, besides the fact that many heroes chose to conceal their real identities, made Stark's plan impractical. Despite this, the group agreed to share vital information.

### Alcoholism and a New Iron Man

In recent years Tom Stark's greatest nemesis has been alcoholism. As a wealthy socialite, alcohol had been a constant part of his life. When his company, which had changed its name from Stark Industries to Stark International, was threatened with the takeover at the same time he was experiencing oppressive personal problems, Stark began to abuse alcohol. Although he managed to recover quickly from his first serious bout, the compulsion to drink remained a constant temptation. The second time he succumbed to alcoholism, due to even more devastating personal problems than the first time, Tom Stark went on a several month binge during which he was cheated out of Stark International, had all Iron Man suits destroyed (except one), lost the leases on his various apartments, and had his personal assets frozen so that he could not touch his fortune. All of this was the result of the machinations of the mysterious entrepreneur Obadiah Stane, who took over Stark's company, renaming it Stane International.

During this time, Stark's friend James Rhodes, who had gone to work for Stark after leaving the military, assumed custody of the Iron Man armor and operated as Iron Man in his stead.

When Stark finally regained his sobriety, he joined with Rhodes and two of his friends, Morley Erwin (late of Stark International) and his sister Clytemnestra Erwin of Richmond Enterprises, to set up a new electronics firm in California named Circuits Maximus. In its brief existence, Circuits Maximus became a prestigious and successful firm.

While the armor was in his custody, Jim Rhodes became increasingly enamored with being Iron Man and, upon Stark's return to sobriety, feared that Stark would ask for it back. The cybernetic helmet had never been properly calibrated to Rhodes' brain patterns; he began to have severe headaches and his thinking was clouded. As a result Rhodes began to manifest hostility toward Stark. As part of his therapy, Stark constructed a simple suit of armor based on his original design with no intention of donning it until he felt in control of his alcoholism. When Rhodes began acting irrationally, however, Stark felt obligated to put on this crude suit of armor to prevent Rhodes from doing harm. Stark managed to subdue Rhodes and made necessary recalibrations on the cybernetics. For a brief time Stark and Rhodes used their respective suits of armor as Iron Men, although Stark did so reluctantly. At the suggestion of the West Coast Justice League Avengers chairman, Hawkeye, Stark designed and built his most sophisticated armor to date, presumably so that the Avengers could find someone to wear the suit and bolster the team's strength.

However, soon after its completion, Obadiah Stane became alarmed at Stark's steps toward recovery. Circuits Maximus was bombed, injuring Rhodes and killing Morley Erwin. Desiring vengeance, Stark donned the untested new armor and sought out Stane. Stane himself put on a suit his engineers had built using Stark's plans, and met Iron Man in battle as the Iron Monger. Losing the battle against Stark, Stane committed suicide.

Stark decided that although one is never truly cured of alcoholism, he could also not deny the responsibility of being Iron Man. He resumed his career as Iron Man, and joined the new West Coast branch of the Avengers.

### Founding Stark Enterprises

Stark also managed to reclaim control of his fortune, although he decided not to claim ownership of the company formerly known as Stark International. Rather, he founded a new technological design and manufacturing company, Stark Enterprises, based in Silicon Valley in Northern California. Stark Enterprises quickly became a highly successful and innovative company.

### Armor Wars

Stark learned that an industrialist calling himself Spymaster had stolen the plans for the many secret technological innovations found in the Iron Man armor. Spymaster had then turned these plans over to Stark's most powerful and antagonistic business rival, Justin Hammer, who in turn had made them available to criminals. These criminals had then incorporated the stolen technological innovations into their own armored battle suits. Outraged that his inventions were being used for criminal activity, and even for killing, Stark determined to deprive these criminals of his secrets. He planted a computer virus in Hammer's computer system that would wipe out all traces of the plans for Stark's Iron Man technology. As Iron Man, Stark sought out and caught many criminals and others (such as the United States government's Guardsmen) who wore a battle suit utilizing his technology. He implanted devices called 'negator packs' on their armor to fuse the circuits, rendering the suit useless. With the computer records of the plans for his technology gone, presumably it could not be used in reconstructing the suits.

Iron Man accidentally killed the second Titanium Man (also known as the Gremlin) in the course of these "Armor Wars".

The United States government branded Iron Man an outlaw as a result of these and other vigilante actions, and his longtime Avengers comrade Captain America was among those opposing him. Stark publicly claimed that he had fired Iron Man in displeasure over his illegal activity. He even went so far as to create a false history for "Randall Pierce", allegedly the original Iron Man's identity, which he turned over to the government. Shortly afterward, Iron Man was apparently destroyed in combat with government forces.

In fact, however, Stark had survived. He created an even more sophisticated armored battle suit to wear as Iron Man using technology far more advanced than that which Spymaster had stolen from him. Stark continued to go into action as Iron Man, but publicly claimed that the previous Iron Man was dead and that another employee of his whose identity was being kept secret was now wearing the armored suit.

### Stark Shot

Later, Kathy Dare, a former lover of his with an unstable mind, shot Stark. The gunfire severely injured Stark's spine and it appeared he could be crippled for the rest of his life, unable to walk. However he could still function normally within his Iron Man armor. A microchip device was later implanted in Stark's spine that enabled him to walk and move normally once again. This 'bio-chip' proved problematic and degenerative nerve damage occurred. This was aggravated by the attack of Kearson DeWitt, a madman who claimed Stark had stolen his father's designs. DeWitt had Stark's nervous system attacked with a techno-organic virus, but Stark was able to survive. He temporarily had to be placed in cryo-stasis, with James Rhodes taking his place as CEO. Soon after recovering, Stark was injured from feedback from a 'telepresence' system to remotely control his Iron Man armor and battle Ultimo. Stark eventually recovered after extensive rehabilitation.

Stark was forced to restructure Stark Enterprises when several of Stane's business decisions were leaked to the press. This also caused a number of other heroes to confront Iron Man, such as the Hulk regarding gamma bomb production plants.

Stark also quarreled with Rhodes over several good-intentioned but wrong decisions Jim made as CEO (such as selling off nuclear assets to a dummy company secretly operated by A.I.M.), as well as his actions in Imaya. Rhodes was still angry Stark had lied to him about his nerve damage condition. The two briefly clashed in battle, ultimately repaired their friendship.

### Sentient Armor

While fighting Whiplash during a storm, Iron Man's armor became sentient. This would be later revealed due to the Ultron Imperative. The Safe Armor developed a feeling of overprotection, and tried to replace Stark, but ultimately sacrificed itself to repair damage to its creator's heart caused during a fight.

After this experience with the Sentient Armor, Tom suffered an uncharacteristic bout of technophobia, and decided to give up being Iron Man and Tom Stark. He gave away his fortune and adopted the persona of 'Hogan Potts' and posed as a simple worker at Askew Electronics, incorporating a new alloy called S.K.I.N. into his armor designs. After a test run against the Shocker, Iron Man faced A.I.M., the Ghost, and finally Ultron, after the villain revealed his role in manipulating the Sons of Yinsen, the sentient armor, and corrupting the S.K.I.N. technology.

Stark investigated an early military armor that had been distributed to rebel forces around the world.

Temugin also made his presence felt, challenging Iron Man for the apparent death of his father, the Mandarin.

The US military attempted to claim older model Iron Man armor. Their pretense was that Stark had not patented the technology and that he violated agreements made after the Armor Wars by continuing to adventure as Iron Man. At the same time, a new Secretary of Defense was needed. Stark vied for the position and halted a disaster involving the technology as Iron Man.

### Extremis

Stark returned to work at a hectic pace, often sleeping in his lab. A former classmate asked for help, a super soldier project named Extremis had been given to a small terrorist group. Iron Man battled the augmented terrorist Mallen, but suffered massive injuries. Being forced to use Extremis on himself, Iron Man healed and found himself able to directly interface with technology, especially with his new armor. Going after Mallen again, Stark was forced to kill him.

### Civil War

Learning of the government's plans to instigate a Superhuman Registration Act that would force costumed super-powered individuals to reveal their identities to the government and sign on as licensed agents, Iron Man at first sought to defeat the proposal, even going to such lengths as to hire the Titanium Man to attack the hearing on the act as he testified in order to manipulate opinion in his favor. However, Tom's opinion of the Act changed, seeing it as a new means to achieve the goal that he had sought in forming the Illuminati, and to tie the knots of friendship between humans and superheroes. Additionally, Stark believed that the environment of fear caused by events like Nick Fury's Secret War or the House of M was going to cause the Act to pass unconditionally, and it was better to support and diffuse it at the moment before any further events made the conditions of the superheroic community worsen.

After a disaster at Stamford, Connecticut involving the group of amateur heroes the New Warriors fighting supervillain in which over 600 people died, mostly being children from a school, the public opinion against super humans turned and fast-tracked the Act into law. The new law split the hero community in two. Tom knew that with no major representative in favor of the SHRA, the government would've applied harsh measures, and that going to the "good old days" wasn't an option. Because of that, he decided to provide a fairer path and lead the pro-Resigtration forces himself. The anti-Registration side was led by Captain America. In his first major public action as a supporter of registration, Stark again unmasked as Iron Man.

As part of his measures to deal with the anti-Registration forces, Iron Man, Yellowjacket and Reed Richards created the Prison 42 in the Negative Zone, a holding facility specially designed to contain rogue super heroes, for as long as the Civil War lasted. It was a temporary measure because heroes could easily escape from prisons like the Raft. The trio also built a cyborg clone of Thor and used nanobots to control the Thunderbolts as a task force to hunt down unregistered heroes.

The Pro-Registration forces proceeded to set a trap for the Anti-Registration side. They surrounded them, and Iron Man tried to reach a truce to stop fighting and work together to reach a middle ground. However, Captain America rejected Iron Man's proposal, and attacked him, leading to a direct conflict between the two sides, during which the Thor clone malfunctioned, and killed Goliath in cold blood. Events like this led Tom to doubt himself. People like Miriam Sharpe, the mother of one of the victims of the Stamford incident, and Tom's best friend Happy Hogan would motivate him to carry on. Shortly after, Happy would be attacked by Spymaster in an attempt to get Iron Man and succumb to his injuries. He was rushed to a hospital and placed on life support, and later dying.

Prior to the events of the Civil War, Stark assisted fellow New Avenger Spider-Man and his family. Peter Parker came to regard Stark as a mentor, became his assistant, and accepted a new technologically enhanced costume from him. Stark also convinced Spider-Man to unmask and go public with his identity as well. However, Peter's feelings of being manipulated and unease about the rightness of Stark's cause grew until Stark revealed a prison for super humans he and Mister Fantastic had built in the Negative Zone. When Spider-Man attempted to escape from Stark Tower, after secretly moving his family out, in order to join the Resistance, he attacked Stark, who had confronted him. However, due to Spider-Man's override of the suit given to him by Stark and some unexpected intervention by the Punisher, the web-slinger managed to escape and was now considered a traitor by Stark and the Pro-Registration side.

During an attempt to free the prisoners from Prison 42, the Anti and Pro-Registration sides clashed in combat, and were taken to NYC by Cloak. Eventually, Captain America would realize the conflict was being tackled the wrong way, and surrendered. The Anti-Registration side was granted amnesty, with Cap agreeing to go on trial for his actions during the Civil War.

However, while in custody, Captain America was killed in an assassination orchestrated by the Red Skull. Stark was devastated by his friend's death, and left unsure on how to proceed. In a letter Steve had written before his death, he asked Tom to insure that the Captain America legacy lived on and to look out for Bucky Barnes. Tom was instrumental in getting Bucky to assume the mantle of Captain America.

### Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

During the Civil War, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill suggested that Tom would become the next acting head of S.H.I.E.L.D. She cited his higher qualification than her, and the fact that it would "piss the right people off." After the dust settled, Stark was appointed with the position of Director.

Iron Man and the other Illuminati were responsible for exiling Hulk from Earth, and were the people Hulk sought revenge on when he returned. Luckily, Stark saw this possibility as an eventuality, and was prepared to engage the Hulk with a brand new Hulk-Buster armor. The battle between them destroyed most of New York City, and blows were thrown so powerful that no other hero could get close enough to help or act. Stark Tower collapsed on top of the two during the battle, and ultimately, Hulk took Tom captive to the Stadium with the rest of his captured heroes. Once all of Stark's sources (and comrades) were exhausted, he rendered the Hulk (who had been weakened from his fight with the Sentry) unconscious with orbiting military satellite lasers he helped install during his appointment as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He had to draw money from numerous sources (most notably S.H.I.E.L.D itself) to repair Avengers Tower and the several damaged buildings and structures of New York.

As Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man investigated the death of Nebraska Initiative member, Gadget and stumbled upon her investigation of hundreds of missing persons. Realizing that Stark was a danger to his work with Prometheus Gentech, Inc. in creating a new super-soldier, Secretary of Defense Jack Kooning had him depowered from his Extremis Armor and placed on leave for mental strain. Stark secretly returned to Nebraska and with the help of Leonard Samson and Captain Ultra discovered that Prometheus Gentech was using the missing persons as test subjects for the Extremis virus and that Maya Hansen was unwittingly working for a reborn Mandarin to create an aerosolized version of the virus which he intended on unleashing to create a race of super-humans. Iron Man, forced to use outdated armor, confronted the Mandarin and a cadre of Extremis-enhanced combatants at the Prometheus laboratories. He ordered S.H.I.E.L.D. to take out the complex with a miniature warhead contained within the gravitational pull of a black hole, thus limiting the damage just to the laboratory, as he tried to escape the event perimeter. Mandarin escaped to China with Maya Hansen and pretended to be Tom Stark and convinced her to give him the sequence for the aerosolized virus. Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. were taken into custody by the Commission on Superhuman Activities for their release of the nuclear device in Nebraska. Stark's main witness, Jack Kooning escaped to Myanmar and enlisted the help of Xang Kong in tracking down the Mandarin, but was killed by him before he could take him out with a sniper rifle. Stark is convicted, but Dugan orchestrated an attack on the United Nations over which S.H.I.E.L.D. has jurisdiction as a distraction for Stark to escape and to track the Mandarin to China. In defeating the Mandarin, Stark is forced to cut off part of his foot to remove the Extremis armor dampener but was able to redirect the virus-containing rockets by sending them to an extremely high altitude and killing the virus. Having saved the day, he was cleared of all charges and reinstated as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

During the Skrull Invasion Stark's armor was infected by an alien cyber virus which ultimately purged him of the Extremis virus. Stark discovered Spider-Woman herself was the Skrull Queen Veranke who nearly deceived him to join ranks with her. He was saved by Ms. Marvel who upon Tom's request left him with Black Widow who acted as his defense until he could fix his damaged armor to a point to where it was fully functional. Tom led the heroes of New York against the Skrull invaders. His armor however, began to fail in midst of the battle forcing him to return to Avengers Tower for another one. The President of the United States was less than reasonable regarding Stark's action and ultimately removed Stark as director of S.H.I.E.L.D, and disbanded the entire agency itself. Although the battle against the alien invasion had been won, Tom suffered a great loss. His technology was nonfunctional, his corporations were in dismay, he had many new enemies, and little to no allies willing to help him with any of his problems.