Antonio Stark (Earth-1648)

Antonio "Tony" Stark is the hero known as Iron Man, and a founding member of the Avengers.

History
As a child, Tony was primarily raised by his mother, Maria. His father, Howard, spent most of his time running Stark Industries, which caused a lot of distance to form between him and Tony, who believe he would never get any attention from his father. However, when Tony was 13, he became very sick, and in that time of crisis for the Stark family, Howard came to his son's side and helped him recover by getting the best medical professionals to take care of him. During this time, Tony also began reading a lot of books as he couldn't do much else in a hospital bed. What started out as sci-fi novels led to science text books, and Tony dedicated his time to learning as much as he could.

At the age of 15, Tony recovered from his illness, and he continued to learn as much as he could, but his father returned to running Stark Industries. Believing the only way to get his father's attention was to be in danger, Tony began a self-destructive spiral. He began drinking and taking drugs, but despite two overdoses that almost killed him, it did nothing to get his father's attention, and instead made Howard ashamed of his son.

Ides of March
When Tony was 22, his parents travelled to England to visit Howard's brother, Edward. However, while on the way to Edward's manor, the car Howard and Maria steered off the road and crashed into a tree. The impact killed both of them, which devastated Tony. Howard's will stated that his majority share of Stark Industries would pass to Tony, only in the event that he retained sobriety for a full year. In the meantime, control of the company was held by the Stark Family Trust, run by Obadiah Stane. Wanting to be able to make his late parents proud, Tony went to a rehabilitation clinic for several months. Unfortunately, shortly after leaving the clinic, Tony had a relapse, ruining his progress. Over the following two years, he bounced back and forth between periods of sobriety and relapsing.

On the fourth anniversary of his parent's death, he was in a nightclub drinking heavily, when he was shot in the chest. After being rushed to hospital, it was found that the bullet had skimmed his heart, and while he was saved, he spent months recovering. Even after healing, his heart was still weak, and caused him immense pain and a large risk of cardiac arrest. Putting his intelligence to good use, he designed himself a pacemaker, for which he developed the first Arc Reactor to power it. He convinced an associate of his father's, Ho Yinsen, to perform the surgery needed to implement it. The pacemaker was made up of a component that attached to his heart, which was attached to a chest plate, that allowed the pacemaker to be easily controlled, and for it to be recharged without further surgery.

As a result of his heart injury, Tony was able to remain sober for several months, as he knew that doing so would be a major risk to his life, even more than it had been previously. Following the insertion of his pacemaker, he maintained his sobriety, and passed all of the random tests he was required to undertake. He finally reached the one year mark, meeting the requirements of his father's last will and testament, and thus gained control over his father's 60% of Stark Industries. His first order of business upon taking control of the company was ending its production of military technology, and putting more emphasis on its medical science division. Subsequently, he changed the company's name to 'Stark Solutions'.

Abilities
Genius: Tony has been fascinated with science since he was 13, and has spent a fair portion of his life learning everything he could. As a result, he has a vast knowledge of a variety of fields. However, his main interests lie in engineering, and to an extent computer programming as a result.

Paraphernalia
Iron Man Armour Friday: An artificial intelligence created by Tony in his spare time, using several pre-existing A.I.'s as the basis on which he built. Friday is compatible with a number of areas of Tony's mansion, as well as his Iron Man armours.
 * Mark I: The original armour, which was rather clunky and had a number of glitches, which were very quickly fixed when Tony created the Mark II.
 * Mark II: Tony's second attempt at making an armour after he realised the first had all manner of problems, being a prototype. The Mark II was gold in colour, which later became part of Iron Man's signature look. While it was a vast improvement over the Mark I, it still had several issues, and so Tony began work on the next armour only a month after completing the Mark II.
 * Mark III: An issue with the energy needed to power the Mark II led to Tony creating a second Arc Reactor, like the one in his chest, that was larger and able to create more power. This in turn resulted in the development of repulsor technology, which was also implemented into the Mark III design. This is the suit in use when the Avengers first formed.

Trivia

 * He was named after his maternal grandfather, Antonio, who passed away shortly before Tony's birth.