Iron Man writer Kieron Gillen is talking about the major revelation about the Armored Avenger just exposed in Iron Man #17 this week.
It’s the a double shocker for Tony as Gillen wraps up The Secret Origin of Tony Stark arc.
Before we hear from Gillen and see art from the huge issue I’m going to give this…
SPOILER ALERT
IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THEN STOP READING NOW
HERE IT IS
Tony has a brother named Arno who is the natural son of Howard and Maria Stark and “imbued with alien technology.” The real Stark heir likely has powers but has been hidden away.
Tony was adopted.
Gillen tells Marvel.com how the revelation will make the confident Stark question everything about himself:
“I’m not adopted, but if I suddenly found out tomorrow that my parents had adopted me and never told me, that might not destroy me, but it would completely shake my self-image of who I am. That’s what this whole story has been about anyway, this question of the self-made man. Tony’s had to play with the idea that he was constructed by something. Now it turns out that that isn’t true. It’s actually gone the other way. For me, drama is asking, “What’s important to the character? What defines them?” Then you stress that to the breaking point. So this was the core of the story: making Tony really question who he is.
“How Tony responds to the question of his biological parents is going to be interesting. There are some late adoptees who say, “No. I have no interest in knowing them.” Then there’s the question of what they do with the anger. There’s a famous book about adoption called “The Primal Wound” by Nancy Newton Verrier, which talks about the idea that there is a primal betrayal at that moment early on and it remains in the person’s psyche. Sometimes that negative emotion is transferred upon the parents who raised them or in some cases on the parents who chose to leave them. The question of how Tony feels is ongoing. He has mystery parents out there and he may want to discover who they are, but apart from that mystery maybe Tony is that logical guy and it may not matter. On the other hand, Tony’s also a man of complete passion. We’ve seen how his addictions have driven him. By the end of this week’s issue, he’s transplanted his self-destructive urge onto something else. He immediately jumps in on Arno’s plan to do something good.”
Here’s more art from inside the big issue:
For the entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link. Gillen’s next arc is Iron Metropolitan.
Get your Iron Man gear here.
By Editor