10 best Iron Man storylines in the comics

4. Iron Man vs. Iron Monger – Iron Man 190-200

This would become the basis of the first Iron Man movie. Obadiah Stane begins a corporate take over of Stark Industries and wants the Iron Man armor for himself. The stress of losing his company drives Tony back into the bottle and Rhodey steps up to protect the Iron Man tech from getting stolen. When Obadiah finds some older designs of Tony’s, he builds the Iron Monger suit and gives Rhodey a sound beating.

This forces Stark to clean himself up once again and rise to the challenge. He builds the all-new Centurion armor to take on the Iron Monger head-to-head. Iron Man defeats Obadiah and gets his company back all in one tight little story. This tale became the central basis of the Iron Man movie because it has all the basics of a great Iron Man story. Stark loses everything thanks to his own tech turned against him, he hits rock bottom, rises from the ashes, and invents a whole new more powerful suit to win the day. This sort of arc would later become a bit cliche, but this was one of the first of its kind.