Comics

Track IRON MAN’s Evolution in Pop Culture Since the ’60s

by Eric Diaz
Apr 26 2019 • 1:27 PM

Iron Man is a household name thanks to Robert Downey Jr. and the MCU. Though a lot of people might have never heard of the character of Tony Stark before 2008, that was hardly the character’s first appearance in non-comic book media.

Long before Avengers: Endgame or even the original Iron Man film, Tony Stark has been showing up in various forms over the decades, mostly via television. Now, a video from the Burger Fiction YouTube channel (via Geeks Are Sexy) has chronicled every single Iron Man appearance in non comic book or video game media to date…and it’s probably a lot more than you expected.

Youtube Video play button
Iron Man first showed up in the Marvel Super-Heroes animated series in 1966, when he had his own very nifty theme song. Although the animation was very limited on these cartoons, the video shows how quickly the Marvel Comics brand had penetrated pop culture. Iron Man made his TV debut a mere three years after being created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Although the show was short-lived, it ran in syndication for the next twenty years. Over the next several years, Iron Man showed up in animated form as a guest on shows like Spider-Man. In 1994, the Armored Avenger finally got his own animated show. During that time, the character would show up on other Marvel series like Spider-Man and X-Men. After the ’90s, Iron Man wouldn’t go more than a handful of years before appearing either in a new animated series or in an animated straight-to-DVD film of some kind. And during that time, his armor would evolve continuously throughout the course of all of these iterations.

Whether in TV, film, or video games, Iron Man is here to stay folks.

Images: Marvel Studios