Tony Stark

Tony Stark is a notable figure and self-assessed "millionaire playboy philanthropist". He is the CEO of Stark International as well as owner and operator of the "Iron Man" armor.

Personality
Tony Stark is accustomed to getting what he wants. And it's given him the biggest ego in recorded human history.

He's arrogant, to start. For as long as he's been alive he's been painfully aware of every way he's just a little bit superior to everyone else-- off-the-charts IQ, more money than god, the devil, and the king of Siam combined, the playboy face to top it off-- he's had life handed to him on a silver platter, and he sees no reason to change his ways. Or let anyone forget that those are his ways. Or that he could buy their house and turn it into a giant inflatable snowglobe if he really wanted to. He has a nasty way of making people feel inferior with or without their knowledge or consent, and it's earned him something of reputation as an asshole. Which is entirely true, warranted, and based on years of concrete evidence.

Despite it all, he has a solid moral core that gets more of a workout in a week than most peoples' do in a lifetime. Big-scheme bads are very much defined in terms of black and white as far as Tony is concerned, a world divided up (unevenly) between the good guys and the bad guys. For personal reasons, he came to the conclusion a few years ago that not enough was being done to stop the one-sided domination of Bad over Good, and decided to channel that energy into vigilante justice. Thanks to his complex about being Wonderful, he also thinks he can single-handedly take on all the world's evil and be more successful than the entire United States Government and all kinds of subgroups. (We will not be addressing the fact that this is entirely true 84% of the time.)

He has a heart, and it isn't made up of a miniaturized arc reactor fueled by wonderflonium unobtanium vibranium. He does have legitimate caring (he will not call it affection, nope) for legitimate people. Pepper. Rhodey. His "people". He will stick his neck on all kinds of lines for them (not that he ever has to, because they toe every line he'd be potentially sticking his neck on) if it came down to it, because deep in his heart of hearts he knows that they're really all he has. Being as he's such a private person, that little trifecta are the only people who know the private Tony, who have access to his secrets and get to see the fact that yes, he really does care.

Tony is a strong believer in keeping public-private, public-business, and private lives separate, and he lives by this. He has three distinct means of appearance: his over-the-top yet oddly professional persona of Mr. Stark, his borderline-manic no-holds-barred womanizing persona of Tony Stark, and the very private, very rarely seen and for the most part more determined/less spaztic with his life choices persona of plain Tony. Were it not for the distinctions between the three he wouldn't be where he is today, and he does everything he can (or at least orders Pep to do everything she can) to keep the three distinct.

History
Anthony Edward Stark was the only child of Howard and Maria Stark. He was raised in an upper class neighbourhood on Long Island, his life of privilege funded by his industrialist father. Howard was the founder and head of Stark International, one of the major weapons manufacturers for the United States Military. From a young age he urged Tony to follow in his footsteps, which Tony seemed set to do- he showed incredible aptitude for engineering and excelled in academic pursuits. The proclaimed genius was accepted to MIT and graduated summa cum laude at the age of 19. At age 20 Howard and Maria were involved in a fatal car accident, leaving their considerable assets-- and control of Stark-- to Tony. Obadiah Stane, Howard's second-in-command, was given custodial control of the company until Tony was old enough to take full control. At age 21 he stepped into his father’s shoes as CEO of Stark Industries, pledging to revolutionize the weapons industry.

Stark Industries remained a big player in weapons manufacturing, supplying the United States Military with more and more advanced technology for their neverending supply of wars. Following a near-fatal R&D accident with what would have been a revolutionary land mine, Tony was captured by a powerful warlord-- the intent being to force him to build a doomsday device. Unfortunately for Tony, the explosion that had led to his capture had left irremovable pieces of shrapnel in his chest,shrapnel that was on track to enter his heard and end his life a lot sooner than he'd planned on.

To save Tony's life, a physicist being held captive by the very same warlords helped him to build an iron suit, complete with a chestplate that used electromagnetic energy to pull the shrapnel away from Tony's heart. The armor proved further useful when it allowed Tony to escape capture, at the unfortunate cost of the physicist's life. Once returning home, Tony redesigned the suit as well as its metal breastplate: instead of one built onto his chest, he created one that could go inside, giving him the battery's constant effect without the bulky piece of technology weighing him down. The prototype suit was trimmed down and rebuilt from entirely new materials rather than the scraps it had been fashioned from before, completely revamped with new weapons systems and all the high-tech engineering the resources of Stark Industries could provide.

The end result was Iron Man. Tony, now concerned for the life he had left, started to use the suit to fight injustices- small injustices, mind. When he realized the chestpiece was doing a better job of keeping him alive than he thought, he expanded his superhuman enterprise, adding more improvements to the suit and stepping out onto the crime fighting scene in a bigger way. He caught his break during a battle in which some of the budding greats, (the likes of Thor, Wasp, Ant-Man, and Captain America) found themselves on the same side. The group decided to band together, forming the original Avengers. Tony's been with them ever since.

Abilities
Tony's not your traditional superhuman-- yeah, he's got a crazy cool piece of technology sticking out of his chest and another hanging up in his garage, but really? He's just a man with a hell of a brain. On his own, his only real superpower is his mind-- he's something of an intuitive genius, claiming expertise in mathematics, physics, and electrical and mechanical engineering (the last two being his major claims to fame). He's made his living designing revolutionary weapons technology, but he's hardly limited to designing things that destroy. Tony also boasts the first completely self-aware house in the world, a lifelike AI that serves as a butler and at times an assistant, incredible advancements in the realm of robotics-- the list goes on.

Miniaturized Arc Reactor
After a last-ditch attempt to save him from a horrible fate involving shrapnel and his still-beating heart, Tony found himself with an electromagnet sticking out of his chest. Since its initial implantation he's updated the device quite a bit, and now sports a glowing blue vibranium-powered chestpiece that doubles as a power core for the Iron Man armor. The chest piece, in addition to keeping his heart pumping and thumping without any sharp metal bits getting in the way, also helps keep him thriving as a human being. It has the potential to keep his heart running longer than the average human, though exactly for how long is unclear.

Iron Man Armor
The Iron Man armor is what launches Tony into the category of the superhumans. The armor is built of a myriad of highly durable metals, and despite to the fact that it's made out of metal gives him a surprising amount of flexibility and range of motion. The suit comes with a built-in communications system, state-of-the-art weaponry (which include, but are hardly limited to: standard automatic weaponry, the repulsor rays fired from the suit's gauntlets, small-range missiles, a flamethrower, and an electromagnetic pulse) and supersonic flight capabilities. In addition, the suit grants him superhuman strength and speed, as well as high-tech life support systems.

Character Relationships
tbd