Iron Monger

Real Name
Obadiah Stane

Occupation
(Stane) President and CEO Stane International, munitions dealer; former chess champion

Citizenship
U.S.A.

Place of Birth
Unrevealed

Known Relatives
Zebediah Stane(father, deceased), unidentified mother (deceased), Ezekiel Stane (son)

Group Affiliation
Stane International

Education
M.B.A.

Height
(as Stane) 6’ 5”; (as Iron Monger): Unrevealed

Weight
(as Stane) 230 lbs; (as Iron Monger): 4230 lbs.

Eyes
Blue

Hair
Bald

Powers
None

Abilities
Stane has a genius-level of intelligence and a fair hand-to-hand combatant with no known training.

Other Info
Obadiah Stane's father, Zebediah Stane, was a drunk who was a failure in making a career for himself. One night, when Obadiah was only a child, his father returned to the hotel room where they were staying, having just won a great deal of money gambling. Apparently overjoyed, the elder Stane told Obadiah that his luck had changed, and to prove it, Zebediah played Russian roulette with himself, and unfortunately for him and his son, he ended up killing himself with his first shot. Now, Obadiah was orphaned and was raised in a succession of foster homes.

Because of the shock of witnessing his own father's death, Obadiah was completely bald by his eighth birthday. As expected, he was ridiculed by his classmates because he was bald. Ironically, Obadiah became fascinated by games of chance, especially chess. Obadiah believed that life was itself a game at which his father had lost; Obadiah determined that he himself would never lose at anything.

One of Stane's fellow students at his school, Bernie Devlin, was a better chess player than he was. Before the championship game between the two, Stane secretly killed Devlin's beloved dog, Ruffer. After finding Ruffer's body on the day of the championship game, Devlin was so distraught that Stane easily won the tournament. This was the first major example of Stane's use of psychological warfare in order to get what he wished: Stane would discover his opponent's weakness and then exploit it. Stane became an international chess champion while in his teens. Another example of this psychological warfare was when Stane was in his early twenties. He was working for an industrialist whom he came to regard as an incompetent. Perceiving that the industrialist's primary weakness was his love for his young wife, Stane faked photographs showing the wife apparently engaged in an affair with the industrialist's best friend. The industrialist's morale was thereby destroyed, and Stane soon took control of the company himself. This was the beginning of Stane's accumulation of a massive fortune: he made his first million dollars by the time he was twenty-five years old.

Stane began selling munitions made by his company to whoever offered the best prices for them, often to repressive dictatorships. Eventually, Stane built his company into a multinational corporation producing munitions that was based in Salt Lake City, Utah, with offices in various locations in the United States and abroad. (I thought that it was interesting where his headquarters was based.)

Stane decided to create a team of special bodyguards for himself, the Chessmen, whose costumes and identities came from Stane's love of chess. (To learn about the Chessmen, click on their name above.)

This is about the time that Stane ran into Anthony "Tony" Stark (aka Iron Man). Let me give you a quick run down of what happened...Stane wanted an international company. Tony Stark didn't like Stane. Stane took this as another "game" for him. Stane knew Stark's principal weakness: Stark was a reformed alcoholic. Stane had hired multiple people to bring down Stark, but they failed. One was able to capture Stark's friend, James Rhodes. Iron Man (Tony in his body armor) defeated the various Chessmen and rescued Rhodes, but Rhodes had to be hospitalized because he was poisoned by venomous spiders. Tony learned that Stane was behind these various actions against him and his company, and confronted Stane, but with no success. Stane's company began to outbid Stark's company for foreign contracts. Tony became depressed (just like Obadiah wanted) and Tony began drinking alcohol heavily again. Because of this, Stark's company was bought out by Stane. Eventually, Tony came back around and started to rebuild his life, including building up a new company. (To learn about the above highlighted characters, just click on their names.)

By now, Stane had correctly guessed that Anthony Stark was Iron Man. As part of his new plot to destroy Stark, Stane kidnapped Stark's friends, including Virginia "Pepper" Potts and Harold "Happy" Hogan. Stane also tried to destroy Iron Man by bombing a building. It ended up killing some of those kidnapped, but not Iron Man himself. (To learn about these friends of Iron Man, click on their names above.)

Obadiah constructed an armored suit like Iron Man's which he called the "Iron Monger." Stane intended to mass produce the suits, perhaps to create an army and take over one or more nations. (The Iron Monger armor is made of omnium steel, containing various offensive weapons including a powered exoskeleton that amplified Stane’s strength, repulsor ray fired from the gauntlets, and an intense laser beam housed in the armor’s chest unit. The armor also possesses the ability to fly using magnetically powered turbine boot jets.) Stane put on the Iron Monger armor and went into battle against Iron Man. As Iron Monger, Stane failed to defeat Iron Man after a long battle. Defeated, Stane committed suicide by firing a repulsor ray blast from his armor to himself. Iron Man was the only person to witness Stane's death, and Stane's security personnel quickly removed the body from the scene. (To find the definition for omnium, click on the highlighted word above.)

Stane's death was never reported in the news media. Only Stark, a few of Stark's associates, Stane's security personnel, and top-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. officials are aware of it. Following his death, Stane was replaced with a lifelike LMD (an android duplicate of a person). The LMD was later presumably destroyed. Stane International was later acquired by another of Stark's business rivals, Justin Hammer, but the property was eventually reacquired by Stark himself. (To learn about the above rival or Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D., click on their highlighted names.)

The Iron Monger armor somehow fell into the possession of industrialist Simon Steele, but the current whereabouts of the Iron Monger armor have not been revealed. (If you would like to learn more about Obadiah Stane, or him as the Iron Monger, click on the following link, http://marvel.com/universe/Iron_Monger.)