Best Iron Man Plotlines That Never Made It To The MCU

Iron Man's Adventures Which We Never Got to Witness

Iron Man and his story have spanned decades in Marvel Comics. Countless adventures played out across the Marvel Universe long before most MCU fans were even born. So when Marvel brought Iron Man to live action, it was inevitable that some comic arcs would never make it to the big screen. Here are some Iron Man storylines we wish had finally seen the light in the mainstream MCU.

5. Superior Iron Man

After a moral inversion event, Tony Stark’s personality is completely reversed, turning him ruthless, arrogant, and selfish. He relocates to San Francisco, creates a sleek white-and-silver “Superior” armor, and forces Extremis technology onto the entire city. While the MCU showed him as egoistic and stubborn at times, he never became a full-fledged villain seeking total control over the world like his Superior Iron Man counterpart.

4. Iron Man Becomes a Villain (The Crossing)

In one of the most controversial Iron Man storylines, it’s revealed that Tony Stark has secretly been an agent of Kang the Conqueror. He goes on a killing spree against other heroes, forcing a teenage version of himself to team up with the Avengers to stop him. The storyline was widely criticized for being messy and inconsistent, so the MCU avoided it entirely...even though Tony’s personality remained complex and often narcissistic.

3. The Illuminati

Tony Stark was a founding member of the Illuminati, a secret council composed of Marvel’s most brilliant leaders, including Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Reed Richards. They met in secret to influence global decisions and manipulate events to protect Earth from cosmic threats. The MCU never established this group in Iron Man’s timeline since it required the presence of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, leaving fans without this major part of Tony’s legacy.

2. Extremis as a Permanent Biological Change

In the comics, Tony injects himself with the Extremis nanotech virus to save his life. It permanently rewrites his biology, allowing him to interface with his armor internally, summon it telepathically, and essentially function as a human-cyborg hybrid. In contrast, the MCU portrayed Extremis in Iron Man 3 as a temporary weaponized experiment that disappeared from Tony’s life soon after.

1. The Armor Wars

The Armor Wars storyline is a cornerstone of Iron Man’s comic legacy. Tony discovers that his proprietary tech has been stolen and weaponized by his enemies, pushing him to go rogue and hunt down every suit and user exploiting his designs. While the MCU hinted at this concept, it was never explored as a full-scale arc that showcased Tony’s paranoia, brilliance, and moral conflict.