Howard Stark
Howard Stark is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as a background character in stories featuring Iron Man and stories featuring Captain America. He is the founder of Stark Industries. Throughout the character's publication history, he has been featured in several incarnations of comic book series.
Howard Stark has also appeared in several animated television series and films. Actors John Slattery and Dominic Cooper have portrayed the character throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.
Publication history
Howard Stark was created by Archie Goodwin and designed by artist Don Heck. He made his first appearance in Iron Man #28. He was loosely based on Howard Hughes, a film producer and aviator.Described as a sarcastic scientist and ruthless businessman, Howard worked alongside his father on various projects, and later founded Stark Industries. He was an inventive mechanical engineering prodigy, constantly creating new technology and looking for ways to improve such technology. He designed and built weaponry and devices that have revolutionized the industrial world, such as various technologies used by S.H.I.E.L.D. and its allies. Howard later married to Maria Stark, and they had their child, Tony Stark. Howard's relationship with Tony was a difficult one. Howard's major weakness was his severe case of alcoholism, a problem Tony himself would inherit. In the comics, Howard and his wife died in a car crash, as the result of faulty brakes arranged by either business competitors Republic Oil & Gas or by V-Battalion. Howard's death inspired his son to take both business and engineering seriously as Iron Man.
Fictional character biography
Original depiction
Being the son of Howard Stark Sr., he was born in Richford, New York. An avid and brilliant inventor from a young age, Howard was a brilliant scientist throughout his life, becoming a power systems engineer. Stark and his father worked on various business projects with his skills in engineering, and later founded Stark Industries. In 1937, Howard Stark met with Dominic Fortune and Amanda MacLain who told him about how Amanda's sister Andrea was using her connections in the mineral trade to secure rare metals vital to Stark Industries' development and also found out that the company was supplying arnaments to both the British government and Nazi Germany. A few days later, Howard found about the rare metal Vibranium that Fortune had found in Wakanda. He was later confronted by Dominic about his double-sided arms deals to both the Nazis and British which caused him to then shut down all illicit arms dealing contracts due to the dangerous nature they had. Throughout his young adulthood, Stark worked on various government projects dating back to the World War I and World War II era, like the Super Soldier experiment with John Crowe Ransom which came to completion thanks to Steve Rogers and the Arsenal robots hidden in a subbasement in his mansion. During the 1950s, Stark was an agent of the secret science organization known as The Brotherhood of Shield, partnered with Nathaniel Richards.Howard Stark married Maria Collins Carbonell and together they had a son named Arno and adopted Anthony "Tony" Stark. He constantly pushed Tony to be the best, telling his son that someone must have "iron in their backbone" to be successful. Behind his heroic facade, however, he was an alcoholic who had a strained relationship with his son. Stark was capable of devotion and respect towards machines, but he appeared to have little to no interest towards his son. Due to his power as a businessman, Stark was offered membership to the exclusive Hellfire Club, but he seemed uninterested in anything other than the lavish parties the club threw. It is believed Stark was also a member of the V-Battalion. He was targeted and captured in 1946 by the Red Skull due to his work on the Manhattan Project but soon got rescued by the Howling Commandos and is rumored to have met Uatu the Watcher. Stark also prevented Obadiah Stane from taking control of Stark Industries at least once.
On the Ides of March, Howard and Maria were killed in a car accident. It has been hinted that the incident was not random and possibly arranged by the V-Battalion, but this has never been confirmed; earlier indications were that the accident was caused by Roxxon's predecessor Republic Oil as part of Simon Krieger's corporate sabotage. Tony ran his father's company, started a charity in his mother's name, and later went on to be Iron Man.
Iron Man was briefly trapped in Hell by Doctor Doom, and faced what appeared to be Howard as one of Mephisto's torments. The spirit wore a demonic version of Iron Man's armor and taunted Iron Man about emotional weaknesses. Iron Man rejected the spirit's reality when claiming that Iron Man had been a disappointment to his mother as well as his father. However, Iron Man knew that Maria's love was unconditional.
During the 2014 Original Sin storyline, a flashback revealed that Stark first met Nick Fury following the death of Woody McCord during the fight against the Tribellians. Stark decided to show Fury the work McCord had been doing as a defender of Earth, neutralizing any potential threat for the planet, and offered Woody's job. Fury accepted, and over the next years, would secretly fight different superhuman threats from aliens to Subterranean monsters and extra-dimensional beings. Alongside Fury, Stark also worked with McCord and special agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter in 1952 when the 3 of them went to Siberia to investigate an alien ship. It is here where he also met and got acquainted with Russian scientist and nuclear physicist Anton Vanko whom he gave the alien ship to as it could have been then taken by Hydra and be used for nefarious purposes.
Duplicate of Howard Stark
Iron Man confronted Arsenal and Motherboard on the eScape to which Arno Stark followed and discovered the digital engrams of Howard and Maria then salvaged these digital engrams when the eScape shut down.Arno is acquainted with the digital engrams of Howard and Maria and was able to give them a holographic form. With Jocasta's help, Arno is able to use bio-restructuring pods to give digital bodies to the digital engrams.
During the Iron Man 2020 storyline, Arno has breakfast with the duplicates of Howard and Maria following a nightmare about the Extinction Entity. After knocking out Mark One, the artificial simulation of Iron Man is brought to Arno's living quarters and learns the duplicates of their parents. At Port Authority, Iron Man catches up to the duplicates of Howard and Maria who are instructed to not leave the safety of Bain Tower. Their condition gets worse because they left Bain Tower and that Arno had to use his own DNA to fill out the missing pieces behind them. They suddenly stop moving as Arno plans to fix them and Tony. Arno is at his work station, working on reviving his parents by recreating the Arsenal and Mistress bodies from the eScape. Arno heads to the Stark Space Station with Arsenal and Mistress who now possess the memories of Howard Stark and Maria. The two of them state to Arno that they are proud. When Tony Stark uses the Thirteenth Floor to reach the Stark Space Station and confront Arno, Arsenal and Motherboard fight his allies until the arrival of the Extinction Entity. As everyone engages the Extinction Entity, Tony, Arno, Rescue, Machine Man, Jocasta, Motherboard, and Arsenal push the Extinction Entity close to Earth's orbit as the Avengers, Force Works, and the A.I. Army attack its tentacles. It then turns out that the Extinction Entity was just a simulation and was the result of the disease that Arno thought he cured himself of. He states that the holographic armor made from the eScape is now part of Arno's life support as he allows Motherboard and Arsenal to download themselves to shape Arno's virtual world.
Other versions
House of M
In the alternate reality seen in the 2005 House of M storyline, Howard Stark was alive while Maria Stark's status is unknown. Howard turned over control of the company to Tony Stark when his son turned sixteen. Although officially listed as retired, he worked with Tony to build an armor capable of taking on the Sentinels and powerful mutants during the conflict.Howard and Tony began to work on Sentinels with Forge and Henry McCoy after being awarded them an exclusive contract. They planned to incorporate a "Vision Project", although there were problems with the control scheme. The two also competed on the wildly popular 'Sapien Deathmatch' television show.
When Tony investigated a resistance group as Iron Man, Sentinels attacked. One, remotely controlled by Howard, scolded Tony for getting involved. Howard was secretly plotting against Magneto with Hank Pym.
"Genome bomb" locations were discovered by Tony as Iron Man and the House was notified. Howard had programmed the Visions and Sentinels to serve him. He said this had all been part of a plan to make the mutants respect Tony for saving them. Tony would then use that as a chance to directly strike against Magneto. Tony refused to go along. Magneto suddenly appeared and personally dealt with Howard, killing him.
Iron Inquisitor
As part of Mephisto's campaign against the Avengers with the aid of his multiversal counterparts, one of the many alternate reality allies he recruited is a version of Howard Stark from Earth-4111 who made a deal with Mephisto for eternal power and immortality. Howard became enthralled to the Council of Red, to the point where he killed his son as part of the terms of the deal, and became the Iron Inquisitor, working as Hell's prime weaponer. As the Iron Inquisitor, he enacts Mephisto's will across the multiverse as his special agent.Far from Avengers Mountain, Multiversal Masters of Evil members Doom Supreme and Kid Thanos meet up with Iron Inquisitor and Mephisto in the form of a dog as he nears the corpse of Orb. At one point, Kid Thanos insults Iron Inquisitor by claiming that his armor resembled a crustacean's shell. As Doom Supreme and Kid Thanos enter a portal to meet with their teammates and get back to work, Mephisto and Iron Inquisitor talk about what to do with the Multiversal Masters of Evil as Mephisto's dog form eats at the fragments of Uatu's eye. Iron Inquisitor was with the Council of Red when Mephisto made them known to Nighthawk and the Avengers.
Following the death of King Killmonger, Iron Man is lured into a cave by Howard Stark out of his Iron Inquisitor armor who wants to parley with him. While he claimed that Mephisto wants him to kill Iron Man, Howard wants to put aside his differences with Iron Man and reshape the future. After Iron Man blasts him, Howard sets off an EMP trap that shocks Iron Man and destroys his armor. Then he proceeds to beat up Tony. After Iron Man regains control of his armor and destroys the Iron Inquistor armor, Tony breaks Howard's hands and leaves him behind to watch the world develop the right way. Howard dares Iron Man to come back and finish him off.