User blog comment:Mr. Xemnas/Flagship/@comment-1895174-20130120011256/@comment-4651179-20130120053855

Well... Iron Man's story has fluctuated over time. He was pretty popular during the 60s. He flopped in the 70s and his series was in risk of becoming bi-mensual, but then he regained popularity with Demon in a Bottle, a story which redefined him. Then he stayed the same, semi-popular, not as popular as the X-Men or Spider-Man. Then the second big change came, after Avengers Dissasembled Warren Ellis came and give us the masterpiece Iron Man: Extremis, thanks to that and Civil War, Tony's popularity raised once more. But, the bomb which catapulted Iron Man to a Spider-Man and Wolverine-like popular hero was the movie. It can be seen that with the films, Marvel decided the Marvel Studios' flagship movie's character should be Marvel Comics' flagship character, we can see that he had a major role in almost every Marvel event since 2008: Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, Heroic Age, Fear Itself, Avengers vs. X-Men.

I must admit I became an Iron Fan thanks to that rise of popularity, but I liked him even before that. The other day I was truly happy when coming home I heard a classic children role-playing in the street saying "I'm Iron Man". Specially in a country where super heroes had their popularity lowered thanks to Cartoon Networks' immediate marketing success.