Tony Stark Died a Hero in IRON MAN Comics, Too | Screen Rant
The death of Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame was one of the most memorable moments in the MCU, and solidified his place as one of the world’s greatest superheroes. One could say that Tony's entire arc beginning with the first Iron Man movie was one of redemption that could only end in self sacrifice, but in the comics, that sacrifice played out very differently - and Tony had a lot more to atone for.
It all started with the Civil War storyline, which was eventually adapted into Captain America: Civil War in the MCU. While the movie was fundamentally similar to the comics in that it pitted Iron Man and Captain America against each other, the comics more extreme. Tony’s behavior was much more villainous and his actions actually led to Cap’s death - albeit indirectly. Still, even though Captain America wasn’t exactly perfect throughout the whole ordeal, there was little debate that Tony was the bad guy of the story. Which left Marvel with a problem.
After the success of the first Iron Man movie boosted the character into newfound popularity, Marvel needed a way to redeem Tony for what he had done in Civil War, and nothing spells redemption like self-sacrifice. So in the World’s Most Wanted series, when Norman Osborn manipulated his way into becoming the new director of SHIELD, Tony knew he couldn’t allow the information from the Superhuman Registration Act - the law that sparked the entire Civil War conflict - to fall into Osborn’s hands. After all, letting the Green Goblin know the secret identities of just about every superhero sounds like a pretty dumb idea. In typical Tony Stark fashion, Tony decided he was the only one who could be trusted with the information, so he deleted the files from SHIELD’s systems and downloaded them to…his brain. Yes, really.
Unfortunately, Tony underestimated just how badly Norman wanted those files. Once Osborn found out where they were, he tried to get his hands on Tony’s brain (believe it or not, he’s not the first super villain to try to steal a superhero’s brain). Since the files were now ingrained in Tony’s brain, deleting them would be impossible without also destroying his mind, requiring him to make the ultimate sacrifice - which he does. After the deletion of the files, Tony Stark is left brain dead…temporarily, at least.
As it turns out, Tony had a backup of his own brain created before the events of Civil War - in other words, before he was a villain. So, the Tony Stark that did all those bad things was essentially dead, the new Tony Stark - which was actually a copy of the old Tony Stark - was once again a hero, and the product of his biggest mistake, the files of the Superhuman Registration Act, were gone. Redemption.