Last year, Robert Downey Jr played Iron Man with such steely intensity that the film struck gold. It has so far grossed over £400m. Comic-book fans know that Iron Man is far from the factory-fresh creation he may seem: he made his debut in Marvel Comics in America 46 years ago. But in fact, his origins go back even further. The clues are there in his first appearance, in Marvel’s Tales of Suspense in March 1963, where we learn that the hero’s alter ego, Anthony Stark, “is both

a sophisticate and a scientist! A millionaire bachelor, as much at home in a laboratory as in high society!” Stark is drawn as a dark-haired debonair hunk with a moustache, habitually in the company of beautiful babes. But after he becomes Iron Man, he must continually withdraw from the spotlight to secretly recharge his ailing heart with electricity. In a 1968 comic we see one such withdrawal sparking headlines such as “Stark in Seclusion!” and “Playboy Industrialist Becomes Recluse!” Stan Lee, who wrote the earliest Iron Man stories, has now admitted to a cast-iron inspiration for the superhero. “I kind of had Howard Hughes in mind when I was thinking of Tony Stark,” he said recently. Hughes, the real American playboy, set up the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932 and worked on state-of the-art flying machines, like his famous Spruce Goose — while Stark turned himself into a jet-powered flying machine. Both adored luxury cars and gadgets, and both had the potential to live like kings but had to retreat from public life, though in Hughes’s case that was due to severe mental problems. Now Iron Man’s link with Hughes has come full circle: part of the film was shot in the hangar in LA where the Spruce Goose was built. A sequel is in the works.

Times recommends

• McDonald’s: the world’s local restaurant
• Help me to be a mum: a foyer to fulfilment
• A life online: God likes a laugh