Marvel’s very first live-action superhero Iron Man is the talk of Twitter this morning as an intuitive Marvel fan asks a critical question about Robert Downey Jr.’s on-screen character that subsequently went viral. Obviously, the “Iron Man” moniker is derived from the titanium armor worn by genius inventor Tony Stark during battle, but why is he called Iron Man? Why not something different?
User @mariana057 took to Twitter to ask the very same serious, thought-provoking question. They wrote, “Why is Iron Man called Iron Man and not Fe-Male?” For the uninformed few, Fe-Male is a clever play on words and a delightful periodic pun regarding the table of elements, wherein the abbreviation for “iron” is “Fe.” From there, we break down the word “female” into “Fe” and “male” — translated in nerd-speak as “Iron Male” or “Iron Man,” which is pretty clever, if you think about it.
Now, we turn to Marvel Studios and ask, “Why was Iron Man called Iron Man and not Fe-Male?” Iron Man is self-explanatory and bland, but “Fe-Male” is creative, clever and absolutely what Tony Stark should have chosen as his superhero persona — right?
Published: Apr 7, 2022 11:08 am