Iron Man invents Google

[hatman]

Hi there. Been a while. I've been reading through old Marvel issues and came across this. It's half a page from Iron Man 246, cover date September 1989. (That's postdated by about 6 months, of course.) It's not a full issue review or anything, but I thought it might be of interest.

Tony has recently been shot, paralyzing him from the waist down. He finds the situation intolerable. He spends a while sulking until he realizes that he can modify his armor to move his legs for him based on neural impulses.

(Of course, it never occurs to him that this is a major revolution in medical technology which could benefit thousands, perhaps millions of people and make him a bundle of money in the process. Because, as TV Tropes puts it, Reed Richards is useless.*

*Warning: TV Tropes link. Do not click unless you have several hours to kill and room for a dozen more browser tabs.)

Instead, he throws himself into being Iron Man while, as much as possible, avoiding being Tony Stark. Then he comes up with an idea:



(Hosted on Flickr)

If only there was some way to search every computer connected to the fledgling Internet for certain "key phrases" and return information based on the results! He could learn all sorts of things about his medical condition and what treatments might be available!

He tasks an employee with writing a "virus" to do it, knowing that it's a difficult task, and (in light of data privacy issues) not entirely ethical.

This is early 1989. Altavista was founded in 1995. Google (the search engine now part of just about everything on the Internet, with questionable privacy ethics) was founded in September of 1998. WebMD was founded in 1996. (And Tony's virus doesn't even try to convince you that you have cancer.)

Tony Stark was, characteristically, years ahead of the curve.

But, of course, it didn't occur to him to patent and monetize that idea, either.

Comments

[icon_uk]

What Tony is looking for seems to be more along the lines of PRISM, which means he is still way ahead of his time of course, but less ethical!

[yvonmukluk]

One alternative explanation I've kind of liked for Marvel Time is that it's like, 1976 or whenever, just Reed Richards and Tony Stark kicked off a massive technological revolution (with knock-on effects for wider society) that means it looks suspiciously like the present day.

So who knows, maybe Tony Stark *did* patent & monetize that idea.

[freezer]

"You want me to insinuate a virus into the worldwide computer network..."

Because, y;know, there was just the one.

[obsidianwolf]

Funnily enough that's the second time Abe's done this in Ironman comics. Abe was the comic super genius with computers that Tony went too before marvel got lazy and decided their super genius characters could do any field they needed to.

[locuatico]

EXCEPT curing cancer...

[obsidianwolf]

Well they can but only if they are gigantic evil dick bags about it and only keep it for their single country.

[cainofdreaming]

Or try to kill Deadpool with it.

[hatman]

Deadpool already had cancer. What they did is splice in the genetic code for Wolverine's healing factor. But that wound up affecting the cancer cells more than his healthy cells. Which, given the nature of cancer cells, actually makes a lot of sense.

[cainofdreaming]

If you follow the train of thought in the conversation it'll become pretty clear that "it" referred to the cure, rather than Wade's cancer. Osborn came up with one too, and tried to use it to kill Wade during the Dark Reign.

Also, guess I'm the designated bad guy since not even Icon thought to mention this, you might want to check the community rules about pictures outside of the cut. There's a limit of 400x300 pixels.

[hatman]

Sorry. I'll fix that shortly. Like I said, it's been a while since I've been by.

[hatman]

Also, I'd missed the thing with Norman. I've gotten burnt out on Deadpool, and I haven't liked anything involving Osborn since they brought him back. Thanks for the explanation.

(The train of thought seemed to make sense to me, since ostensibly the healing factor they gave Wade was supposed to cure his cancer.)

[icon_uk]

Icon hadn't noticed because he was viewing in a small browser window at work.

You're willingness to be the most evil of evil ones speaks well of you, thanks!

[chrisdv]

Good ol' Norms.

[thanekos]

Upside, Tony's not filing the patent means the world was spared him going on a paranoid proprietary almost-certainly-infinitely-less-justifiable patent-swinging legal version of Armor Wars some while later.

('sides, what does he care? He's got the Starkphone for ready bank.)