http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-b ... 75392.html



"Tony Stark is also a Heinlein hero, a more liberal one, but coming from the fundamental libertarian strain that marked Robert Heinlein's work.

When Stan Lee created Tony Stark in 1963, Heinlein was the biggest science fiction writer around. Well, he was one of the biggest writers around, period. His Stranger In A Strange Land was a smash hit that influenced the counterculture. Before that, Starship Troopers, with its vision of a society run by veterans, inspired conservatives -- not to mention generations of boys and the current military with its flying weaponized armored suits.

It's all here, the know-it-all super-rich hero, the resentment of the bureaucratic mindset, the pithy statements, the endless techno-tinkering, the powered suits, the penchant for leggy redheads."

There are a lot of us in the comic industry who are huge Heinlein fans, and have been influenced by him in ways both big and small. Chris Claremont dropped RAH references in his classic X-Men run, as well as his New Mutants run with Bill Sienkiewicz (even if he called it "Door into Shadow" instead of Door into Summer", which had me looking for quite a while for a non-existent RAH book). Julie Schwartz at DC got his start as a SciFi Author's agent, repping folks like Bester, and took MANY fliers on books he knew might not do well because of a personal determination to see ScFi do well in comics.

The 'funny' thing is, how many comic creators are closet RAH fans... will admit it over drinks, but would never bring it up in interviews for fear of having the labels that sometimes accompany RAH put onto them.

'funny' not in the haha term, but the sad, obv.

Of course Iron Man is a Heinlein hero....before the alcoholism got added.

But then, Iron Man is Starship Troopers armor....

And so is Dr. Doom...

Lee knew his SF....

Robert