>>112279414Okay, I'm willing to give it a go.
Original Tony Stark betrays the Avengers. The Avengers need "a" Tony Stark, if not necessarily the one they have in order to overcome the situation this presents. They get this alternate-universe Tony that's still a teenager to come over to Earth 616 and deal with it, ending in the original Tony Stark being killed. This alt-universe Tony takes his place as the protagonist of the book.
Onslaught happens, and the Fantastic Four, most of the Avengers and a few others are all killed in the process of defeating Onslaught. Franklin Richards re-creates them, more or less as he remembers them and thinks of them, in a little pocket universe, which is the "Heroes Reborn" storyline. The re-created Tony Stark more closely resembles the original 616 Tony than the alternate-universe teen who gave his life fighting Onslaught.
Eventually they're released back into Earth 616, including this Tony. He digs up the grave of the original 616 Tony just to satisfy his morbid curiosity and finds it empty, save for some weird residual energy readings and concludes that the entity who he now is, is some sort of merged composite of the two versions of himself from these two universes, though if so, he seems to retain essentially nothing from the teen version.
Then Carol Danvers beats him to death, and his armour grows a new copy of him, who is the current Tony Stark present in the comics today.
