During the war in Afghanistan, Stark was at one of his munitions plants testing new technology for the military when he was injured by his own land mine that lodged shrapnel near his heart. Tony was then captured by a local warlord named Wong-Chu (a lackey of the Mandarin) and forced under threat of death to create a doomsday weapon for him with another captive, the famed Nobel award-winning physicist, Yin Sen. The shrapnel was going to enter his heart and kill him, but he and the physicist created an arc reactor which kept the sharpnel away from his heart. In response, Tony built a suit of armor to help himself escape captivity. In the suit, Stark took on the warlord and his men and avenged Yin Sen's death, thus Iron Man was born.