Ho Yinsen

Publication history

Professor Yinsen first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963), and was created by Stan Lee (writer), Larry Lieber (writer) and Don Heck (artist). The character is an Asian scientist, whose background and first name vary, appearing only in the origin of Iron Man and its retellings.

Original character biography

Professor Yinsen was a pacifistic, physicist and engineer from the fictional nation of Timbetpal; while Tony Stark was in college, Stark had greatly admired the older man's work. In his old age, Yinsen was captured in Vietnam by the Communist warlord Wong-Chu before American arms manufacturer and engineer Tony Stark was also captured. Stark had tripped a land mine and been injured with shrapnel that was slowly moving toward his heart. Yinsen builds a magnetic chest plate and affixes it to Stark's chest, thus preventing the shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart, thereby saving Stark's life and keeping him alive. Wong-Chu then orders Yinsen and Stark to build weapons for him. Instead, Yinsen helps Stark secretly build the first Iron Man armor, which includes a device for Stark's heart to keep him alive. Yinsen sacrifices his life distracting Wong-Chu in order to buy time for Stark to power up his armor. Stark dons the armor, becoming Iron Man; defeats Wong-Chu, apparently killing him in the explosion of a munitions shed; and frees all of Wong-Chu's prisoners.

Twelve of Wong-Chu's former prisoners were disciples of Yinsen; one of these disciples (Sun-Tao) leads them to establish a quasi-religious cult called the Sons of Yinsen. The Sons of Yinsen develop very advanced technology from notes in Yinsen's journal that he had written before his death; they use this technology to create the apparent utopia of New Timbetpal, a floating, ambulatory, usually-cloaked city in the sky. It is revealed that Wong-Chu survived the munitions shed explosion and that Yinsen's brain was preserved alive, salvaged by an interdimensional merchant called Doctor Midas. Doctor Midas sold Yinsen's brain in an auction to Wong-Chu. Iron Man- driven by his own guilt that he never looked for Yinsen himself, simply assuming that his friend had been killed while focusing on his own escape- helps the Sons of Yinsen defeat Wong-Chu, who is beheaded by one of the Sons of Yinsen, and recover Yinsen's brain.

The Sons of Yinsen attempt to resurrect Professor Yinsen by placing his brain inside a sentient Iron Man armor, which, unknown to them, is actually under Ultron's control. Falsely believing Ultron to be a resurrected Ho Yinsen, the Sons of Yinsen follow his directives toward planning for a war; only Sun-Tao refuses to obey, for which he is displaced as leader of the Sons of Yinsen by a man named Tyger Minn. Ultron leads the Sons of Yinsen to reveal themselves to the public and establish the Church of Yinsen. Sun-Tao recovers Yinsen's brain, and then Iron Man, Sun-Tao, and Jocasta work together to defeat Ultron and the Sons of Yinsen and free Ultron's prisoner Antigone. Ultron attempts to blow up the floating city of the Sons of Yinsen to kill all of them as well as Iron Man; however, the sentient armor has apparently absorbed enough of the thoughts of Yinsen that part of it acts to save Iron Man and Sun-Tao from the destruction of the city.

Character biography after the Afghanistan retcon

In the "Execute Program" story arc of Invincible Iron Man vol. 4, a retcon establishes that Tony Stark and Ho Yinsen had been captured not by Communists in Vietnam, but rather by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and that Ho Yinsen was murdered under orders from five terrorists (Dennis Kellard, Ara Tanzerian, Zakim Karzai, Aftaab Lemar, and Kareem Mahwash Najeeb). Before he died, Yinsen had been coerced into implanting a "bio-magnetic receiving unit" inside Stark's brain. In a failed attempt to recover the control device for the implant, the terrorists send a hitman (Andrei Gorlovich) to murder Yinsen's wife.

Years later, some of the five terrorists have become diplomats. Yinsen's grieving teenage son (whose name is never revealed), blaming Stark for the deaths of his parents, takes control of the device in Stark's brain and uses it to mind-control him into assassinating all five of the former terrorists. Thus guilty of the assassinations, when Stark, in order to try to prove his innocence, confronts Yinsen's son, Yinsen's son is shot and killed with a sniper rifle by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent acting by order of the callous Nick Fury.

As part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel, Yinsen is revealed to have a daughter named Dr. Toni Ho who works as an engineer where she has three doctorates. She becomes a member of the rehabilitated A.I.M. where it's acronym was changed from Advanced Idea Mechanic to Avengers Idea Mechanic after it was bought out by Sunspot. As part of the Avengers Idea Mechanics, Dr. Toni Ho serves as a part of the support team for the New Avengers. Toni Ho joined up with the U.S.Avengers in her version of the Iron Patriot armor.

Marvel Adventures

In the Marvel Adventures continuity, Gia-Bao Yinsen was a pacifistic inventor and professor from the fictional city of Madripoor who criticizes Tony Stark for allowing weapons Stark designed to fall into the hands of A.I.M., who are using the weapons to attack Madripoor. While flying an experimental plane, Stark is brought down and captured by A.I.M., who also is holding Yinsen prisoner. Using the wreckage from Stark's plane, Stark and Yinsen work together to design a pair of Iron Man armors, one gold and the other red, which both don. Yinsen is killed during their escape from A.I.M.

Iron Man: Season One

Dr. Hoy Yin Sen is a national from the fictional country of Chardistan. He dies by accident when a bullet aimed at Iron Man is deflected.

Marvel Mangaverse

In Marvel Mangaverse, Ho Yinsen is one of the creators of the Iron Man technology.

Iron Man: Fatal Frontier

On Earth-14029 as seen in the Iron Man: Fatal Frontier Infinite Comics, this version of Ho Yinsen was still a captive of Afghanistan terrorists. When Yinsen was about to operate Tony Stark to put an electromagnet in his chest to save him from shrapnel approaching his heart, Stark refused salvation and against Ho's will activated a weapons-free "Rescue suit" for Yinsen to escape captivity. In his final worlds, Stark requested Yinsen to use the suit to rescue the world from people like him. Yinsen escaped the Afghan terrorists' cave by deflecting bullets using the armor's abilities. On the way home, Yinsen saved a DC-10 from crashing discovering he could use this armor to protect the world as Rescue. Yinsen later improved the Rescue suit. At some point in time, he briefly fought the Defenders over a misunderstanding before eventually joining them and expanding across the world turning Earth into a "Defenders World." In the present day, Yinsen was giving a speech commemorating the death of Tony Stark and the day he became Rescue.

Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders

During the Secret Wars storyline, a variation of Ho Yinsen resides on the Battleworld domain of Yinsen City where he served as it's Baron. He is also shown to have a daughter named Toni who operates as Kid Rescue. Based on dreams he has of a pre-Battleworld Earth, he likely came from the Earth-14029.

Television

Film

Video games