At the great risk of launching a discussion on something that has already been discussed, I have to ask, what is the difference between the World Triathlon Corporation and North American Sports? Both have “Ironman” races (and control of the brand, I suppose) but they are two different organizations. What’s up??
“Ironman” is owned by Marvel Comics. WTC licences the name from them. In turn, NAS licenses Ironman from WTC to put on a series of races.
A good primer on the brand.
There’s an original Iron Man movie coming out sometime soon, early 2008? Robert Downy Jr. is playing the lead.
Yeah, I saw that. Hollywood has not been good with the minor superheroes (daredevil, hulk, punisher, catwoman, etc). Aside from the pick-up artist 20 years ago and natural born killers, Jr. has not been that good with hollywood. Needless to say, I’m not holding out hope for this one…
The good news is plenty of suckers will have alternate and “clever” new designs for their IM tatoos.
What’s actually interesting is that I was being a total geek and goign through the US Patent and Trademark registry last night.
Interestingly
“Iron Man” as it refers to comic book characters is indeed owned by Marvel
“Ironman” as it refers to sporting events, clothing lines, etc is Owned by WTC.
What that means - I dunno.
Anyone growing up in the 70’s who watched Batman after school between street hockey and pickup football games would be quite happy to attend a Catwoman movie :-). Yes, clearly, Hollywood has not done this supervillian justice 
- “Ironman” is owned by Marvel Comics. WTC licences the name from them."*
And I thought the fact that I feel like a super hero in my tri suit was just misplaced ego a coincidence…