Extremis
The next decade would bring a ton of armors to Iron Man: modular, Hulkbuster, liquid metal, Thorbuster, and a thousand others that basically failed to lodge in the consciousness of the reader. It wasn’t until writer Warren Ellis came on as writer for the comic book that he brought back the futurist concept to Iron Man, giving readers tech that was as cool in the real world as it was in the comic book one. This storyline is largely going to inform the Iron Man 3 film, so we’ll avoid spoilers, but it manages to borrow from past concepts (telepresence and the armor as part of Stark’s body), while creating something new and 21st century. Iron Man is now connected not just to his own armor, but via that armor to the entire digital world.
Ellis, something of a tech buff, sprinkled real-world tech like PANs (personal area networks) and the like throughout the comic. Eventually, the Extremis concept was ended when a computer virus threatened to eat Stark’s brain, and he had to “reboot” himself, which brings us back to traditional armors.
Post Extremis, most armors are at least influenced by the movies, with the recent black and gold being my favorite. Still liquid metal, the armor wasn’t stored in Stark’s bones, but instead was at rest as a suitcase.
Seriously awesome.
Unfortunately, the armor was short-lived, and a new space-centric armor is currently headlining the book. (Not coincidentally, Tony Stark donned the new space armor to work alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy, which is in the process itself of becoming a movie to be released in 2014.)
As the one constant with Iron Man armor is change, we’re pretty much guaranteed more armors. Will the next one be iconic (like the Silver Centurion) or forgettable (like the S.K.I.N. armor)? Time, and box office returns, will tell.
Greg Land was drawing Iron Man? Where on earth was he finding porn of guys in armor?