{"id":19203,"date":"2013-05-01T13:33:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T18:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=19203"},"modified":"2013-05-02T16:12:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T21:12:07","slug":"techfiction-the-many-armors-of-iron-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/entertainment\/comics\/techfiction-the-many-armors-of-iron-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Techfiction: The Many Armors Of Iron Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it, everyone loves a guy in a snazzy suit especially when that snazzy suit is the Iron Man armor and that man is Tony Stark, as played by the amazing Robert Downy Jr. Iron Man 3<\/em> opens this Friday in the U.S., and everyone is eager to see if the franchise that made The Avengers<\/em> possible has what it takes to fly above previous sales.<\/p>\n

As someone who’s always been something of an Iron Man fan, I’m well versed in the character’s many armors. A few favorites stand out, which we’ll look at here, along with real-world tech that has\u00a0influenced\u00a0the armor and vice versa.<\/p>\n

Golden Avenger<\/h3>\n

Remember Stark’s prototype armor from the first movie? Big, scary, and brutal. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect someone to build as an improvised engine of destruction. One issue after the debut of Iron Man, someone decided that the Mark I was just too mean looking. The solution? Paint.<\/p>\n

\"Bonus<\/a>

Bonus feature: sexism!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seriously. The \u00a0gold* armor seen above was visually the same as the first suit, but painted gold. Way before we became excited about being able to buy a smartphone in multiple colors, Tony Stark was rocking the multichrome.<\/p>\n

Also, huge feature you wouldn’t expect was a tape machine, which Tony used to\u00a0imitate\u00a0world leaders.<\/p>\n

\"Additionally,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interestingly, the\u00a0armor was 3D knitted, a term strikingly similar to 3D printing.<\/p>\n

*Yes, I’m aware that this is in fact, not gold but yellow, but that’s due to the limitations of early comics tech.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Transistor\u00a0Powered, Because That Totally Means Something<\/h3>\n

In\u00a0Tales of Suspense<\/em> #48, artist Steve Ditko decides that Iron Man should look a bit more modern and that though leads to the creation of this new look.<\/p>\n

\"Ditko<\/a>

Ditko is awesome. That is science fact.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a much longer version of the above, with lots of tech goodies, check this out<\/a>. This sequence starts the tradition of treating the science fiction elements of Iron Man as science fact, complete with schematics.<\/p>\n

This armor was tweaked from time to time and had some out there features, like the time Tony Stark thought Iron Man needed a nose.<\/p>\n

\"Which<\/a>

Which he removed after he was mocked by fans. Really.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

And\u00a0impractical\u00a0features like roller skates.<\/p>\n

\"First

First appearing as an attempt to kill U.S. soldiers.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The best part about this armor though was that it was constantly referred to as “transistor\u00a0powered.” For those who don’t understand why that’s odd, transistors don’t power anything. It was merely the application of a buzzword.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Silver Centurion<\/h3>\n

The Iron Man armor evolved for years, but was pretty much just variations on a theme until Marvel decided to ditch the red and gold for a new look.<\/p>\n

The red and silver (yes, not white, silver, which is again a choice based on early comics coloring tech) was an\u00a0insanely\u00a0powerful armor, with force fields, tractor beams, and high tech weapons like pulse bolts, a unibeam that blasts out of Iron Man’s chests, hologram projectors, and wicked shoulder pads.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>

It was the 80s, so the shoulderpads made sense then. Really.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite being fairly\u00a0short-lived, the Silver Centurion armor lives on in the hearts and minds of fans. This armor even influenced the design of the suitcase armor in Iron Man 2<\/em> as well as the design of Rescue, the suit of armor worn by Pepper Potts in the comics, rumored to make an appearance in Iron Man 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I can’t find any new real world tech that was added to the silver armor. It could be that we just haven’t caught up with some of the more fantastic elements in this particular version. The holographic imaging as a sort of visual countermeasure could be something with real military applications.<\/p>\n

Then again, this is the era where the “radiation” from the armor drove Jim Rhodes and Tony insane at different points. That makes the characters’ portrayed illness a prediction of sorts for people allergic to WiFi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Iron Man, Sponsored By Skype<\/h3>\n

In the 1990s, Tony Stark was shot and bound to a wheelchair. To get around this, Marvel introduced the concept of telepresence, the ability to make it appear as if you’re present through technological means or to control remotely objects, to the Iron Man mythos. At first, the comic creators used an empty suit of armor and a chip in Stark’s brain. Eventually, Iron Man became a robot controlled by Stark’s mind.<\/p>\n

\"Note<\/a>

Note the lack of mouth, hated by fans.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the way, this era is also notable to movie fans for one other reason: It gave us the War Machine armor, the first Iron Man suit to use projectile weapons and be overall badass.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Extremis<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0consciousness 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\u00a0to Iron Man, giving readers tech that was as cool in the real world as it was in the comic book one. This\u00a0storyline\u00a0is largely going to inform the Iron Man 3<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

\"iron-man-armor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Seriously<\/a>

Seriously awesome.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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\u00a0forgettable\u00a0(like the S.K.I.N. armor)? Time, and box office returns, will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it, everyone loves a guy in a snazzy suit especially when that snazzy suit is the Iron Man armor and that man is Tony Stark, as played by the amazing Robert Downy Jr. Iron Man 3 opens this Friday in the U.S., and everyone is eager to see if the franchise that made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,14,905,45,907,47],"tags":[2302,633,4631,3,4632,2304,4551,4629,379,364,4627,4630,2746,2046,4554,4628],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19203"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19219,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19203\/revisions\/19219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}