Tony Stark has sure had his ups and downs as of late, eh kids? However, this week the big topic has not been the terrible things Marvel’s put him through he’s done, but his armors. From what I can tell, it started with Topless Robot, went on to Siskoid, where I first heard of it, and finally today at the Colussus of Rhodey. Some time ago, Iron staffer Bob Layton release his top five and bottom five. Well, once my brain finally settled down from what should have been the easy task of choosing a theme for the blog, I decided to make my own comments. So here are the armors that have made the biggest impression on me, yea or nay, in random order.
I start out with my favorite functionally. It was also the armor used in the Iron Man cartoon. What I like about it is that when he needs specific gear he doesn’t have to go through the trouble of taking one set of armor off in order to put on another. If he’s just going out on his usual baddie-busting, he just throws this on. He needs a specific tool? Just slap it on. Have to take on the Hulk? Just link up to the Hulkbuster addition, and your good to go. It is the Swiss army knife of armors.
I’m not one to break out the “that looks so gay” line, as it’s stupid. However, if I were, this would get it. Used during the Bad Blood miniseries, it’s one of Tony’s many space and near space armors. And it just looks bad. I’m sorry, but it does.
Remember this baby?
The End Armor
Remember this thing from my review of Iron Man: The End? It’s kept in microscopic particles floating around the wearer until he activates it. Or something like that. That and taking out the traditional repulsors (advanced technology be slagged) makes it my current least favorite armor ever, even if it is from an alternate future. And I still maintain it looks like the Martian Manhunter is the new Iron Man.
Visually my favorite armor. Sure, it’s lacking the gold part, but I like to imagine what the silver part would look like gold. I remember seeing a Super Hero Squad figure with just that color scheme, and it looks good.
Heroes Reborn/Prometheum Armor
So after the whole Teen Tony fiasco, and the Onslaught clusterball, Tony Stark returns to his old adult self in a parallel universe that ends up being inside a toy ball. Yeah, it makes only slightly more sense if you read the whole Heroes Reborn comic. In the HR world, Tony is a total jerk, who is also still a genius. He has designed three armors, but fate forces him into one of them, dubbed the Prometheum armor. It’s ugly. With the huge exaust pipes on the back and the wires all exposed, it doesn’t seem like a good idea, even if it is supposed to be this Tony’s first armor.
When Tony gets back, he at the age he should be (still doesn’t make sense) and ditches his alternate universe armor for something better and more traditional. This is the first armor that actually looks like armor rather than a robot or a costume with a few armor pieces. Later on he has to upgrade the armor’s internal shielding because, as Hank Pym put it, wearing the armor is like being inside a live power line, and it’s killing Tony. The new bulkier model no longer fits in his briefcase, but I would love to see that armor-up sequence properly animated. That’s what makes it one of my favorites.
Not counting the Sentient armor, but that’s a post in itself.
My vote for the worst armor in the history of ever! Seriously, nothing here is good. First of all it’s the ugliest Iron Man armor ever designed, and there have been a number of contenders. Then there’s the story it came from, the whole “Hogan Potts” incident, which ties in to the Ty Stone clusterball and the Realvision nightmare (in more ways than one). Add to that Ultron using the SKIN technology to turn kids into Cybermen, the fact that the technology company that created parts of the tech was bought by Tony and forgotten, and really you just have to hate this thing on all levels, even if one or two of the weapons were a good idea…in a better armor.
I mostly brought this up because one of the others put the armor down. Outside of the flat head, how can you not support an armor powerful enough to take out Thor, back when Thor nearly started a war and Tony had to take him down. Strange how times change, eh?
There are more armors, but I already fried my brain today on what should have been an hour-long task at best, but ended up waisting an entire afternoon. Happy New Year to everyone, and let’s hope 2009 is better than 2008.
I’m so off to a bad start.
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