Marvel Database
Marvel Database

History

In order to embark on a journey of soul-searching, Tony Stark stepped down from Stark Unlimited, swore off advanced technology and moved to a brownstone in the Lower East Side. He also did away with all of his Iron Man suits, resorting instead on a single vintage-style armor.[2]

Anthony Stark (Earth-616) from Iron Man Vol 6 1 004

Original design

During an invasion on Earth by the symbiote god Knull, the host of the Venom symbiote, Eddie Brock, was fatally injured when stripped off it. In a desperate attempt to save his life, Iron Man set out to find a symbiote for Brock to bond with it. To this end, Stark infected one of Knull's symbiote dragons with Extremis to cut it off from the symbiote hive. In the process, the symbiote that Iron Man subdued infused into his armor and transmuted it.[3] Following Knull's defeat, Stark kept his symbiote, which he dubbed the Extrembiote, attached to the armor it had transmuted, while he returned to a regular copy of the suit.[4]

King in Black Vol 1 2 Second Printing Variant Textless

The armor infused with the Extrembiote

After Tony interfered in the plans of the evil cyborg Korvac to attain godhood, his neck was broken by the villain. The armor received makeshift modifications to return Stark to fighting form, since he couldn't risk giving up on pursuing Korvac. The rings of the armor's cervical column were welded together to stabilize Stark's spinal injury, and a morphine drip was added to ease the pain of the injury. Although unable to remove the chest and helmet of the suit, Tony managed to continue his chase to stop Korvac from acquiring the Power Cosmic.[5] The pursuit ended with both Iron Man and Korvac imbuing themselves with the Power Cosmic, and Tony's suit was transmuted in the process of becoming the "Iron God."[6] In this form, the suit became an extension of Tony's short-lived omnipotence, as he was capable of materializing the suit out of thin air,[7] and it disappeared when Tony gave up the Power Cosmic.[8] Stark returned to another regular copy of the armor afterward.[9]

Anthony Stark (Earth-616) from Iron Man Vol 6 14 003

The armor becoming an extension of the Power Cosmic

When the corrupt industrialist Feilong began targeting Tony as part of an elaborate plan to take over Stark Unlimited, he sabotaged the arc reactor generator of Tony's laboratory, causing his entire brownstone to explode. Tony was tinkering with the faceplate of the Model 70 when this happened, and it was heavily damaged. After settling down in Bronson's Cabs Depot, Tony repaired the Model 70 with his limited resources, replacing the blemished faceplate for a new one that was also damaged.[10] During a subsequent confrontation with the Living Laser, Tony's makeshift mask was further damaged, forcing him to retrofit the Model 70's original faceplate, still charred from the brownstone's explosion, to the tweaked helmet.[11] Shortly afterward, Feilong succeeded his bid for Stark Unlimited. Becoming the owner of all of Stark's patents, he sent Tony a cease-and-desist to stop wearing his own armor.[12] Iron Man eventually relented, hollowing out the Model 70, Tony crumbled up the suit and crashed it into the Stark Unlimited HQ's hobby as an act of malicious compliance. As a result, Stark switched full-time to his latest, clandestine armor, a stealth suit christened the Model Nil.[13]

Properties

Overview[]

This suit possesses the standard abilities of a regular Iron Man Armor, including flight, enhanced strength, increased durability and repulsor blasts.[2] It is equipped with computer systems that include communications, environmental scanners, navigation and compass systems, medical diagnosis, biosignature tracking,[14] molecular analysis,[15] facial recognition software and radio jamming.[10] These are operated by a low-level A.I. named B.O.S.S.,[2] which is protected by an AES-256 encryption.[9] The armor can be operated remotely,[16] and B.O.S.S. can also maneuver the suit on its own on command.[14] Suit-up is achieved via a magnetic assembly process in which individual pieces of the armor fly to the user, encasing them in a matter of seconds. The suit-up can be triggered with a voice command, but it also responds automatically to emergencies.[9] Hand gestures can also be used to guide the armor's suit-up to a different target. If any part of the suit is open while its user is struck, it automatically snaps shut fast and seals tight.[17]

Anthony Stark (Earth-616) from Iron Man Vol 6 20 001

Automatic magnetic assembly

The armor is outfitted with a hydrogen-based propulsion system.[14] It can break the sound barrier almost instantly,[18] and it can reach hypersonic speeds of approximately 4,700 mph (7,565 km/h),[19] presenting a manoeuvrability capable of dodging rapid-fire lasers.[20] The Model 70 also features an autopilot.[17]

In terms of gadgets and secondary systems, the armor can extend autonomous connection cords, and deploy a set of robotic spiders for infiltration purposes, which can carry computer viruses.[20] As a measure for crowd control, the armor can dislodge a set of three discs from its left heel. In tandem, these warning beacons project a giant hologram of Iron Man with a pre-recorded message warning bystanders that he is tackling an emergency nearby.[21] The armor's heels can also deploy a set of roller blades similar to older Iron Man suits for faster ground travel.[9] Van der Waals adhesion circuits provide the armor with the ability to stick to such surfaces like high-speed trains.[16] The Model 70 is also equipped with a tracker connected to Tony Stark's phone.[13] When Tony Stark was critically injured and suffered a broken neck, he had a morphine drip temporarily installed into the suit's left bicep with three months' worth of supply.[22]

When the suit was infused with the Extrembiote, it gained the ability to project symbiotic tendrils that returned to the armor on their own. The armor's repulsor beams were also modified in such a way they could cleanse Knull's corruption off its victims.[23] The symbiote also allowed the armor to override Knull's influence on one of the Celestials under his control, granting its wearer full control over Knull's former victims.[24]

Anthony Stark (Earth-616) from Iron Man Annual Vol 3 1 004

Wide-dispersal fan beam repulsors

Offensive Powers[]

Like most Iron Man suits, this armor possesses both repulsor blasts and a unibeam. The suit's repulsor output is customizable, displaying the ability to change their configuration from regular blasts to forms such as a wide-dispersal fan beam,[20] and an "iron sniper" mode which fires shots the width of a quarter with maximum sound suppression.[25] The unibeam includes a setting nicknamed "the can opener," which possesses immense destructive potential, and is capable of destroying a fellow Iron Man suit, but is reserved for special occasions due to its limited charge.[16]

Other offensive weapons include micro-munitions, and palm-mounted,[20] dual shoulder-mounted,[26] and dual bicep-mounted protractible missile launchers.[12] The Model 70 is armed with at least three types of nonlethal rounds,[10] one of them being dual shoulder-mounted miniature machine guns that fire unidentified projectiles. The third nonlethal round is a pellet that fires from the right deltoid area and expands in contact into an immobilizing non-Newtonian sludge,[12] and it was designed specifically to disengage traditional jet propulsion.[17] From the index fingers of its gloves, the armor can fire either a stream of liquid nitrogen,[10] or a laser.[11] The suit can also generate a city block-sized EMP bubble that resets every electronic device inside its radius.[12]

The Model 70's autonomic propulsion systems can also be used offensively. For instance, the suit's user can fire off the armor's gauntlets to grasp enemies from a distance, and then have the glove circle its target and fire repulsors like a drone.[27] The armor can punch with a force of 20,000 newtons at a speed of 500 mph. When Stark made on-the-fly upgrades to fight Korvac, he doubled the suit's punch force to 40,000 newtons.[28]

Anthony Stark (Earth-616) from Iron Man Vol 6 23 001

Stealth mode

Defensive Powers[]

Aside from the ability to deploy protective force fields,[11] the Model 70 itself can shield its wearer from a wide array of hazards, including electric currents, underwater environments, fire,[20] magnetic fields,[29] low Earth orbit environment[12] and psychic intrusion.[13] Its full durability was displayed when Iron Man managed to punch a hole through a sphere composed of Vibranium and Adamantium, albeit breaking 17 of his bones and damaging the suit in the process.[30] The suit could also withstand being crushed between the blows of two Stark Sentinels and remain fully operational despite superficial damage.[17][13]

For foreign toxic agents, the Model 70 possesses a configurable air filtration system,[15] and counter-measures against ingested toxins.[11] The armor can also act as a defibrillator[31] and a pacemaker.[11] For aerial combat, the suit can deploy flares from its calves as a countermeasure against missiles.[16] For stealth purposes, the Model 70 can render its entire surface either white or black,[25] but it can also turn itself almost invisible using electrochromatophore multi-spectrum active camo.[16] The suit can also cast holographic decoys.[32]

Notes

  • This suit's designation as the Iron Man Armor Model 70 was initially given by the Marvel Database in a tentative manner. This designation was officialized in Iron Man (Vol. 6) #20.
  • Iron Man (Vol. 6) colorist Frank D'Armata miscolored the jaw of this armor's faceplate red throughout issues 16. Starting with issue 7, the jaw started being colored gold.
  • The soles of this armor were originally meant to be gold, as it can be seen in Alex Ross' covers to Iron Man (Vol. 6) #3 and #6. They were colored inconsistently in the interior artwork, and Ross started coloring them red with the cover of Iron Man (Vol. 6) #11. In comics such as Captain America/Iron Man #1, the soles were even recolored from gold to red between the preview pages and the final version, as it can be seen here. In Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5), the soles were consistently colored gold.
  • Despite the suit's trademark see-through eyeslits, it has been drawn with the conventional glowing eyes in several appearances outside Iron Man's main title, and notably in series such as Avengers (Vol. 8) or A.X.E.: Judgment Day. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #22 has showcased that the armor can make its eyes glow, but appears to be reserved to instances when the armor is in some kind of scanning mode.

Trivia

  • This suit is the second vintage style designed by Alex Ross, the previous being the Iron Man Armor Model 16.
  • This armor was originally designed and pitched by Ross in 2018 as a reimagining of the Classic Armor with its aesthetics revamped to modern standards. At the time, Marvel already had Iron Man's path planned out, but they let Ross use the redesign for a variant cover for Invincible Iron Man #600.[33] This new armor eventually debuted in the pages of the comics in Iron Man (Vol. 6) #1, released two years after its inception and its first appearance in the variant cover.
  • The armor's practical segmentation is inspired by the aesthetic of the Iron Man Armor from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[34]
  • One of the key distinctions of this armor's design is that it's meant to be drawn with an extremely reflective chrome finish.[35]
  • Iron Man (Vol. 6) writer Christopher Cantwell has stated that his one piece of input in terms of the armor was being able to see Tony's eyes within the helmet. It was extremely important to him to drop the glow in Iron Man's eyeslits in order to humanize the character.[36] This distinctive feature was already present in Alex Ross' concept art for this armor.[35]
  • In addition to the visibility of the eyes, it was important for Cantwell for the armor to feel like pieces that Stark puts on, which is reflected with the armor's first suit-up sequence in Iron Man (Vol. 6) #1, in which it can be seen the way the sections of the armor connect.[37]

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. Extreme Carnage Omega #1
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Iron Man (Vol. 6) #1
  3. King in Black #2
  4. Extreme Carnage Alpha #1
  5. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #5
  6. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #14
  7. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #16
  8. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #18
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Iron Man (Vol. 6) #20
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #1
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #2
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #4
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #9
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 Iron Man (Vol. 6) #21
  15. 15.0 15.1 Iron Man (Vol. 6) #22
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Iron Cat #4
  17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #8
  18. Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #5
  19. Iron Man/Hellcat Annual #1 ; Tony Stark mentions that he can fly from New York City to San Francisco in 33 minutes, which entails covering a orthodromic distance of ~2,580 miles (~4,160 km)
  20. 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 Iron Man Annual (Vol. 3) #1
  21. Captain America/Iron Man #1
  22. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #10
  23. King in Black: Iron Man/Doom #1
  24. King in Black #3
  25. 25.0 25.1 Avengers (Vol. 8) #47
  26. Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #1
  27. Avengers (Vol. 8) #51
  28. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #7
  29. X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #2
  30. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #2
  31. Iron Man (Vol. 6) #3
  32. Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #6
  33. Ross, Alex (August 20, 2020) Iron Man by Alex Ross Facebook. Retrieved on September 19, 2020.
  34. Ross, A. and Kidd, C., 2018. Marvelocity: The Marvel Comics Art of Alex Ross. New York: Knopf.
  35. 35.0 35.1 Ross, Alex (June 12, 2020) New- Iron Man designs Facebook. Retrieved on September 19, 2020.
  36. Spry, Jeff (August 3, 2020) Co-creator of Halt and Catch Fire on how his TV work helped him reboot Marvel Comics' Iron Man Syfy Wire. Retrieved on September 19, 2020.
  37. Geek History Lesson (January 31, 2021) Iron Man Spotlight with Christopher Cantwell YouTube. Retrieved on April 10, 2021.