History
The Mark Nil was a stealth armor created by Tony Stark shortly after the acquisition of Stark Unlimited by the human supremacist Feilong. He first used it to infiltrate a factory in Texas where Feilong was using the technology of the company to mass-produce Stark Sentinels.[1]
Iron Man defaulted to the Mark Nil after Feilong issued him a cease-and-desist which forced him to turn over his then-primary suit, the Model 70. Stark notably used the Mark Nil during his missions to subvert the campaign of mutant oppression of Feilong's allies, the think tank Orchis,[2] and to continue serving with the Avengers.[3] The Mark Nil was eventually superseded by Stark's subsequent primary suit, the Mysterium Armor. As a matter of fact, in the lead-up to the final battle against Orchis, Tony left the Mark Nil behind in the Hellfire Club as it burned.[4] Stark later retrieved it from the burnt-down building since the suit had survived the fire.[5]Properties
Like any stealth armor, the Mark Nil favors undetectability and furtiveness above all else. To this end, it possesses active camouflage which renders the armor virtually invisible;[1] being able to extend this effect to anything its user holds. The effectiveness of the suit's cloaking its tied to is energy expense, and it can completely cloak itself at a high-power cost. Something the armor couldn't cloak, however, was the exhaust from its propulsion systems.[6] The suit also possesses what might be Van der Waals adhesion circuits similar to the Iron Man Armor Model 70, which allows it to stick to vertical surfaces, mimicking Spider-Man's wall-crawling.[7] In terms of suit-up, the Mark Nil features an autonomic assembly process. It can fold into and out of the shape of a briefcase.[8]
In addition to this, the armor possesses the standard abilities of an Iron Man suit, including enhanced durability, strength and flight via jet boots,[1] as well as repulsor beams, high-temperature lasers,[2] unibeam and stun darts.[9] However, the suit is physically weaker than a standard Iron Man armor.[1]
Notes
- The Mark Nil is purposefully without an official designation, something Tony Stark thought was pointless especially due to the clandestine nature of the activities he was going to engage in while wearing this suit.[1]
- Despite the Mark Nil's lack of numeric designation, it is very likely that it technically is the Model 71. The designation of its two successors, the Mysterium and Sentinel Buster suits are Model 72 and 73, respectively. This numeration omits three of the four distinct suits that Iron Man had debuted after the Model 70 outside his own comic book: the Celestial Hulkbuster Armor in Thor (Vol. 6) #25, the Dragon-Slayer Armor in Miles Morales: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #7, and a Space Armor in I Am Iron Man #5. The tentatively-named Model 71 was a Hulkbuster Armor that debuted in Hulk (Vol. 6) #1, so it's possible that it would also have been omitted, making the Mark Nil the true Model 71 Armor.
Trivia
- The Mark Nil almost didn't have a name in its debut issue, Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #7; writer Gerry Duggan rushed to mail a note asking the dialogue to be changed in the comic to give it its name shortly before it went to print.[10]
See Also
- 29 appearance(s) of Iron Man Armor Model Nil
- 1 minor appearance(s) of Iron Man Armor Model Nil
- 1 mention(s) of Iron Man Armor Model Nil
- 45 image(s) of Iron Man Armor Model Nil
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #7
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #10
- ↑ Avengers (Vol. 9) #3
- ↑ Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #15
- ↑ Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #19
- ↑ Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #11
- ↑ Iron Man (Vol. 5) #7
- ↑ Iron Man (Vol. 5) #11
- ↑ Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #3
- ↑ Duggan, Gerry (June 9, 2023) Gerry Duggan on Twitter: "@ComicsOnline Thank you! It ... Twitter. Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Originally retrieved on July 4, 2023.