Tony Stark’s best modern armor made a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in Iron Man 3, where it was unceremoniously destroyed as if it were any prototype. The MCU adapted several of Tony Stark’s most famous suits of armor from the comics. Stark’s first three suits are almost exact parallels to the comics, and more advanced armors like the Mark 47 and the Mark 50 are adaptations of famous suits like the Ultimate and the Bleeding Edge models.
With a total of eighty-five distinct suits of armor built over the Infinity Saga, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man is the MCU character with the largest number of unique looks. It’s only fair for the Avengers’ genius inventor to get this credit. Nevertheless, several of Iron Man’s iconic suits barely made an appearance.
Iron Man 3 Introduced The Model 42 Armor As A Cameo Suit
One Of Tony Stark’s Most Famous Modern Armors Is Destroyed In Record Time
The Iron Man Model 42 turns on in Marvel Comics
The Iron Man Model 42 suit debuted during Kieron Gillen’s Iron Man run as Tony Stark’s attempt to rethink his technology after the destruction of his previous suits. It provided the basis for Iron Man 3’s modular, remote-controlled system, as well as for Avengers: Infinity War’s chest-mounted, liquid-like nanotech core. Of course, the Model 42’s most memorable trait is its unique black-and-gold color palette, which defined Iron Man’s look throughout the Marvel Now era.
Iron Man 3 introduced thirty-four new suits of armor, each with a distinct look and a unique power set. Between their arrival in Iron Man 3’s final battle and their self-detonation after Aldrich Killian’s defeat, most of the Iron Legion armors are hard to spot. One of these suits is the black-and-gold Mark 20 a.k.a “Python” suit, which is designed with long-distance travel priorization. Unfortunately, the Iron Man Python suit barely appears on screen before it explodes.
The fact that Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark never wears an Iron Man suit with a significantly different color scheme as his primary one is disappointing. The fact that the Model 42 suit from the comics provided the capabilities and the name for Iron Man 3’s Mark 42 only makes it worse. The MCU’s black-and-gold suit deserved a significant role in Iron Man 3’s final battle, at the very least.
Iron Man’s MCU Armors Lack The Variety Of His Comic Book Counterpart
Tony Stark’s Best Suits Had The Shortest Appearances
Tony Stark’s Iron Legion fights Extremis soldiers in Iron Man 3’s final battle
Iron Man’s MCU armors steadily evolved toward a single visual and functional endpoint. While this progression made sense for a streamlined movie narrative, it came at the cost of variety. In the comics, Tony Stark builds radically specialized armors tailored for very specific purposes, with unique sizes, shapes, weapons, and color palettes. The MCU largely avoided this level of specialization, instead favoring multipurpose suits outside of Iron Man 3.
As a result, many of the MCU’s most interesting Iron Man armors barely had time to matter. Iconic Iron Man suits from the comics like the Silver Centurion, the Hulkbuster, and the black-and-gold Model 42 were quickly discarded and destroyed. Rare suits like the Blue Steel, the orange-and-black Peacemaker, the white Starboost, and Pepper Potts’ Rescue also never reached their full potential.
Release Date
May 3, 2013
Runtime
130 Mins
Director
Shane Black