There is a quote from the fourth issue of The Invincible Iron Man that helps summarize how he looks at his suit. Tony was being interviewed by an investigative film maker by the name of Bill Maher John Pillinger for a documentary he was producing, though it quickly turns into a game of "Make Tony Feel like the Biggest Piece of Shit Alive in Six Pages." Pillinger wants to know if Tony thought of the Iron Man suit as a military device and argues with him about it, discounting the benefits of Iron Man and even lumping it in with Tony's other destructive weapons. Afterwards, in a stream of exposition, Tony thinks to himself: "I've never sold any element of the Iron Man suit to the military. It's used for extraordinary rescue and response situations. Iron Man saves lives." If it sounds like Tony is drawing a line in the sand between the actions of the US military and his duty as Iron Man, it's because he is. A similar situation also emerges in Iron Man 2, when the Senate tries to force Tony to fork over the Iron Man suit for the military to use, and he refuses. He argues with them: "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in. You can't have it." And later mutters that the Senator didn't really care about the well-being of American citizens. In either scenario though, Tony is unyielding and completely against the military even touching his suit.
Being held hostage in Afghanistan made Tony painfully aware of the fact that Stark Industries was doing more harm than good in preventing the world from spinning into chaos. Terrorists had access to his weapons, and they were using them not only on the American soldiers he invented said weapons to protect, but innocent civilians that were just unfortunate enough to be in the way. He realized he could do a better, more precise job of protecting the people.
So he isn't bogarting the Iron Man suit and pulling a Bill Clinton about the definition of a "weapon" in a court hearing just to be a selfish dick--though for Tony Stark that might be reason enough. He legitimately doesn’t consider his suit military property. Nor does he believe that the military is capable of using it for the highest good. Instead they would just turn it into a war machine that would reap casualties from both sides, and take no accountability for the rivers of blood. The Iron Man could be easily abused in the wrong hands. This much was already proven by Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko.
But most of all, Tony loves being Iron Man; in fact, he seems to enjoy being Iron Man a lot more than he enjoys being Tony Stark, for aforementioned reasons. Iron Man is a symbol of justice that single-handedly privatized world peace. Tony Stark, as the world knows him at large, is an arrogant brat that has one-night stands with questionable women and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.
This duality becomes lethal at one point. In Iron Man 2, Tony discovers the palladium in the arc reactor is poisoning him, and using the Iron Man suit was making the process go even faster. He works tirelessly to try and find a healthier substitute for the palladium core, but he also continues to use the suit, and hides his illness from the people closest to him. Naturally to prevent a tropical storm of worry from coming his way, but also presumably because he knew if Pepper or Rhodes knew he was dying and the suit was responsible for it, they would do anything in their power to stop him from using it again. Tony didn’t even listen when Rhodes eventually did find out, and tried to reach out to him, telling him the lone gunslinger act was unnecessary and he didn’t have to fight alone.
People don't perform the same act over and over again if they don’t get at least some amount of enjoyment out of it. But he also tells Pepper--in so many words--that without his responsibilities to the world as Iron Man, he shouldn't even be alive. Iron Man is as much his reason to live as it is his redemption, making up for the blind eye that he turned on the true destruction that his weapons created. He is in fact the man that would make the sacrifice play, and do it at the expense of his own life without a second thought.
Very often people talk about Tony Stark and Iron Man as though they are two separate people, which is not hard to understand when Tony himself gives off the impression that he is not the same person that he is in the suit when he’s just walking around being a troll. But in the end, Tony doesn’t need the suit to be Iron Man. It’s just as much a part of him as what drives him to do the right thing. As he said at the very end of his court hearing: "My bond is with the people, and I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. If there's one thing I've proven it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."
Powers & Abilities: Tony Stark doesn’t have x-ray vision, super speed, or even super healing abilities. But he is a super genius. He built his first circuit board when he was four years old, and his first engine when he was thirteen. Before Tony was even old enough to legally drink in the states, serve in the military, or be valid for membership at Costco, he graduated summa cum laude from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with double majors in physics and engineering. Once Tony took control of his father’s company, he went well beyond the legacy that Howard Stark left behind, vastly improving robotics, satellite technology, and of course, weapons. He was to explosions what Willy Wonka is to chocolate, transforming the industry and earning himself such nicknames as, “the Da Vinci of our time,” and “the Merchant of Death.” Back when he was still dealing in weapons, that is. These days, Tony has turned his attention to clean energy resources.
On his own, Tony is not much stronger than the average man his age and build—if anything, he has a rather abnormal physical handicap working against him. In 2008, during a routine weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, his convoy was attacked by a terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, and Tony found himself on the wrong end of one of his own missiles. The explosion lodged shrapnel in his chest that are slowly trying to work their way into his heart, and the only thing stopping them from killing Tony is the arc reactor, a tiny generator built in his chest that functions like an electromagnet, drawing the pieces of metal away from his arteries. However this, within itself, almost kills Tony in Iron Man 2, when it turns out the palladium he had been using to charge the arc reactor was also poisoning him, pressing Tony to find a suitable replacement. Of course he figures it out in the end, and invents a brand new element in the process.
What puts Tony in league with other fantastic humans such as Captain America and the Hulk is the Iron Man suit: a “high-tech prosthesis” he first built in a cave to escape captivity, but then later remodeled when he had the resources to do so. The suit is made of a gold-titanium alloy, durable enough to protect Tony from bullets, explosions, and being scraped against the side of a mountain by a demigod like a piece of gum someone’s trying to get off their shoe. It’s capable of super strength, as Tony is seen lifting cars, punching his fist through stone walls, and swinging a large barbell around like a baseball bat. There are jets in the boots for flight and stabilizers in the gloves to help steer himself around while he’s airborne. When the stabilizers are concentrated, they can knock people back several yards, so they can also be used as weapons. A similar blast can also be fired from the center of Tony’s chest, but it takes much longer to charge, so he doesn’t resort to it, very often.
There are other fun gadgets hidden inside the armor that help Tony in the fight against terrorism: anti-tank missiles, anti-personnel guns, flares, and repulsor rays. The suit also comes equipped with a dry British AI known as Jarvis that helps operate the system and informs Tony of any issues that might arise during combat. Tony’s means of communicating with Jarvis is a holographic interface called the Heads-Up-Display, or the HUD (or the glowing blue stuff you see floating around Tony’s face whenever the camera pans inside his helmet). The HUD allows Tony to see the world around him when he’s in the suit, as well as serving many additional functions, from receiving data, analyzing objects and people’s profiles, targeting marks, and diagnosing his armor’s conditions. It also has a built-in radio and phone, to contact people from the outside.
Last but not least, there is a filtration system, so Tony can pee while he’s inside the suit. All in all, the Iron Man is a force to be reckoned with, though it still requires consistent maintenance after battle, and a fully-automated machine to store it inside. The most up-to-date version of the Iron Man suit is the Mark VII, which can attach to Tony's body on its own without the use of machines, and is more heavily-armed than its predecessors. Though as far as we know, Tony still needs mechanical assistance to disassemble the entire thing from his body.
Tony Stark | MCU: The Avengers | Reserved
Bill MaherJohn Pillinger for a documentary he was producing, though it quickly turns into a game of "Make Tony Feel like the Biggest Piece of Shit Alive in Six Pages." Pillinger wants to know if Tony thought of the Iron Man suit as a military device and argues with him about it, discounting the benefits of Iron Man and even lumping it in with Tony's other destructive weapons. Afterwards, in a stream of exposition, Tony thinks to himself: "I've never sold any element of the Iron Man suit to the military. It's used for extraordinary rescue and response situations. Iron Man saves lives." If it sounds like Tony is drawing a line in the sand between the actions of the US military and his duty as Iron Man, it's because he is. A similar situation also emerges in Iron Man 2, when the Senate tries to force Tony to fork over the Iron Man suit for the military to use, and he refuses. He argues with them: "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in. You can't have it." And later mutters that the Senator didn't really care about the well-being of American citizens. In either scenario though, Tony is unyielding and completely against the military even touching his suit.Being held hostage in Afghanistan made Tony painfully aware of the fact that Stark Industries was doing more harm than good in preventing the world from spinning into chaos. Terrorists had access to his weapons, and they were using them not only on the American soldiers he invented said weapons to protect, but innocent civilians that were just unfortunate enough to be in the way. He realized he could do a better, more precise job of protecting the people.
So he isn't bogarting the Iron Man suit and pulling a Bill Clinton about the definition of a "weapon" in a court hearing just to be a selfish dick--though for Tony Stark that might be reason enough. He legitimately doesn’t consider his suit military property. Nor does he believe that the military is capable of using it for the highest good. Instead they would just turn it into a war machine that would reap casualties from both sides, and take no accountability for the rivers of blood. The Iron Man could be easily abused in the wrong hands. This much was already proven by Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko.
But most of all, Tony loves being Iron Man; in fact, he seems to enjoy being Iron Man a lot more than he enjoys being Tony Stark, for aforementioned reasons. Iron Man is a symbol of justice that single-handedly privatized world peace. Tony Stark, as the world knows him at large, is an arrogant brat that has one-night stands with questionable women and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.
This duality becomes lethal at one point. In Iron Man 2, Tony discovers the palladium in the arc reactor is poisoning him, and using the Iron Man suit was making the process go even faster. He works tirelessly to try and find a healthier substitute for the palladium core, but he also continues to use the suit, and hides his illness from the people closest to him. Naturally to prevent a tropical storm of worry from coming his way, but also presumably because he knew if Pepper or Rhodes knew he was dying and the suit was responsible for it, they would do anything in their power to stop him from using it again. Tony didn’t even listen when Rhodes eventually did find out, and tried to reach out to him, telling him the lone gunslinger act was unnecessary and he didn’t have to fight alone.
People don't perform the same act over and over again if they don’t get at least some amount of enjoyment out of it. But he also tells Pepper--in so many words--that without his responsibilities to the world as Iron Man, he shouldn't even be alive. Iron Man is as much his reason to live as it is his redemption, making up for the blind eye that he turned on the true destruction that his weapons created. He is in fact the man that would make the sacrifice play, and do it at the expense of his own life without a second thought.
Very often people talk about Tony Stark and Iron Man as though they are two separate people, which is not hard to understand when Tony himself gives off the impression that he is not the same person that he is in the suit when he’s just walking around being a troll. But in the end, Tony doesn’t need the suit to be Iron Man. It’s just as much a part of him as what drives him to do the right thing. As he said at the very end of his court hearing: "My bond is with the people, and I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. If there's one thing I've proven it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."
Powers & Abilities: Tony Stark doesn’t have x-ray vision, super speed, or even super healing abilities. But he is a super genius. He built his first circuit board when he was four years old, and his first engine when he was thirteen. Before Tony was even old enough to legally drink in the states, serve in the military, or be valid for membership at Costco, he graduated summa cum laude from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with double majors in physics and engineering. Once Tony took control of his father’s company, he went well beyond the legacy that Howard Stark left behind, vastly improving robotics, satellite technology, and of course, weapons. He was to explosions what Willy Wonka is to chocolate, transforming the industry and earning himself such nicknames as, “the Da Vinci of our time,” and “the Merchant of Death.” Back when he was still dealing in weapons, that is. These days, Tony has turned his attention to clean energy resources.
On his own, Tony is not much stronger than the average man his age and build—if anything, he has a rather abnormal physical handicap working against him. In 2008, during a routine weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, his convoy was attacked by a terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, and Tony found himself on the wrong end of one of his own missiles. The explosion lodged shrapnel in his chest that are slowly trying to work their way into his heart, and the only thing stopping them from killing Tony is the arc reactor, a tiny generator built in his chest that functions like an electromagnet, drawing the pieces of metal away from his arteries. However this, within itself, almost kills Tony in Iron Man 2, when it turns out the palladium he had been using to charge the arc reactor was also poisoning him, pressing Tony to find a suitable replacement. Of course he figures it out in the end, and invents a brand new element in the process.
What puts Tony in league with other fantastic humans such as Captain America and the Hulk is the Iron Man suit: a “high-tech prosthesis” he first built in a cave to escape captivity, but then later remodeled when he had the resources to do so. The suit is made of a gold-titanium alloy, durable enough to protect Tony from bullets, explosions, and being scraped against the side of a mountain by a demigod like a piece of gum someone’s trying to get off their shoe. It’s capable of super strength, as Tony is seen lifting cars, punching his fist through stone walls, and swinging a large barbell around like a baseball bat. There are jets in the boots for flight and stabilizers in the gloves to help steer himself around while he’s airborne. When the stabilizers are concentrated, they can knock people back several yards, so they can also be used as weapons. A similar blast can also be fired from the center of Tony’s chest, but it takes much longer to charge, so he doesn’t resort to it, very often.
There are other fun gadgets hidden inside the armor that help Tony in the fight against terrorism: anti-tank missiles, anti-personnel guns, flares, and repulsor rays. The suit also comes equipped with a dry British AI known as Jarvis that helps operate the system and informs Tony of any issues that might arise during combat. Tony’s means of communicating with Jarvis is a holographic interface called the Heads-Up-Display, or the HUD (or the glowing blue stuff you see floating around Tony’s face whenever the camera pans inside his helmet). The HUD allows Tony to see the world around him when he’s in the suit, as well as serving many additional functions, from receiving data, analyzing objects and people’s profiles, targeting marks, and diagnosing his armor’s conditions. It also has a built-in radio and phone, to contact people from the outside.
Last but not least, there is a filtration system, so Tony can pee while he’s inside the suit. All in all, the Iron Man is a force to be reckoned with, though it still requires consistent maintenance after battle, and a fully-automated machine to store it inside. The most up-to-date version of the Iron Man suit is the Mark VII, which can attach to Tony's body on its own without the use of machines, and is more heavily-armed than its predecessors. Though as far as we know, Tony still needs mechanical assistance to disassemble the entire thing from his body.