Iron Man armor

Iron Man is the name of the suit of armor developed by Tony Stark created with the help of Yinsen as a means of escaping captivity in Afghanistan. Once home, Stark perfects the armor using the vast resources of his former weapons factory Stark Industries.

Tony Stark took the name Iron Man after the suit of armor he built and wore.

Iron Man
Tony Stark uses three suits as Iron Man: Mark 1 which he used to escape the Ten Rings terrorist organization, Mark 2 which he used to perfect flying, and Mark 3 which had a red and gold paint job and a variety of weapons. Stark is captured by the terrorist group Ten Rings, who order him to build a Jericho missile for them. Instead, he and fellow captive Dr. Yinsen secretly build a crude but strong power armor (Mark 1) fueled by a miniature "Arc Reactor", a smaller version of a power source previously invented by Stark. The arc reactor supplies energy to an electromagnet which prevents embedded shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart, which would kill him. Dr. Yinsen is killed in the ensuing escape attempt when he stalls the guards to buy Stark enough time to power up the suit. Using the suit, Stark kills several terrorists, destroys their weapons stockpile, and escapes, though his suit is destroyed as he crash-lands in the desert due to the quick depletion of his thruster power.

Upon returning home Stark's attitude totally changes and he announces that Stark Industries will stop making weapons to the annoyance of Obadiah Stane, who tries to stop him. When Stark decides to make another Mark 2 armour he tells J.A.R.V.I.S. that it'll be a secret project. He uses the Mark 1 blueprints and he removes all the bulk from the Mark 1 so that the Mark 2 will be much lighter. He starts with the thrusters in his boots and set at 10% makes him back flip from the amount of power. He tries 1% and he lightly takes off a couple of feet, and then he creates thrusters in his gloves to help him balance. When he attempts it again he starts to gain control and manages to get from one side of the room to the other without any problems. Next he makes the rest of the armour which was more lighter, thinner and allowed him to fly with no problems.

He suits up in the Mark 2 to try it out properly. He has a communication link with J.A.R.V.I.S. built into the suit to inform him of any problems. Stark decides to really test the suit and flew as high as he could into space to see if it could handle it; unfortunately it starts to freeze as he reaches the atmosphere, malfunctioning and losing all power until he starts to fall back to Earth. Stark's suit is able to power back up as he is about to hit the ground and his thrusters starts once more, enabling him to return home, although crashing through two floors of his home.

Stark then develops Mark 3 after discovering that it was his work partner and friend, Obadiah Stane that gave the Ten Rings the weapons and arranged for them to kill Stark. Stark finds out that Ten Rings are attacking a village named Gulmira where Yinsin had lived. Stark finishes installing weapons in the armour and suits up now with a machine that places each section of the armour onto his body.

Using the armor, Stark flies to Gulmira to stop the Ten Rings and to destroy the weapons from Stark Industries that they possess. He finds one of the members of the Ten Rings, Abu Bakar, whom he stops and finishes him off. Within seconds, he defeats the terrorists and destroys the weapons they had obtained. As he left the area, two F-22 jets spot him. Col. Rhodes is asked about the status of any new developments. He contacts Tony, who claims that he knows nothing about what is happening. Iron Man tries to outrun the jets but they are too fast for him, so Stark calls Rhodes and reveals that he is responsible for the "unidentified craft." Rhodey is furious about Tony sending in unauthorized equipment, and horrified when Tony explains that the "equipment" is actually himself. Iron Man then gets hit by one fighter jet, sending him flying into the wing of the second jet. The pilot is forced to eject, but the parachute fails to open. Iron Man, still under fire, manages to fly in and successfully deploy the parachute in time to save the pilot's life. Tony convinces Rhodey to pass off what happened with the jets as a "training exercise."

Stane arrives at Tony's house and paralyzes him with a sonic weapon, then yanks out the power source from Tony's heart, taunting him all the while. After he leaves, Tony realizes that he has only one hope for survival - the preserved Arc Reactor that Pepper gave him in a display case. He gets the power source installed just as Rhodey arrives. Pepper Potts, Coulson and several other agents arrive at Obadiah's research facility. They spot the Mark 1 Armour (which they found in pieces where Stark had crash-landed) and a storage location where something else was kept. Just then, a gigantic robotic suit comes to life and attacks them - Obadiah's counterpart suit, code-named the Iron Monger. Rhodey watches Stark suit up, awestruck at the Iron Man costume. As Tony flies away, Rhodey looks at the Mark 2 but shakes his head and mumbles "Next time, baby". Iron Man reaches Stark Industries and begins to fight the Iron Monger. J.A.R.V.I.S. warns Tony that he has only about half power in the suit; the older power source wasn't designed to work alongside the newer suit. The two ironclad warriors have a huge battle.

At first, the battle starts at Stark Tower's main entrance, but soon they crash into the city streets. Stane grabs a car and attempts to throw it at Tony, but the latter catches it and lets it down safely (getting run over in the process). Stane then throws Tony into a parked bus and blows it up with his shoulder missile. Tony is sent flying, but activates his boosters just before he lands in the rubble. Tony is then chased by Stane into the skies. Stane then grabs Tony, and gets frozen in the process. Tony breaks out of Stane's grasp and sends him hundreds of feet to earth. Tony then loses power, falling back to earth behind Stane. Both land on the roof of Stark Tower.

Tony instructs Pepper to overload the building's Arc Reactor, which will generate a shockwave strong enough to knock out the Iron Monger's   suit. Pepper is hesitant, believing that Tony could also be killed. Tony manages to keep fighting while she builds up power to the Reactor. The Arc explodes, taking out Obadiah and injuring Tony. But the energy wave from the Reactor also manages to re-charge Tony's heart battery, saving him from death. Tony goes before the reporters once more, and prepares to comply with the cover story. But, before he even starts announcing his cover story, he throws away his notes and declares "I am Iron Man." His unexpected declaration had suprised the press and the world.

Iron Man 2
Now that the entire world knows the secret identity of Tony Stark, Iron Man himself participates to the Stark Expo's opening ceremony, with a demonstration of his flying abilities and a rockstar attitude. With his Mark IV he helps maintaining the world in peace, since it's a strong deterrent for any terroristic attacks; despite this, he refuses to give the Government his armor, declaring that it belongs to him and him alone.

The Arc reactor, anyway, is poisoning Stark, who's desperatley searching for a cure. Iron Man is forced to come back in action in Monaco, where Whiplash attacks Stark. Using his Mark V armor, Iron Man is able to overcome the villain, although the armor is heavily damaged following the fight: Whiplash's electronic whips, in fact, are able to destroy one of the repulsors and to compromit the stability of the armor's systems, even if he's eventually defeated. Depressed by his health status, Stark gets drunk and uses the Mark IV to show off during his birthday party, humiliating himself in a demonstration on how to urinate in the armor, and using the repulsor for crashing bottles thrown in air by some girls. Thinking he's becoming dangerous for himself and others, James Rhodes wears the Mark II armor and fights him, stealing the armor and bringing it to the Army at the end of the match.

After Nick Fury has a conversation with him, Stark recoperates and with J.A.R.V.I.S.'s help, begins new research on his father's notes of a new elemnentand build a new ARC reactor, which can be used without poisoning himself with palladium and which is much more powerful than the previous. With his new Mark VI armor, he reaches the Stark Expo, where Justin Hammer's inventions the Hammer drones and War Machine, all controlled by Ivan Vanko, have gone on a rampage. Iron Man destroys some drones, but then is forced to flee, pursued by War Machine. When Rhodes is freed from Vanko's control by the Black Widow, a battle against the rest of the drones begins: Iron Man destroys all the drones with a powerful laser attack, which almost drains the armor's energy. In that moment, Whiplash arrives, with an upgraded version of his armor, and starts to beat down the two heroes. Being in difficulty, Iron Man tells War Machine to use his repulsor against him, doing the same, thus reproducing the same explosion that occured during their brawl in Stark's mansion and defeating Whiplash. Vanko,in a defeated position, activates a self-destruction system, making all the drones and his own armor explode. After saving Pepper with split second timing, Iron Man takes cover on a roof nearby the Expo. Peppers declares she cannot handle being the new appointed CEO of Stark Industies and trying to cope with Tony's heroic alter ego.

Later, Nick Fury informs that, while Iron Man is a suitable candidate for the Avengers initiative, Stark is not, declaring he is self-centered and demoting him to just a consultant.

The Avengers
After Loki infiltrates S.H.I.E.L.D. and steals the Cosmic Cube, Nick Fury decides it's time to re-establish the Avengers Initiative. Agent Coulson travels to the newly built Stark Tower where Tony and Pepper are celebrating the successful creation of a new, clean energy source. Tony is informed of Coulson's presence at Stark Tower by J.A.R.V.I.S. to which he informs him that he has "reached the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark" and refuses to see him. Coulson enters the building anyway and informs Tony that the Initiative is now active and they need him to come in, handing Stark several holographic screens containing information about Captain America, Thor, Bruce Banner and Loki.

Stark suits up in his Mark VI armour and travels to Germany where he finds his old aquaitance, Natasha Romanoff in a jet overlooking the newly unfrozen Captain America in the middle of a battle with the hostile god, Loki. Stark jets right in and blasts Loki with his Repulsors and stands tall next to the Captain forcing Loki to surrender. After escorting Loki onto the Quinjet, the team head back to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Hellicarrier. Stark comments on Steve's fighting skills subtly mocks him. The Quinjet is then surrounded by a storm and is attacked by the Asgardian "God of Thunder", Thor who breaks in and promptly grabs Loki before he flies away. Stark immediately flies off after the two.

While Thor has landed on a mountain top and begins threatening Loki, Tony blasts straight into Thor hurling him onto the forest floor. Stark refuses to let Thor get close to Loki and the two began a fierce battle. During the fight, Thor summons lightning to his hammer, Mjolnir, and electrocutes Stark only for J.A.R.V.I.S. to inform him that this has powered his suit to 475% capacity, allowing him blast Thor off his feet. The armor takes a beating during the battle as Thor easily begins to crush it. The fight is broken up by Captain America who after matching Mjolnir with his Shield manages to stop Thor. They take Loki back to the Hellicarrier where Tony meets Bruce Banner and they both discuss the Tesseract but not before Tony plants a hacking device and allows J.A.R.V.I.S. to begin searching S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database to find out their secrets. Tony and Bruce find out that S.H.I.E.L.D. were trying to harness the Tesseract's powers to create weapons of mass destruction, during a huge argument with Fury, Romanoff, Rogers, Banner and Thor, Loki's mind-controlled troops including Hawkeye had caused an explosion on the Hellicarrier in order to break Loki out. Stark suits up as Iron Man and begins to fix the ship from the outside with the aid of Steve.

Upon fixing the ship and fighting off some of Loki's troops, the duo learn that Banner transformed into the Hulk and escaped from the ship, as well as Thor being ejected from the Hellicarrier by Loki who escaped and murdered Agent Coulson. Fury informs the two that the Avengers Initiative was so that the isolated individuals could become something more and that Coulson died still believing this. Stark takes his death hard and works out where Loki is planning his attack. Iron Man, Captain America, Natasha and Hawkeye (now free from Loki's mind control) travel to Stark Tower where Tony finds Loki has installed a device powered by the Tesseract.

Tony takes off his his armor and begins to "threaten" Loki, secretly putting on two metal bracelets moments before Loki throws him out of the window, as he falls he orders J.A.R.V.I.S. to deploy his new Mark VII suit which jetpacks out the window after him and forms around him moments before he hits the ground. Stark flies back up to Loki and blasts him backwards in the name of Agent Coulson. Tony is however confronted by Loki's device which opens a portal into space where Loki's army of Chitauri fly into New York and begin their war against Earth. Iron Man is joined by his team mates as they begin to battle the alien menace. Tony begins to chase after a Leviathan, a giant alien serpent and the warship to dozens of Chitauri. When he is notified of Banner's arrival on the field, Tony leads the serpent towards him so Bruce will transform into the Hulk and defeat it. Tony lands on the ground alongside his fellow heroes, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow. The team are then confronted by hundreds of Chitauri who fly in through the portal as well as several more Leviathans. Rogers gives out orders and instructs Tony to take to the skies and take out more Chitauri. Tony even takes out a Leviathan by flying head first into it mouth and launching missiles from the inside.

After a long battle, the team are still outnumbered and learn that Natasha has found a way to close the portal. Stark hinders this as Fury has instructed him that the World Security Council have sent a nuclear missile in to blow up Manhattan. Stark intercepts the missile and flies it up through the portal and blows up the Chitauri Mothership, losing power in the process and falling unconscious back through the portal just before it closes. As Stark falls back to earth, he is caught by the Hulk who lands with him back on the ground. Rogers and Thor run over to the lifeless Iron Man who appears to be dead, only for Hulk to scream in is face, waking him up. The team reform and make sure that Loki surrenders. The Avengers then make sure Loki is taken back to Asgard by Thor along with the Tesseract. The team disband and go their separate ways. Tony is later seen with Pepper Potts on Stark Tower ready to rebuild after the damage that was done. The Stark sign on the side displays only one remaining letter, "A".

Iron Man 3
After the Chitauri invasion of New York, Stark created the Iron Legion, some built for their own specific purpose. He tests the Mark XLII, which was built so he can summon various pieces of the armor when needed. It is shown that the Mark VII (although severely damaged after the events of Avengers) is still in use. After issuing a public threat to the Mandarin, Tony was attacked at his Malibu home. To protect Pepper from the blast, Tony signals the Mark XLII onto her in which she saves Maya. Once she had gotten to safety, Tony summoned the armor back to himself, fending off the helicopters surrounding him. After being out gunned, Stark is pulled into the ocean and barely escapes. Tony found himself in rural Tennessee after J.A.R.V.I.S. followed his initial flight plan to find the Mandarin. Lacking in power to return to California, the world believed him to be dead. Teaming with Harley, a 10-year old boy, Stark traced the Mandarin to Miami. Escaping captivity by summoning his armor from afar, Stark reunited with Rhodey, discovering that Killian plans to attack President Ellis aboard Air Force One. Remotely controlling his armor, Tony defeated Eric Savin and saved the surviving passengers and crew but was unable to rescue Ellis from Killian. Stark and Rhodes traced Killian to an impounded oil drilling platform where he intended to kill Ellis on live television.

Sneaking in, they were attacked by several Extremis soldiers in which Stark summoned all 42-armors to their aid (controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S.), armoring himself with the Silver Centurion. Finding Pepper, Killian unexpectedly attacked him and Stark was forced to bail from Mark XXXIII. When Pepper was presumed dead, Stark engaged in a fight with Killian (using Mark XL, "Shotgun"). Standing over a platform, Stark (armorless), summoned Mark XLII onto Killian, trapping him and ordering J.A.R.V.I.S to let it self-destruct. When Killian was revealed to have survived, Pepper, also alive (due to Extremis), killed Killian with one of Mark VII's repulsors. Realising the current situation, Tony ordered J.A.R.V.I.S. to destroy all armors, promising Pepper to find a cure for her, in which they embrace. Later, Tony underwent surgery to have the shrapnel removed from his heart and threw his arc-reactor in the ocean, vowing that no matter what, he is Iron Man.

Armors
Iron Man's armor provides a wealth of information about the environment, and allows him to perform such feats as flying and flamethrowing. There are 3 versions in the movie:
 * Mark I: A crude, basic suit that Tony Stark was forced to build while imprisoned by terrorists. Used in Iron Man fight one.
 * Mark II: This prototype was the first suit designed with Tony's resources in America, and was equipped with many advanced technologies not found in the Mark 1. It was used in Iron Man for flight testing. The Mark 2 later saw action in Iron Man 2 fight two, and was eventually heavily modified into the War Machine Armor. Another Mark 2 was built for Tony's armor gallery.
 * Mark III: This suit was constructed with a lighter gold titanium alloy, and given a red paint job. It addressed the icing problems of the Mark 2, and was armed with a variety of weapons. The Mark 3 was used in Iron Man fights two and three, where it was heavily damaged. This suit was only partially rebuilt, and it was labelled "Battle Damaged" in Tony's armor gallery.
 * Mark IV: Built after the Mark 3 was severely damaged in the fight against Iron Monger. Used between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 to stop international conflicts, as well as in Iron Man 2 fight two.
 * Mark V: This red and silver "Suitcase Suit" was only lightly armed and armored. It was designed for easy transportation, and could be folded into a lightweight suitcase. Used in Iron Man 2 fight one.
 * Mark VI: Similar to the Mark 3 and 4, this was the first suit to use a non-palladium power core. It was further streamlined for better flight capabilities and armed with new weapons. Used in Iron Man 2 fight three. Also used in The Avengers against Loki, Thor and fixing the Helicarrier.
 * Mark VII: This advanced suit could automatically fly to and wrap itself around its user, without any need for external mechanical assistance. The Mark 7 was a bulkier suit that was far more heavily armed than its predecessors. It included additionial repulsor thrusters on its back, chest, and calves. Used in The Avengers.
 * Mark XV: "Sneaky" Stealth Armor.
 * Mark XVI: "Nightclub" Black Stealth Armor.
 * Mark XVII: "Heartbreaker" Artillery Level RT Armor.
 * Mark XXII: "Hot Rod" Armor.
 * Mark XXV: "Striker" Heavy Construction Armor.
 * Mark XXXIII: "Silver Centurion" Enhanced Energy Armor.
 * Mark XXXV: "Red Snapper" Disaster Rescue Armor.
 * Mark XXXVII: "Hammerhead" Deep Sea Armor.
 * Mark XXXVIII: "Igor" Heavy Lifting Armor.
 * Mark XXXIX: "Gemini" Sub Orbital Armor.
 * Mark XL: "Shotgun" Hyper Velocity Armor.
 * Mark XLI: "Bones" Skeleton Armor.
 * Mark XLII: Autonomic Prehensile Propulsion Armor.

Appearances

 * Marvel Cinematic Universe (4 films)
 * Iron Man - Mark I, II and III
 * Iron Man 2 - Mark IV, V, VI
 * The Avengers - Mark VI and VII
 * Iron Man 3 - Mark VII, XLII and Iron Legion

Behind the scenes

 * The Iron Man MK2 and MK3 costumes are actually composed of three layers with multiple pieces. First, the actor had to wear a skin tight black jumpsuit (seen in-film, on the Mk3's first deployment) followed by detail pieces (the silver machine parts, most noticeable below the neck). Before the armor could be attached, the body, the helmet, and both the arms and legs, were all seperate pieces, and came together in a "Megazord" like fashion.
 * Downey commented that like most bulky costumes, it got incredibly hot in the Iron Man armor suit, and would not be very practical as a costume as it took three people to help him get in it.

Trivia

 * In the comics, before switching his armor to its more recognizable appearance, the Mark I armor was painted gold to avoid scaring people due to its scary appearance.
 * Iron Man's Mark II armor resembles the Recovery Armor in the comics.
 * Iron Man's Mark III armor is similar to his New Avenger armor in the comics.
 * Iron Man's Mark V armor resembles the Silver Centurion armor's colour scheme in the comics.
 * Iron Man's Mark VI armor resembles the Extremis armor in the comics due the triangler chest piece.
 * Iron Man's Mark VII armor resembles the Bleeding Edge armor in the comics due to its abilities (according to the action figure), but it is similar in appearance to the Ultimates version of the armor.