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Iron Man's armor

Iron Man's armor is a fictional powered exoskeleton appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is built and worn by billionaire Tony Stark when he assumes the identity of the superhero Iron Man. The first armor was created in-story by Stark and Ho Yinsen, and was designed by artist Jack Kirby, first appearing in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963).

In the fictional multiverse, the appearance of Stark's armor has changed over the years. Stark has modified or optimized the armor to adapt to specific situations. As various artists have depicted Iron Man and his armor, its appearance has changed over time.

Stark's suits are each unique in design and purpose. They are made of incredibly strong, fictional materials bolstered by a force field. Every suit has a self-contained environment, assorted onboard weapons systems, enhanced strength, thruster-aided flight, and various communications arrays and sensors, such as radar and radio.

While Tony Stark himself was designed by Don Heck, the designer of the character's first gray suit of armor in 1963 was Jack Kirby. It was recolored gold for the character's initial batch of adventures in Tales of Suspense, before being redesigned again by Steve Ditko later in the year – this was the first version to feature a red and gold/yellow scheme, which would come to be Iron Man's most recognizable look.

Bob Layton would redesign the character's armor several times during his stint on the book. In 2008 he recalled that editorial directions in 1981 were that going into outer space was "a big deal", and devised the first space-going Iron Man suit with this edict in mind. He later devised the 1985 red and silver/white "Silver Centurion" armor with input from Mark Gruenwald, who directed him to base it along samurai motifs. The 1994 "Modular" armor was designed by Tom Morgan. When writing the title, David Michelinie avoided overuse of stealth technology in the armor. His eventual successor Len Kaminski disagreed, and in 1994 decided the suit's abilities should be boosted drastically. He devised a component system of armor that could be customised according to various missions, and noted he didn't "like to play fast and loose" with the rules of science and technology. This "Modular" armor was designed by Tom Morgan, and was the first that could be converted into a "Hulkbuster" configuration.

In Invincible Iron Man #25 (2010), Stark creates a new armor in the aftermath of the "Stark: Disassembled" storyline. Created by writer Matt Fraction and artist Ryan Meinerding, this new armor is sleeker in appearance, and is featured in the 2010 crossover storyline the "Heroic Age". When writer Tom Taylor and artist Yildiray Cinar created the "Endo-Sym Armor" in 2014, they designed it to glow red/orange when Tony was angry.

The first Iron Man armor was created by Stark with the help of Ho Yinsen in issue 39 of Tales of Suspense, which he used to escape captivity. After his escape, Stark created a new version with a wide array of improvements; it was colored gold in this second version. He would then change up the color scheme to a mixture of red and gold, which would become a staple of the armor's appearance throughout successive iterations, before briefly being changed to an armor colored red and silver in the 1980s, before returning to the red and gold color scheme during the Armor Wars storyline, with only the occasional change in color scheme for specific armors and storylines, after which he invariably returns to the "classic" red and gold colors.

After defeating Norman Osborn in 2010, Stark creates a new "Bleeding Edge" Iron Man suit to replace the Extremis version. Asked whether the Bleeding Edge is an upgrade to Extremis, Stark says, "Nah — this is what comes next." The new armor is a part of Stark's now-posthuman biology; it is stored inside Stark's body, "manifesting" itself when mentally commanded. The neurokinetic user-controlled morphologic nanoparticle bundles that form the suit reside in Stark's body, and form a fibrous wetweb of iron and platinum, that can be commanded to form any type of structure upon Stark's skin, such as large boxing gloves, or weapons, including large guns extending from his arms or a lightsaber-like energy sword with which Iron Man was able to harm one of the Worthy. The nano-machines can mimic the appearance of clothes, then dissociate to transform into the Iron Man armor as Stark wishes. The suit adds less than 25 pounds to Stark's body mass. It can stop a howitzer shell.

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