Would I ever build another Iron Man armor site?
Good question! I’ve spent a lot of time on this site, building the most comprehensive resource for Iron Man’s Ablative Armor — Model 23 — in existence. (Trust me, not a lot of competition exists.) So you might wonder, are there any other armor obsessions I have? Not really (Okay, one. Maybe three).
When you combine all of the comic Iron Man armors with all of the movie suits, then add all of the armors that have shown up in video games, there’s a lot to choose from. I’m not even going to pretend that I’ve seen them all, but I’ve seen most. Some stick out more than others. While I’m not going to build an entire site around any of them, they’re certainly worth a mention as my favorites.
Hajime Sorayama’s Metropolis Iron Man Variant
[EDIT: For an even more detailed look at every place this variant has shown up, please see “The Complete Guide To Hajime Sarayama’s Iron Man Metropolis Variant”]
You know how you’re on Pinterest (I ain’t ashamed, you wouldn’t believe the comic book stuff they have) and you type in something like “Iron Man armors” and then they give you tons of images and you see a bunch of fan art and you click on one of your favorites and find out that it’s not really fan art but that it showed up on a cover and then you realize that there was a huge statue released of it for some reason?
That’s what happened to me and the Hajime Sorayama Metropolis variant.
Sorayama is a Japanese artist best known for doing extremely detailed and erotic representations of female robots. (Thanks Wikipedia!) He created a variant cover for Iron Man #18 (Vol. 5, January 2014) for the five-issue arc “Iron Metropolitan.” One look at this Tron-like cover and I knew it was one of my favorite designs/color combos.
The armor debuted in Iron Man Vol. 5 #1 (January 2013) as part of the Marvel NOW relaunch. It’s most commonly known as the Black and Gold Armor (Earth-616 Mark 42.) As you can see, the armor on the cover of #18 isn’t black and gold. In the comics, sometimes it’s black, sometimes gunmetal gray, sometimes dark blue, sometimes purple. Sorayama obviously took considerable liberties by changing the black to a metallic light blue. Honestly, I don’t like this armor in anything other than the version you see above and in the statue.
Statue? There’s certainly no statue for—
Here comes the weird part
Gentle Giant Collectibles created a 1:4 scale (18+ inch) statue of the Sorayama variant. But why? This armor isn’t terribly popular, and the light blue and gold color variant cover was limited to about 700 copies. Few people remember this comic cover exists, and fewer own a copy. It’d be like choosing to make a statue of “that suit nobody can name from Iron Man 3, you know, the one who makes barrels, Cooper Stavemaster or something?” instead of making a statue of Hulkbuster.
To make things even weirder, Gentle Giant only produced this statue and an Iron Man 3 Iron Patriot…then they quit. [EDIT: I’ve since found out that they did other statues in 1:4 scale — Captain America, Rocket and Groot, Walking Dead and Sucker Punch — but no other Iron Man statues.] Sure, it makes sense that they were testing the waters, because the high-end statue market is booming and GG is mainly known for busts and considerably smaller statutes. I understand Iron Patriot, but why do Sorayama’s variant? Honestly, sometimes I think I dreamed this thing, thinking, “that would be weird if a statue of it existed.”
All that aside, you can see in the picture below that it’s absolutely gorgeous. Gold and bluish-gray, 18.5-inches, 11 pounds, with Sorayama’s stamped signature on the left leg. It lights up white on the chest, repulsors, chest beam, and four discs (two on the hip, two on the outside knee). His eyes glow reddish-orange. This isn’t just a repaint but a completely new sculpt. No website mentions it being limited, but the box says that they made 250. The original price was $499.
[EDIT: Months after writing this article, I discovered that there is a Be@rbrick of the Sorayama Iron Man in 100%, 400%, and 1000%. The image below shows the size comparison between 100% and 400% as well as the 400% box.
Silver Centurion
Of any of these armors, Silver Centurion certainly deserves a site the most. He showed up in-continuity in Iron Man #200 (November 1985) but was released first in our world a month earlier in West Coast Avengers #1 (October 1985).
Introduced as a way to defeat Obadiah Stane in the Iron Monger suit, the Model 8 was an important armor for people reading in the 1980s. Back then it was a welcome change in a time when a new Iron Man suit was a huge deal. This armor was the most bucket-headed of bucket-heads, and sported the first inverted triangle chest piece.
Most suits now last just a few issues before being replaced, but the Silver Centurion’s 31 issue run was significant. The suit was sacrificed in Iron Man #230 (May 1988) in a battle with Firepower at the end of The Armor Wars. The very next issue Tony created the Model 9, a return to the classic red and gold.
The Silver Centurion is the perfect crossover between the comics and the MCU. This is made evident by Iron Man 3 designer Andy Park’s effusive comments.
“The Silver Centurion was the design I was obsessed with as an adolescent. Iron Man #200 got me into comic books. I actually stopped collecting the book when the Silver Centurion got destroyed and he went back to the old red-and-gold color scheme. The hardest part to pull off was the drastically different bullet-head shape he had in the comic book."
Of course, the good ol’ SC played a surprisingly important role as part of the Iron Legion in Iron Man 3. This was the first suit Tony wore on the Roxxon oil platform, the one he dons when he tells Rhodey, “All of the suits are coded to me.” He then flies the Silver Centurion to find Pepper, is confronted by Killian, and gets shut down when Killian knocks out the suit’s reactor. Tony whips out the SC’s arm blade (unique to this suit and Mark 30, Blue Steel), chops off Killian’s arm, and ejects from the suit. With its reactor down, it’s possible SC didn’t get the Clean Slate Protocol and never self-destructed. (It’s not without precedent. Igor obviously didn’t self destruct, because if he did the platform would have fallen into the ocean.)
The SC is labeled as an enhanced energy suit in Iron Man 3, and I honestly have no idea what that means. Why would Jarvis send that particular suit to Tony? Again, no idea. Seems like it would have made a lot more sense sending him Shades. Shades is an extreme heat suit, which would have made more sense against Extremis soldiers who are extremely hot. Swing and a miss, Jarvis. Swing and a miss.
But here’s something interesting. While there’s a lot of Mark 42 (the Prodigal Son) in Iron Man 3, there’s not a lot of Tony in Mark 42. The reason behind this is that RDJ had enough clout to say that he didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the uncomfortable suit or shooting HUD shots, so they wrote the script around him not being in armor much. Most of the time the Mark 42 is remotely controlled. In fact, I geeked out and timed it for you.
Screen time Tony Spent In A Complete Mark 42 (with or without faceplate): 4:20
Screen time Tony Spent In Silver Centurion: 1:25
That’s a pretty good chunk, considering he doesn’t spend nearly as much time in Nightclub, Shotgun, or Sneaky during the fight with Killian. Let’s hear it for the crossover armor!
Heartbreaker
Of all the armors that showed up at the House Party Protocol, Heartbreaker probably whiffed the hardest on screen. (I mean, they were all being flown by Jarvis, so you can’t really blame Heartbreaker directly.) Along with Igor, he was one of only three Iron Legion armors called out by name at the battle when Tony said, “Heartbreaker, help Red Snapper out, will ya?” (By the way, there’s an outtake of RDJ having trouble with that line at 3:54 on the gag reel of IM3. He seems to think the names are pretty silly.) Heartbreaker first failed to help Red Snapper, then failed to get Rhodey safely to the President.
Heartbreaker (Mark 17) is sometimes thought of as the leader of the Iron Legion, if only because he was the first to arrive and ended up in the center of the money shot. (In reality, the hypervelocity suit Shotgun or the space armor Starboost should have shown up first, but hey, story’s gotta story.)
Let’s be honest, Heartbreaker just looks cool. His chest sports a military-grade repulsor, capable of releasing an incredible amount of energy. The titanium bars that wrap around his torso are to compensate for this cannon-like RT “heart,” a trait he shares with Romeo (Mark 32).
Is that it?
Well, I already wrote a blog about the Starboost and the Space Armors. I could talk about Rescue quite a bit. All of the “Busters” could use a dedicated site. But I have about 20 IM Ablative Armor blogs to get to, so don’t hold your breath!
The Ablative Armor (Axol) custom statue, Heartbreaker (Hot Toy), and Silver Centurion (Hot Toy), all at 1/6 scale, approximately 12” tall.
