Superhero Fact #3

Many people already know that aside from Tony Stark’s brilliance and wealth, he is a serious alcoholic. In the comics this is used as an easy weakness, and occasional excuse for his choice to not participate in certain crisis.

                                Any discussion of “who would win in a fight” that involves Iron Man inevitably requires that the type of suit Iron Man is wearing be clarified. He has worn a variety of different suits with varying powers, and you can see some of the different armours below. Basically, Iron Man IS his armour, and without it, Tony Stark is a very smart man with little else. However, the suit has allowed him to overcome many other heroes when they have clashed. In a storyline called Civil War, Tony Stark leads the group of heroes that believe in the Super Human Registration Act (requiring all super humans to register with the government). During this time he battles Spiderman, and is able to easily defeat him because he had previously scanned his DNA and learned the secret of his “Spidey Sense”. In this way, he could block himself from triggering the sense, as well as cause it to occur falsely in Spiderman, distracting him.

                                When Iron Man fought Captain America, in their first battle, Cap didn’t stand a chance. Tony explains, as Cap is trying to land some punches, that the suit has recorded every fight Captain America has ever been in, and can predict every single move before it is used. The suit easily beats Cap who doesn’t land a single punch. However, when Tony’s suit is later powered down, Captain America beats the snot out of Iron Man (until his conscience kicks in and he stops). When Iron Man has fought Thor or the Hulk, he is basically trounced. He holds his own, but causes no real damage to them, and usually just gets really badly hurt. Thor can shut down Iron Man’s suit with a burst of super powered lightning, and Hulk can tear the suit apart (even Iron Man’s special Hulkbuster suit).

                                Iron Man has created weapons and gadgets for other heroes including arrows for Hawkeye, a replacement shield for Captain America, and various weaponry for SHIELD. He can lift over 100 tons in the suit, and most recently he injected himself with a techno virus that allows the inner layers of his suit to be contained in the hollows of his bones, giving him direct control over it with his brain, as well as the ability to access almost any communication device remotely. Iron Man is always growing in power.