Iron Man's Armory in the MC2: Model 3

 

I’m going back to the workshop for another entry in the occasional series of posts detailing the various armours of Tony Stark, focusing on those that appear in the MC2. Today’s entry is Iron Man’s Armory in the MC2: Model 3.

 

 For consistency, I’ll be using the designations for the various Iron Man armours provided by to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe team’s most recent version of the All-New Iron Manual, updated and corrected as part of the Iron Manual trade paperback.

 

There is some debate as to when exactly Iron Man’s Model 3 armour debuted, with some tweaks to the Model 2 helmet seeing a rivet design and a smoother face plate starting in Tales of Suspense #54.

 

In the pages of Tales of Suspense #56, Iron Man first gains his hip-mounted pods which would soon become standard. Finally, in Tales of Suspense #66 the rivets disappeared from the face plate. Whichever issue you’d prefer to attribute this armour incarnation to, the Iron Manual TPB states Tales of Suspense #56 was the first appearance of the Model 3. Perhaps we can assume some of these modifications weren’t enough to constitute a whole new ‘model’ to Tony, being instead, for example, ‘Model 2 Mark II’ etc as some have proposed.

 

In the MC2, we get a very brief glimpse of the Model 3 during a flashback in the pages of Fantastic Five (vol. 1) #1 to the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm from Fantastic Four Annual #3.

 

It’s possible we also see a photograph of the Model 3 armour in the pages of American Dream #2 but it’s difficult to tell from just a headshot. This nebulous identification of Iron Man Armor Models will be a continuing issue as we’ll see next time, too.

Anyway, that’s all for today folks! The next instalment in this series will prove more substantial.

Until I can positively identify every nut, bolt and transistor to determine which Model armour Iron Man is wearing in any given comic panel, I remain

 

frogoat