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For those that aren't regulars, one of the characters I have a soft-sport for is Iron Man. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a engineer wannabe (two years in the aerospace program at Syracuse showed me the error of my ways), or may be it's just the cool toys (Batmobile is cool, but powered armor that lets you fly at Mach 1 is cooler), but whatever it is I just love the character. (Let's see, one greatest hits, one current review, a few entries on the list, one NYTS, no partridges in a pear tree.)
The toughest part about Shellhead is he's gone through so many incarnations of armor. Sure, you can make a bagillion versions of Spider-Man, but let's be frank here, he didn't change the suit THAT often. Iron Man, on the other hand, has gone through countless versions of the suit during his tenure, not including specialty armor like his space armor. When Marvel Legends exploded on to the scene, I was happy to get the Iron Man figure I got; the bronze armor with the cool, retro, 'horn' helmet. Enough said... but I always hoped that maybe, juuuuuuuust maybe, there was an Iron Man geek at ToyBiz that would look at the decades worth of armor and go "Ya know... LET'S DO IT!!!' Well, they did! Ok, sort of. No, they haven't dedicated an entire series to Iron Man, but they ARE producing two additional Iron Man figures for this years Marvel Legends line. One is based on the current version of the suit in the monthly series, and one is based on my all-time favorite suit, the Silver Centurion! What's the big deal you ask? Oh, make room, it's time to ramble!
First is the look. After the initial Grey/Gold clunky armor, the suit was redesigned by be very sleek, which makes sense. Using micro-electronics/micro-transistors/Keebler elves Stark was able to take the armor and rather then look like he's walking around in a garbage can, he's walking around in ARMOR that isn't any bulkier then your leather jacket. Makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, as the years went by, the armored stayed sleek, almost skin-tight... and just looked like he was wearing a giant skin-suit. Granted, TECHNOLOGICALLY this makes a lot of sense; you make it smaller, more malleable, cram more technology into minimum space, blah, blah, blah. However, that don't play with comics and fan-boys! Size DOES MEAN SOMETHING, and frankly wimpy looking armor just makes the Hulk look at you and go 'Hulk kick your wussy butt and Betty Ross laugh at you.' The Silver Centurion was made to be bulkier. It's not steroid-filled-armor bulky, more like finally-using-the-Bowflex-and-working-out bulky. The new armor featured larger boots, gauntlets, shoulder pads, and a back-pack that contained equipment and additional propulsion systems. Oh, and the color changed to silver rather then gold, hence the Silver Centurion name.
Next reason to get jacked-up for the Silver Centurion was the technology. First, props to David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and John Romita Jr. for putting the high-tech into high gear for Iron Man during their run. While they did the book, we saw multiple types of mission related armor, cool villains James Bond would have loved, and over-all the book took on a GREAT, cutting-edge, high-tech feel. Then Denny O'Neil and Mark Bright took this amazing armor and made it even MORE powerful. When Denny O'Neil and Mark Bright created the Silver Centurion, they must have had the Defense Department drooling because the systems on the armor were jumped up to 11. Propulsion systems that allowed IM to travel into low-earth-orbit. More powerful repulsors. Automated navigational systems. A chameleon effect and RAM on the armor to become invisible to the eye and to radar. And the first REAL heavy firepower added to Iron Man in ages, the pulse-bolt. They were packets of... oh hell, who knows what they were, they were glowing torpedoes of energy/stuff that he shot from his gauntlets. When they hit a building in Iron Man # 200, it went up like it was hit with a nuke! And best of all, all of these systems were used THROUGH OUT THE HISTORY OF THE SUIT. No one-issue wonders, these were always in the armor.