Epic Beat-Downs of Iron Man:
Probably the greatest and most popular superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man is the stuff of legends. He is an idol to millions and an inspiration to billions. Using his genius-level intellect and his near-limitless wealth, Tony Stark can create the most wondrous of technology. Using the Iron Man suit, Stark has vanquished foes way stronger than him. He does fight Gods on a regular basis. But he is still just a guy in a suit. At the end of the day, he too has limitations. Iron Man does not always win a fight. Sometimes, he loses in the most epic fashion imaginable. While the internet will always tell you how awesome and cool Iron Man is, we are here to show you the dark underbelly of the character that is Iron Man.
1. Living Laser gives him a heart attack
In one issue, Iron Man realizes that his mortal nemesis – the Mandarin, has been using advanced technology to enhance the abilities of Iron Man foes. These Supervillains that are classic Iron Man enemies wreak havoc on Iron Man’s life with their new augmented skills and powers. One of them is the Living Laser. Arthur Parks was already a very powerful villain. Further augmentation turned him into a God. When Iron Man tried to face him, the Living laser’s relentless attacks pummelled Iron Man to the ground. But the finishing move was when Arthur Parks decided to end his life in the fanciest way imaginable. Iron Man got a cardiac arrest, courtesy of Living laser.
2. Scarlet Witch makes his suit go haywire
In What If Avengers Disassembled, Captain America and Scarlet Witch have joined hands. Their goal is to dominate the world. But to do that they need to first do one thing – destroy the existing one. Captain America and Scarlet Witch’s grand plans grow afoul of the rest of the superheroes. Iron Man and a contingent of other superheroes land on Genosha to stop the murderous duo. When Iron Man is about to enter the fight and bring the hurt to Scarlet Witch, she just uses her chaos magic to strip Tony Stark of his suit. Tony manages to get it back but the magic is so strong that the Iron Man suit keeps malfunctioning. This leads to Iron Man sitting out of the fight because he has no other way of helping his allies anymore.
3. Punched to Death mid-air by Captain Marvel
In Civil War 2, Iron Man and Captain Marvel are at the very opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. An inhuman called Ulysses, who gains the ability to see future events, gives the government the ability to pre-emptively solve the crime and apprehend criminals. Captain Marvel is all about this strategy. Iron Man wanted Ulysses’ precognitive abilities to convince the criminals from committing the crime in the first place. Soon both Marvel and Iron Man are at loggerheads. Captain Marvel loses it finally and pushes Iron Man up in the air. She then goes on to repeatedly punch him while Iron Man is still in the air. Her punches strip Iron Man of his armor, little by little. The final punch leaves Iron Man armour-less and unconscious. And mind you, Iron Man was still in mid-air.
4. Nuked to Kingdom Come
Iron Man realizes that the government, as well as the bad guys, are using his technology to create duplicate Iron Man suits and weaponry and causing chaos and violence. Tony Stark decides to destroy all stolen Stark tech that is then currently in the wrong hands. While trying to take down a government-sponsored superhero called FirePower – a superhero that uses a suit of armor which has illegal and unauthorized Stark tech in it, he faces against one of the greatest weapons to have been ever created by mankind. FirePower launches a nuclear warhead at Iron Man. The warhead meets its target and the Iron Man suit is completely destroyed. But Tony Stark was remotely controlling the suit at that point in time from a distance. He came out unscathed.
5. The Extremis Incident
Iron Man was positioned as a superhero of the future when he first debuted decades ago. But technology has grown by leaps and bounds since then. What was futuristic then does not look as futuristic now. So Marvel had to bring up the Extremis story arc to ensure the fans know that Iron Man is still Marvel’s Man of Tomorrow. When fighting an international superhuman terrorist called Mallen, who has the Extremis technology in his body, he is able to give Iron Man a lesson in humility. Mallen literally destroys the suit with Tony Stark in it by ripping pieces of it apart until Iron Man’s bare chest remains. He even fatally wounds Tony Stark, who would later be forced to inject himself with the Extremis tech to survive the ordeal.
6. Skrulls literally hack into his body
In the Secret Invasion story arc, the Skrulls infiltrate the entire planet’s topmost authorities and begin a soft invasion of Earth. The Skrulls trap the Fantastic Four in the Negative Zone and manage to imprison a lot of other superheroes, whom they begin to impersonate. The Skrulls are also one of the most advanced civilizations in the universe. Tony Stark was injected with the Extremis technology at the time. The Skrulls hacked into his suit and got access to his extremis tech, rendering both Tony’s Iron Man suit and his Extremis tech unusable.
7. Patriot Act
Tony Stark was the leader of Shield not long ago and right after the Super Human Registration Act brought the identities of all super-powered vigilantes into a singular database under his control, Stark became the most powerful repository of information on everything that is Super Human. When Norman Osborn revealed his dubious plans to rob the free world of all free will and turn the United States into virtually a silent authoritarian regime that mirrors a Police State equivalent to Nazi Germany, Tony Stark had to ensure that the database of superhumans did not fall into Osborn’s hand. He voluntarily undergoes a mind wipe procedure that erases all the information he had on everyone from his head. But the process leaves Tony Stark a literal shell of a man.
8. Enter the Phoenix Force
When the Phoenix Force returns to Earth, the X-Men and the Avengers are already found to be at loggerheads with each other. The X-Men want to harness the Phoenix Force to revive the flailing mutant population. The Avengers think it is too risky a venture. While trying to end the root cause of the Problem once and for all, Iron Man uses a specialized form of armor called the Phoenix Buster armor. The idea was to generate a frequency at which the core of the Force operates. But it soon backfires and Iron Man ends up under piles of rubble the very next moment.
9. Shadow Cat phases through his armor
Kitty Pryde once visited the Stark Industries. This quirky comic book issue pit Tony Stark as a suitor for Kitty, who is still considered as one of the hottest superheroes in the Marvel Comic Book Universe. But Kitty had other plans. The reason she visited Stark Industries was to allow the brood to attack Iron Man. She literally coughs out a brood and then moves on to Tony Stark’s armory. There she phases through all the Iron Man armors. Shadow Cat’s phasing ability allows her to short circuit any form of electronics she phases through. All of Iron Man’s armors are rendered useless and when the Brood attack, Tony Stark is nothing but a sitting duck.
10. Thor fries Iron Man’s suit with lightning
During the Civil War, Thor was nowhere to be seen. But a superhero that looked pretty much like Thor soon emerged to fill up those big Asgardian shoes. But Iron Man, Reed Richards, and Hank Pym worked together to use Thor’s DNA Sample to create a cyborg clone of Thor duped Ragnarok. Using advanced technology, Ragnarok could replicate all the powers of Thor even at maximum efficiency. When Thor comes back to Earth only to find out that Iron Man had cloned him without permission as well as use that clone to parade his side as the one with Thor in the Civil War era, he is visibly pissed. Thor then fries the outer part of Stark’s Iron Man armor. The fight only lasts a few seconds but it demonstrates just how useless these weapons actually are against the Norse God of Thunder.
