Inside the Tech of Iron Man

Sing along with me, you know the words:

Tony Stark makes you feel
He's a cool exec with a heart of steel.
As Iron Man, all jets ablaze,
He's fighting and smiting with repulsor rays!
Amazing armor! That's Iron Man!
A blazing power! That's Iron Man!

Okay, maybe you don't know the words to the theme song for the first Iron Man cartoon. That's probably because Shellhead (as his friends call him) has moved well beyond meager TV animations to a full-fledged franchise powerhouse at the Cineplex. In fact, when Iron Man 3 debuts tonight, it'll be the fourth trip to the big screen for Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist and wearer of the coolest suit of armor, ever.

Today's Tony is no 'cool exec with a heart of steel' however. (Potential SPOILERS AHEAD!) He's a damaged man, both in body (he still has to prevent the shrapnel in his chest from the first movie touching his heart) and mind (he's reeling from the events of the alien invasion in The Avengers and probably still drinking way too much). To compensate, he's building lots and lots of armor. And he's putting his very best technology into it.

Here we examine the tech Tony Stark has been coming up with for this never-ending parade of new armor designs. In fact, we don't really focus on the individual armor of the comics or movies (with a couple of notable exceptions), but more on what powers the suits, what weapons Tony has integrated, and a couple of the artificial intelligence helpers he's devised to assist him.

So sit back, grab some popcorn, and gaze upon the coolest tech of the invincible Iron Man before you hit the movie this weekend.

1. Repulsor Ray

Despite being the most amazing offensive weaponry Tony Stark has ever developed, and being constantly on display in the movies, the repulsor rays in the palms of his armor get barely a mention by name. The Marvel Database (a wiki of all things related to Marvel superheroes) calls the repulsor a "high density muon beam," which means it isn't just a laser light; it's a particle beam capable of incredible concussive power.

And glowing hands just look bad-ass.

2. Arc Reactor

The arc reactor is more than just an unlimited, clean power source for Tony Stark's buildings and armored suits. It's also keeping him alive. In the comics and movies Tony needs a magnetic chest plate to keep shrapnel from touching his heart. In the films, he powers it with a reactor based on a design by his dad, and sticks that nuclear battery in his chest. Of course it almost kills him in the second movie, but he gets better. In fact, the arc reactor in the comics boosts Tony's already considerable intelligence. Perhaps most important, the arc reactor (called the Repulsor Tech Node in some of the comics) provides all the power he needs for the armor and its weapon systems such as repulsor rays. You can buy your own arc reactor (complete with black t-shirt) to wear to the movie premiere.

3. J.A.R.V.I.S.

Short for "Just a Really Very Intelligent System," J.A.R.V.I.S. is a disembodied artificial intelligence system that Tony speaks to in the movies, both for quick expositional information and sarcastic banter. The voice is delivered by English actor Paul Bettany, who says he's never seen any of the Marvel films.

The name J.A.R.V.I.S. is a tribute to the comic book character of Edwin Jarvis, an actual English butler to the Avengers when they had a mansion (also owned by Stark). The A.I. has a much easier job...no one wants to clean up after Thor drinks mead and eats shawarma.

4. Unibeam Projector (Chest)

Remember the repulsors? Think of the Unibeam, emitted from the breast plate of Tony Stark's armor, as an uber-repulsor. It's such a powerful particle beam that one zap can quickly drain the arc reactor power plant in his chest, and requires some recharge time. It's the kind of thing Iron Man uses sparingly. Well, it was until The Avengers movie, when he was zapping aliens with it all the time, but he had a new arc reactor to make that happen.

5. U and DUM-E

Look closely at that animated GIF—the autonomous robot arm trying to help Tony Stark in the lab has a "U" stencil. He and his brother arm, "DUM-E," are the regular objects of Stark's derision in the films, since they seem to have been programmed with the brain engrams of the Three Stooges (which is totally a thing you can do in the Marvel Universe). The actual arms were designed by high-tech welding equipment maker Lincoln Electric in Iron Man 2 and you can watch them brag about it in their video.

6. Suitcase Armor

Iron Man 2 included a scene in which Tony grabs a suitcase that turns into a set of travel armor. It's a tribute to a version of the armor harking back to the 1960s comics, wherein comic creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby said his Mark II armor was so flexible it could fold flat enough to be carried in a briefcase.

In the film the Mark V armor folds out onto Tony once activated. It looks much cooler in the movie than the comic. It's also the basis for an awesome Iron Man Leather Motorcycle Suit you can no longer buy and probably wouldn't have had the stones to wear anyway.

7. Extremis

Remember that scene in The Avengers when Tony Stark talks to Loki, slips on his stylish power band bracelets, and uses them to summon the armor and wrap him inside? SPOILER ALERT: that was a pre-cursor to what we'll see in Iron Man 3 with Extremis. The tech is a rewrite of the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America, which gives subjects control of their bodily systems to enhance strength, healing, durability, and speed. It's an update on the idea from a wildly popular 2005 Iron Man comic book mini-series of the same name, in which Tony used the Extremis "virus" to carry a sheath of Iron Man armor in the hollows of his own bones as nano-bots that could manifest whenever he needed. And yes, that's totally a thing that could actually happen.

8. Hulkbuster Armor

This one last specialized armor is a comic book fan favorite and I swear I saw it in the trailer. It won't go by the Hulkbuster name since Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are totally "Science Bros." (Also leaks have revealed the names of all the suits in the new film.) In the comics the Hulkbuster is a heavy-duty exo-frame modular add-on; that's a fancy way to say it's armor that goes over his regular Iron Man armor. It's exactly what you need to have in a one-on-one fight with a rampaging Hulk.