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[runsonbatteries]

PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: Natalie
✖ Contact: longliondays @ plurk.com
✖ Are You Over 16: Y

CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Stark, Tony (Stark, Anthony Edward)
✖ Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe. Between the end of the Avengers and the beginning of Iron Man 3.
✖ Character Appearance: http://blog.mysofa.es/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/iron-man-3.jpg
✖ Character Age: 44
✖ Pick A Number: First choice: 888; Alternative: 1

✖ Canon Setting: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a lot like our own: it has the same geography, and for the most part, same political events and same pop culture (in one of the tie-in comics, Tony refers to both Game of Thrones and Mad Men. And that’s only the tip of his referential iceberg). However there are some key differences.

Technology is far more advanced in this world. Tony was able to survive a cluster of shrapnel being lodged in his chest because another scientist built a tiny magnet to consistently pull the pieces away from his heart. Then Tony built another tiny generator in the same cave to power a mechanical exoskeleton. The first arc reactor was made of palladium, which was poisonous for Tony, so he figured out a new element that’s cleaner and self-sustaining. He’s since used this technology to power an entire building and three helicarriers (essentially flying battleships). Artificial intelligence is achievable (J.A.R.V.I.S. is a primary example of this, a computer that is fully sentient and capable of interacting with others as a separate entity), as well as advanced holographic screens. A guy transferred his consciousness onto a series of hard drives in the 1960’s. The Mark XLII, Tony’s latest Iron Man suit, is controlled by his thoughts, even when he’s asleep.

Science and medicine are other aspects that have progressed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond what we know in our own, even as early as the Great Depression. During World War II, Steve Rogers was given a serum that increased his stamina, his speed, and his strength—essentially turning him into a super soldier.

Many people have tried and failed to replicate this serum since. One of which was Bruce Banner, a scientist specializing in gamma radiation research. When testing the experiment on himself, he was transformed into the Hulk, an “enormous green rage monster” with excess muscle mass and nearly unlimited brute strength. Extremis is another thing that was developed in an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier serum, created by Maya Hansen and Aldrich Killian. Extremis is a virus that reprograms the operating system of the human body, enhancing strength and durability like the Super Soldier Serum, but also enabling the subject to regrow limbs. This virus however is incredibly unstable, and was used by Killian to create human bombs, which was the plot of Iron Man 3. Maya Hansen had been working on the Extremis virus when she met Tony at a science conference in Switzerland: she was trying to rewrite genetic codes by experimenting on plants, but the process had the very unfortunate side-effect of spontaneous combustion in certain subjects. They had a one-night stand and Tony left her an equation that could supposedly fix the problems. He may have used this equation to cure Pepper after Killian had injected her with the Extremis virus.

There is the tesseract, a cube of pure energy that is one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. Its abilities include opening rifts through space for the purpose of teleportation (being referred to at one point as “a door”), harnessing and channeling its own energy into a sort of force field to protect itself, and in certain cases, showing visions of the future. It can also power other weapons, which has been its most frequent use. HYDRA, the fictional Nazi science division based on Hitler’s authentic obsession with myth and scientific experimentation, used the tesseract’s power to create weapons against the Allies and the entire world. The tesseract ends up in the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D. after Howard Stark found it looking for Captain America in the ice, and since then, they have been testing its energy and using it to develop even more weapons, including some nuclear warheads.

Aliens in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are not just a joke on the History Channel; they are now an accepted reality, after a large-scale attack on Manhattan in the Avengers, and before that, one alien/demi-god known as Thor dropped onto earth and changed everything. As it turns out, the Norse gods are both real and from another planet called Asgard. Asgard and Earth are part of a group of planets known as the “Nine Realms,” all connected by a cosmic nimbus called the Yggdrasil.

Once we figured out that we’re not only not alone in the universe, but also grossly unprepared for what would happen when they landed, SH.I.E.L.D. began to use the power of the tesseract to make those aforementioned weapons. Though this backfired on them as it apparently signaled to the rest of the universe that the earth is ready for a higher form of war. Which may have led to the battle in New York that Tony had to fight, along with the rest of the Avengers.

The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (otherwise known as S.H.I.E.L.D.), is a counterterrorism and intelligence agency that was founded by Tony Stark’s father and two other people after World War II. After Tony came back from Afghanistan, S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up and wants to debrief him about how he escaped from the terrorists. They also gave Tony a cover story for the press on what happened during his and Iron Monger’s fight, which Tony does not stick to and instead comes out as Iron Man in front of the entire world. In the post credit scene, Nick Fury comes to Tony’s home in order to talk to him about the Avengers initiative, something that Fury was trying to put together that employs people with uncommon abilities in order to defend the world against threats that may be too complicated to handle—like aliens attacking 42nd Street.

After Iron Man 2, S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits Tony as a consultant, considering him too volatile to actually function as a part of the still-developing Avengers group. This was true, to a certain extent and for a certain amount of time, because once they are summoned to duty, the first thing Tony does is hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database and uncover their intentions to use the tesseract as a weapon. Even after the battle in Manhattan, after Thor brings the tesseract back to Asgard, Nick Fury tells his superiors that the Avengers have gone their separate ways and they are no longer answering to S.H.I.E.L.D.

✖ Character History: Link to character wiki

✖ Character Personality:

Tony Stark is the man that hacks into a PA system just to make his own theme music, and hates being handed things. And when a man tries to kick him out of a bar, he buys the bar, instead. His charisma is unstoppable. Tony Stark is very charming, and most dangerously of all, he’s aware of it. If he walks into a room and wants people to take notice, everyone is going to look at him. Loki and Beyoncé combined don’t have enough diva power to match him. He loves classic rock and heavy metal (bands such as, but not limited to AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Def Leppard). He's a never-ending fountain of pop culture references, even the most obscure kind (referring to Thor as "Point Break" due to his resemblance to Patrick Swayze's character in the like-titled movie). And he seems vaguely educated in the Bible, due to the Jonah reference in the Avengers, and the Jericho missile in Iron Man, presuming Tony was the one that named it.

His attention span for things that don't interest him or he deems unimportant is about as long and extensive as a fly in a room full of dry shit, but as often as Tony drags his heels about early meetings, or turns up three hours late to previously scheduled appointments, he becomes focused and near-obsessive about the things that matter to him. Whether it’s his next mission as Iron Man, or a new project he’s been working on, he’s ready to trade food and sleep for coffee and all-nighters in his workshop.

Beneath the armor he has another protective exoskeleton surrounding his feelings. He doesn’t let people in so easily, even his now-girlfriend Pepper Potts. He uses his charm and sarcasm to keep people at an arm’s length. One notable example being the death of Phil Coulson: Tony is very obviously affected by his death, but calls Coulson an idiot for getting himself killed. And when he almost dies in space, his first reaction is to deflect from the moment and ramble. Not to say the humor is not legitimate: even when Tony is alone, and he's just talking to himself (note: he does this, quite often), he's cracking jokes at the expense of his surroundings.

This, the nature of his work, and the eccentricities he’s cultivated, makes Tony a very solitary creature. There are people he rubs elbows with at parties, the members of his staff, and the questionable women he sleeps with, but there are only a handful of people he’s truly close to—and his machines. Tony talks to his machines. He even made an AI to talk back to him.

There is Colonel James Rhodes, the liaison between the military and Stark Industries in the department of acquisitions. It's never outright specified in the films exactly how far back Tony and Rhodes go, or what events took place that led to them becoming friends and business partners. What is obvious is that Tony trusts him, and that trust seems to go both ways. Of course this doesn't stop Tony from driving Rhodes up the wall. Rhodes is the sensible one in the friendship (though granted most anyone seems sensible next to Tony Stark), often castigating Tony for his lax and irresponsible behavior, even referring to himself once as Tony’s babysitter, which is not entirely untrue, considering how many times he's had to clean up after Tony did something impulsive. More than once Rhodes has had to put his foot down with Tony, but even after they had a physical fight in Iron Man 2, Rhodes was able to quickly set aside his frustrations, and fight alongside Tony in the upgraded Mark II machine that he took from him.

Then of course, there is Pepper Potts, Tony’s personal assistant, who isn't his right-hand woman as much as the right half of his brain walking and talking. Clearly she’s been with him for a long time, as she knows everything that helps get Tony through his life, from his business to his social security number. This makes him somewhat co-dependent on her, and at one point, he confides in her that she’s the only person he has. Later she confirms that the situation is mutual. Naturally, being the love interest in a superhero story, he’s had to save her on more than one occasion (though to be fair, she’s also bailed him out of a few life-threatening situations), and despite the fact that he can’t even remember her allergy to strawberries, Pepper means a great deal to him.

There is more than just a spark of attraction between them: both Pepper and Tony dance around each other, flirting and then drawing back (Pepper considering their professional situation, and Tony having enough sense to follow her lead), until the end of Iron Man 2, when they finally act on their feelings and get together. So by the time the Avengers rolls around, Pepper and Tony are an established couple. And despite his flirtatious nature, and his bedroom being purported to have had more female traffic than a Backstreet Boys concert, he’s fully devoted to her.

Despite Tony’s glorious lack of social tact, he does find it within him to be decent to other people (sometimes). In the first movie, he calls Pepper into his workshop to help him replace his arc reactor, and while she is stressed out about the process, even making a mistake that sends Tony into cardiac arrest at one point, he calmly and very kindly talks her through it. A similar scenario emerges in the Avengers when the helicarrier is attacked, and Tony is left alone with Steve to help him fix the propellers. He’s able to work with Steve and remain calm and patient despite Steve’s technological impairments and their heated exchange of words beforehand. And judging by his exchange in the Humvee and the way he interacts with crowds, he knows how to make people feel comfortable around him.

Tony is notorious for making impulsive, “ready, fire, aim” decisions, following his gut and what it tells him is right, first—needless to say, Loki is not the only one that does what he wants. In the first Iron Man, he throws everyone off-guard by returning from Afghanistan and immediately announcing that he would be shutting down the part of his company that made weapons, and then again when he throws out the alibi everyone told him to stick to and comes out as Iron Man to the entire world. Iron Man 2 is a parade of these moments, from announcing Pepper as his successor to his company, to pushing a driver out of his car to enter a Monaco car derby. It’s not surprising that Natasha Romanov and S.H.I.E.L.D. would deem him incapable of playing well with others.

One of the major conflict points of the Avengers movie is how this group of people can learn to pool in their unusual talents and find their rhythm as a team, which wasn't an easy feat, at first. On Tony’s end, he is predictably arrogant and disinterested in collaborating, exploding into the scene without proper warning, and then rushing to retrieve Loki from Thor without listening to Steve. Like Fury said, they needed a push (the death of Coulson) to put their differences aside and come together to avenge Coulson and save the world, and that includes Tony. He follows direction, has his team members’ backs, and by the end of the movie, Tony is even seen renovating his tower to house the other Avengers, so they could all live together in one place.

Since the advent of the superhero comic, a familiar origin story has popped up for most of these fellows: first, the parents have to die. Then through some kind of freak accident that alters their physical state (radioactive spider, gamma radiation, or a freakishly convenient bolt of lightning), they find their calling in protecting the good and fighting the bad guys. Both of Tony’s parents died in a car crash when he was a teenager, later enabling him to inherit his father’s company and take over the business of making weapons for the military. In the beginning of Iron Man, while speaking to a reporter, he shows zero remorse for the role that Stark Industries plays in warfare, even validating his actions while trying to charm the woman into his bed all in the same breath.

Two things change him: a missile that all but destroyed his heart and killed him, and Doctor Ho Yinsen. Doctor Yinsen, a fellow prisoner in Afghanistan, was the one that performed the surgery that saved Tony’s life, removing as much shrapnel as he could, and putting the electromagnet inside his chest. He is also the one that tells Tony the dark truth that he’s been naive about all those years of his career: terrorists were using his weapons to murder innocent people. And the only reason they were keeping him alive was to build the Jericho missile for them. This information, and the futility of his physical situation, sends Tony into a brief state of hopelessness. But Yinsen pushes him to fight, and prevent this from becoming his legacy. Then when he gives his life so Tony could escape, he uses his last bit of energy to tell him not to waste his life.

These words are a turning point for Tony. It motivates him to change, devoting his life to protecting those he put in harm’s way. However Yinsen is also a heavy weight on his conscience. There is a scene in the Avengers where Steve Rogers is arguing with him, taking jabs at his character while Tony sasses back. Until Steve tells him, “I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.” There is a subtle, yet noticeable break in Tony’s offense after this line. It’s not hard to believe that he hears the truth in Steve’s criticism—that he even agrees with Steve, feeling deep down that he didn't deserve to have someone sacrifice their life for his.

As much swag as he sends out into the universe, Tony is damaged, even before the socket was introduced to his chest cavity. He’s conflicted, arguably suffering from depression, with very few meaningful connections to the human world. His claim to fame—the outlet that he had been putting all his ideas into before Afghanistan—was profiting from death and destruction. Not to mention he spent most of his adult life believing that his father didn't love him. At his lowest point, Tony probably gives his life the same monetary value as a used coffee filter. Iron Man is his redemption; it’s the one good thing that he did.

Unfortunately, one major defining aspect of Tony’s character is his alcoholism. It's never outright said in the movies the way it is in the comics (where he identifies himself as a recovering alcoholic in certain issues), but there is a prevalence of scenes where Tony isn't either holding a drink or going to get one. The director of the first Iron Man movie, Jon Favreau, is quoted as saying, "Stark has issues with booze. That's part of who he is." Iron Man 2 was almost based on an issue from the seventies called Demons in a Bottle, where a series of events led Tony to try and pull a Leaving Las Vegas—without the hooker, but the heavy binge-drinking with the intent to kill himself. They changed direction, but getting wasted at his birthday party does cause a lot of things to bottom out for him, including losing one of his Iron Man suits.

A lot of Tony's problems also stem from the relationship he had with his father--or lack thereof. Howard Stark was absent most of his life, but he’s still a presence that looms in his life. Howard pushed him to be the man that he is today (potentially one of the reasons Tony is conflicted about him, because he hates who he is), shipping him off to boarding school and grooming him to take over the company. When discussing his father with Director Fury, Tony describes him as cold and calculating. "He never told me that he loved me; he never even told me that he liked me."

Of course it turns out in the second movie that Howard adored his son, knowing that Tony would accomplish great things with the resources and scientific breakthroughs that Howard himself did not have in his time. Eerily enough, Tony is almost the spitting image of his dad. Compare Stark Expo from Iron Man 2 to the scene where Howard is introduced in Captain America—classic case of the apple and the tree.

Tony seems to have an aversion to rejection--whether he’s just not used to it, or hates it, all the same. Tony shoots down the conversation at first (telling Fury he doesn't want to join his “super-secret boy band”). But when he meets with Fury again after Vanko was defeated and Tony had a new ticker that wasn't slowly killing him, he seems taken aback by Natasha Romanov’s analysis of him. In fact, he even goes so far as to try and defend his case, pointing out that she had been shadowing him during abnormal circumstances (his screw-ups being in direct correlation to what he thought were his final days on earth), and he was changed.

Most superheroes choose to keep their identities under wraps, living two compartmentalized lives—Tony spontaneously announces who he is to the entire world in a highly publicized press conference. Everyone knows that Iron Man is Tony Stark and Tony Stark is Iron Man. He doesn't even worry about his security the way fellow billionaire-genius-playboy-superhero Bruce Wayne does, as proven in the sequel when he makes a public statement worthy of a pro-wrestling arena about how nobody was brave enough to go toe-to-toe with him in the Iron Man suit. These actions say a lot about his character, his ego, and the fact that he wants to be a public about his actions. He doesn't seem to worry too much about his enemies attacking him or his loved ones—the first part because his methods are much more definitive than Batman’s, not having the same code about not killing, and the second because he probably doesn't consider it, too often.

It was a gutsy move, among many other gutsy moves. From testing Bruce Banner’s limits to openly threatening a demigod that killed eighty people in two days, Tony has iron balls, if nothing else. He has no reason to believe that his math is ever wrong, and he wouldn't be able to find a quick way to slip out of danger.

Despite everything that he has done in the Iron Man suit, no one has truly forgotten the Tony Stark that existed before he became Iron Man—mostly because he never really changed, from an outside perspective. And from a storytelling standpoint, this is probably for the best--Tony wouldn't be half as interesting if he made a total transformation and started kissing babies and rescuing harp seals from trees. He’s still obnoxious, eccentric, and madly in love with the sound of his own voice. So what would drive a womanizing egotist to jet around the world in a metal body cast, fighting terrorism and making innocent people feel safe? Apart from trying to score with one of those beauty queens that like world peace so much. Or maybe he just shoots to thrill, just like the song says.

When it comes to problem-solving, Tony takes a practical approach, concerned primarily with the success or failure of his actions (and even then, he often cares quite a bit more about his successes rather than that other thing). In fewer words, Tony is a pragmatist--a man that takes action, and believes that the ends will always justify the means.

Before his Humvee is attacked by the Ten Rings, Tony makes a speech to a military quadrant, claiming that he believed the best weapon was not one you never had to use, but one you only had to use once. Depending on your point of view, this statement could either be considered reprehensible or chillingly honest. A lot of things changed about Tony when he returned from Afghanistan: he stopped producing weapons, and chose to focus on arc reactor technology instead (something that would benefit the people more than explosions), but he doesn't become a diplomat or moves Pepper and Jarvis to a neutral country to stop dealing with war all together--hell, he doesn't even become a Buddhist. Instead, Tony reinvents the Iron Man suit, which he won't define as a weapon, but he also punched a hole through a thick layer of stone and blew up a tank in it—it might not be a weapon, but the Iron Man is not a basket of kittens, either.

There is a quote from the fourth issue of The Invincible Iron Man that helps summarize how he looks at his suit. Tony was being interviewed by an investigative film maker for a documentary he was producing, though it quickly turns into a game of "Make Tony Feel like the Biggest Piece of Shit Alive in Six Pages." Pillinger wants to know if Tony thought of the Iron Man suit as a military device and argues with him about it, discounting the benefits of Iron Man and even lumping it in with Tony's other destructive weapons. Afterwards, in a stream of exposition, Tony thinks to himself: "I've never sold any element of the Iron Man suit to the military. It's used for extraordinary rescue and response situations. Iron Man saves lives." If it sounds like Tony is drawing a line in the sand between the actions of the US military and his duty as Iron Man, it's because he is. A similar situation also emerges in Iron Man 2, when the Senate tries to force Tony to fork over the Iron Man suit for the military to use, and he refuses. He argues with them: "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in. You can't have it." And later mutters that the Senator didn't really care about the well-being of American citizens. In either scenario though, Tony is unyielding and completely against the military even touching his suit.

Being held hostage in Afghanistan made Tony painfully aware of the fact that Stark Industries was doing more harm than good in preventing the world from spinning into chaos. Terrorists had access to his weapons, and they were using them not only on the American soldiers he invented said weapons to protect, but innocent civilians that were just unfortunate enough to be in the way. He realized he could do a better, more precise job of protecting the people.

So he isn't hoarding the Iron Man suit and pulling a Bill Clinton about the definition of a "weapon" in a court hearing just to be a selfish dick--though for Tony Stark that might be reason enough. He legitimately doesn't consider his suit military property. Nor does he believe that the military is capable of using it for the highest good. Instead they would just turn it into a war machine that would reap casualties from both sides, and take no accountability for the rivers of blood. The Iron Man could be easily abused in the wrong hands. This much was already proven by Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko.

But most of all, Tony loves being Iron Man; in fact, he seems to enjoy being Iron Man a lot more than he enjoys being Tony Stark, for aforementioned reasons. Iron Man is a symbol of justice that single-handedly privatized world peace. Tony Stark, as the world knows him at large, is an arrogant brat that has one-night stands with questionable women and doesn't care about anyone but himself.

This duality becomes lethal at one point. In Iron Man 2, Tony discovers the palladium in the arc reactor is poisoning him, and using the Iron Man suit was making the process go even faster. He works tirelessly to try and find a healthier substitute for the palladium core, but he also continues to use the suit, and hides his illness from the people closest to him. Naturally to prevent a tropical storm of worry from coming his way, but also presumably because he knew if Pepper or Rhodes knew he was dying and the suit was responsible for it, they would do anything in their power to stop him from using it again. Tony didn't even listen when Rhodes found out and tried to reach him, telling him the lone gunslinger act was unnecessary and he didn't have to fight alone.

People don't perform the same act over and over again if they don’t get at least some amount of enjoyment out of it. But he also tells Pepper--in so many words--that without his responsibilities to the world as Iron Man, he shouldn't even be alive. Iron Man is as much his reason to live as it is his redemption, making up for the blind eye that he turned on the true destruction that his weapons created. He is in fact the man that would make the sacrifice play, and do it at the expense of his own life without a second thought. Very often people talk about Tony Stark and Iron Man as though they are two separate people, which is not hard to understand when Tony himself gives off the impression that he is not the same person that he is in the suit when he’s just walking around being a troll.

When fighting the Chitauri in New York, Tony has a near-death experience carrying a nuclear warhead through a dimensional portal that shakes him to the very core in Iron Man 3: “You experience things and then they're over and you still can't explain 'em. Gods, aliens, other dimensions. I...I'm just a man in a can.” After the events of the Avengers, Tony throws himself into his work, “tinkering” as he puts it, and obsessively improves upon his designs in order to protect Pepper and the other people he loves. He stops sleeping for days on end, and suffers from severe anxiety attacks, nightmares, and fits of hyperventilation. The suits become a crutch and a dependency. After he goes on television and dares a terrorist mastermind known as the Mandarin (actually a figurehead for another scientist gone insane) to come fight him on his own turf, both his home and his workshop are blown up, along with most of his suits, and he has to go into hiding for a while. For most of the movie, he’s put in situations where he has to rely not on his suits, but on the ingenuity that enabled him to build them in the first place. He uses materials found in a local hardware store to MacGyver a variety of weapons to break into the Mandarin’s compound and take down multiple guards in order to get to the truth.

The events of IM3 teach Tony that it’s not the “cans” so to speak that make him a hero, but the man inside them, which finally enables him to let go of his dependency, and even detonates all of his suits so he could make an attempt at a fresh start (I use the word “attempt” because there’s an Avengers sequel and a fourth Iron Man movie to account for). When he’s thrown into a pinch, even when he’s faced with his own mortality time and time again, Tony has always shown a remarkable strength of character, resourcefulness, and an indomitable spirit. “So if I were to wrap this up tight with a bow or whatever, I guess I'd say my armor, it was never a distraction or a hobby, it was a cocoon. And now, I'm a changed man. You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys. One thing you can't take away...I am Iron Man.”

✖ Character Powers: Tony Stark doesn't have x-ray vision, super speed, or super healing abilities, but he is a super genius. He built his first circuit board when he was four years old, and his first engine when he was thirteen. Before Tony was even old enough to legally drink in the states, serve in the military, or be valid for membership at Costco, he graduated summa cum laude from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with double majors in physics and engineering. Once Tony took control of his father’s company, he went well beyond the legacy that Howard Stark left behind, vastly improving robotics, satellite technology, and of course, weapons. He was to explosions what Willy Wonka is to chocolate, transforming the industry and earning himself such nicknames as, “the Da Vinci of our time,” and “the Merchant of Death.” Back when he was still dealing in weapons, that is. These days, Tony has turned his attention to clean energy resources.

On his own, Tony is not much stronger than the average man his age and build—he even had a rather abnormal physical handicap working against him before the end of Iron Man 3. In 2008, during a routine weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, his convoy was attacked by a terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, and Tony found himself on the wrong end of one of his own missiles. The explosion lodged shrapnel in his chest that are slowly trying to work their way into his heart, and the only thing stopping them from killing Tony is the arc reactor, a tiny generator built in his chest that functions like an electromagnet, drawing the pieces of metal away from his arteries. However this, within itself, almost kills Tony in Iron Man 2, when it turns out the palladium he had been using to charge the arc reactor was also poisoning him, pressing Tony to find a suitable replacement. Of course he figures it out in the end, and invents a brand new element in the process.

What puts Tony in league with other fantastic humans such as Captain America and the Hulk is the Iron Man suit: a “high-tech prosthesis” he first built in a cave to escape captivity, but then later remodeled when he had the resources to do so. The suit is made of a gold-titanium alloy, durable enough to protect Tony from bullets, explosions, and being scraped against the side of a mountain by a demigod like a piece of gum someone’s trying to get off their shoe. It’s capable of super strength, as Tony is seen lifting cars, punching his fist through stone walls, and swinging a large barbell around like a baseball bat. There are jets in the boots for flight and stabilizers in the gloves to help steer himself around while he’s airborne. When the stabilizers are concentrated, they can knock people back several yards, so they can also be used as weapons. A similar blast can also be fired from the center of Tony’s chest, but it takes much longer to charge, so he doesn't resort to it, very often.

There are other fun gadgets hidden inside the armor that help Tony in the fight against terrorism: anti-tank missiles, anti-personnel guns, flares, and repulsor rays. The suit also comes equipped with a dry British AI known as Jarvis that helps operate the system and informs Tony of any issues that might arise during combat. Tony’s means of communicating with Jarvis is a holographic interface called the Heads-Up-Display, or the HUD (or the glowing blue stuff you see floating around Tony’s face whenever the camera pans inside his helmet). The HUD allows Tony to see the world around him when he’s in the suit, as well as serving many additional functions, from receiving data, analyzing objects and people’s profiles, targeting marks, and diagnosing his armor’s conditions. It also has a built-in radio and phone, to contact people from the outside.

The latest models are connected to Tony through microchips that Tony embedded into his left arm, enabling him to mentally control the armor with his thoughts. So it can both assemble and disassemble from his body automatically (sometimes as the entire exoskeleton or in individual pieces), without the heavy machinery that it needed in the last two Iron Man movies and the Avengers. It can even be commanded while Tony is unconscious, as shown in a scene where he is having a nightmare and the Mark XLII almost attacks Pepper, who was sleeping next to him at the time. It can also be remotely controlled with a headpiece, so the armor can function as a separate entity with Tony in a separate location.

High-tech gadgets aside, Tony has some training in unarmed fighting techniques, and can throw a few punches if the situation calls for it. He was able to hold his own in a fight against his friend Rhodes, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, and for a certain amount of time Thor (both times in the Iron Man suit). He further displayed his hand-to-hand combat skills in Iron Man 3 when he broke into the Mandarin’s mansion and had to take down multiple guards with some Home Depot arsenal and what god gave him.

CHARACTER SAMPLES.
✖ First Person POV: Private Post with Bucky Barnes

✖ Third Person POV:

He could remember a time when a strange woman inviting herself into his car would have been exciting. Like a fish jumping into a fisherman's boat. But the whole healthy-committed relationship keeps those thoughts from circulating through his mind with any intention attached to them. He sizes her up and then sucks a short stream of air through his teeth.

“Yeah. This isn't going to work.”

He leans over the central console in order to open the door on her side, but she stops him by catching his wrist. “Before you do that, just give me one minute to talk to you.”

Tony squints. “Uh, I don’t know what you heard, but I kind of don’t do that anymore. And I've never talked for just a minute--not since I was fifteen and got over that whole premature handicap.”

The disgusted look is almost bruising to his ego. Almost. “This is just talking.”

“Same rules apply. Metaphorically or literally.” He makes a show of looking around them, both in front of the car and in back. “Where did you even come from?”

The woman stares him dead in the eyes. “Space. You’re familiar with that, aren't you, Mr. Stark?”

Tony jerks his arm back, replacing the cold feeling in his stomach with a moment of silence for the time that he would've been skeptical about aliens being introduced to the conversation. That was before Manhattan. That was before power cubes and Norse demi-gods throwing him out windows and Grand Central being blown to pieces. He pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Lot of mileage just to call shotgun.”

“I heard about you did in New York. I know how you saved the earth by blowing up the Chitauri ship.”

“What about it?” The terseness has become familiar, by now: a standard response when someone touched upon the subject of New York. Even when they just entered the borders of the subject. He kept people from questioning the edge in his tone by keeping it brief--and nobody asked, in the first place. This alien didn't. She just continues into what Tony assumes she had been meaning to say, anyway.

“The Chitauri were corrupt--but they aren't the only ones bent on destroying worlds. And they aren't the only ones that have taken an interest in your planet.”

She turns in her seat in order to face him more fully. “We need you, Mr. Stark.”

“And who’s we?”

“Your entire race, as it pertains to you.”

Tony stares ahead of them in the parked car and doesn't say anything for a while. There was a thick feeling growing inside his chest, extending from the metal lodged in his sternum and passing through the membrane of his lungs. A minute fraction of what he felt as the oxygen was quickly sucked out of his suit and he couldn't breathe in space. Soon his synapses were kicking in, urging him to inhale regardless of the physical misfires telling him it was impossible.

He also had to come up with some verbal quip to lighten the atmosphere. “Not to throw the wrench in your Princess Leia routine, but you have the wrong person. Going up into space wasn't what I’d call intentional--it nearly killed me, actually.”

“You think after everything's that happened, that you can't do it? Or if there was someone else more qualified that I could go to, that I would still be talking to you?”

That's why the questions sting him, like a thin needle finding its way between the plating of his armor. Getting right to the place where he doesn't have the answers to her questions. He wasn't sure that he could do it...but he had to. It kept him in his workshop like some kind of subterranean cave fish, Fine-tuning his suits. That's what you do when tech doesn't work: you fix it. Improve upon it. It was much harder to upgrade his own humanity that made him soft and useless without the shell he created.

But even the suits broke.

Tony doesn't say anything; he nearly loses himself in the parking lot again, until he feels her hand close around his wrist again. “You would do anything to protect the people that you love, wouldn't you?”

“...Fine.”

She leans back again with an undefinable spark in her eyes that he doesn't take the time to try to figure out. Not when he has a more pressing issue on his mind.

“Just one more question: why me?” Was Thor on vacation or something?

But she just shrugs. “You already killed aliens. What’s a few more going to do?”

CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: Green
✖ Mission Freebie: I need to pose this one as a question, because I see him asking for JARVIS (at least right off the bat—if I understand the FAQ correctly and they’ll have other opportunities to ask for things for other missions). But I don’t know if JARVIS would count as a playable character or not since there are a few people that have journals for him. Please let me know if this is something that needs to be changed or worked out, and I can come up with something else.
✖ Personal Item or Weapon: The Mark XLII.

✖ Character Inventory:

+ Form-fitting long-sleeved shirt
+ Pair of jeans
+ Sneakers
+ Cell phone
+ Unidentified number of shrapnel embedded in his chest
+ The arc reactor that’s keeping said shrapnel from entering his heart