ThreeA x Marvel - The Invincible Iron Man : Stealth Version.

 

I am iron man
Has he lost his mind?

- Black Sabbath, Iron Man.

 

A (mis) interpretation:

Category type: Exoskeleton armour.

Unit type: Prototype infiltration/reconnaissance armour.

Model type: Stealth Armour MK XII.

Designation: Iron Man.

Manufacturer: Starke International.

Affiliation: Ferrum Legionis (current).

Powerplant: Ultracompact Arc-Reactor.

Armour type: Luna titanium steel composite hyper-alloy (primary); poly-alloy epidermis armour (secondary).

Armour thickness: 30mm - primary armour. 4mm - secondary armour.

Height: 7 feet.

Std. armaments: "Unibeam" - chest repulsor transmitter x 1; "Repulsor Gauntlet" - hand repulsor transmitter x 2; force-field generator; jet pack booster x 4; multi-stealth enabling system; Auspex - multi-sensors system.

1963. Ezekiel Starke, flamboyant multi-billionaire, industrialist, ingenious engineer and weapons designer, is on his way to the test site to personally demonstrate "The Ex-Wife" missile, a newly developed weapon of mass destruction with repulsor technology, to Duke Ngo, more popularly known as The Mandarin due to his political power and influence, in war-torn Southern Nam Viet, Indochina Axis, Oceania Confederation. He owns and runs Starke Industries, a leading defence contractor and security provision conglomerate, which develops and manufactures advance weapon and defence technologies. Ezekiel has full entrepreneurial autonomy over the company. En route, the convoy is ambushed by a Martian sympathizer group. An Extremis viral bomber detonates herself, killing everyone except for Ezekiel. whom is protected by the flak armour he is wearing. Nevertheless, the detonation is powerful enough to shatter the armour. Several shards of shrapnel severely wounds Ezekiel on his chest, embedded several millimetres away from his heart. He is captured and imprisoned in a cave amongst the hills. A fellow captive, Newel Medic Dr. Ho Sinh Cung, a specialist in integrated circuitry, rigged and grafted an electromagnet into Ezekiel's chest to stop the shrapnel shards from moving into his heart. The Martian sympathizer group, whom call themselves The Four Seasons, offers Ezekiel freedom in exchange for building them "The Ex-Wife" but he knows they would not keep their word. With the assistance of Dr. Ho, Ezekiel secretly built  a miniaturised version of  an Arc-Reactor, an innovative power generator invented by Ezekiel's late father, Hadar Starke and Anakoni Vanko. The Arc-Reactor is envisioned to provide clean energy and resources but the project is scrapped by the Board of Directors and the funding channels into weapons development instead. The Arc-Reactor would make a Fusion Reactor engine like an AAA battery in comparison and without the dangers. Ezekiel intends to use the Arc-Reactor to power the electromagnet in his chest which would in turn allow him to power a hastily rigged up armour suit as the means to escape his captors. They try to keep it as secret but when Ezekiel's captors find out he did not built the missile, they attacked the workshop both of them have been working in. Dr. Ho sacrifices himself in order for Ezekiel to power up the suit. In anger, a fully armoured Ezekiel destroys and kills everyone there before flying out from the area and crash landed several miles away from a JEA Marine outpost. While recuperating, Ezekiel watches a news report from the war zone on the telescreen that the 61st WF Jungler Division Company C has succeed in capturing a major Ecclesiarchy stronghold in Son My, Quang Ngai Province. Major credits are given to Starke Industries for providing the latest infiltration technology. Later, a leaked vid-vox footage of the event is uploaded into Melchizedek by a Martian sympathiser whom has secretly recorded what actually taken place, before the Terra Ministry of Information takes it offline. Son My turns out to be no more than a hamlet of no strategic value whatsoever. The atrocities committed upon the villagers before being brutally massacred result in Southern Sectors population mass protests and lost in support for the Terra Coalition's Indochina Axis Campaign. Duke Ngo and his wife are forcibly removed from their positions by the Oceania Confederation Central Government after a protestor carried out self-immolation in the capital. Both their bodies are found floating in the Mekong River. Ezekiel immediately holds a press conference and publicly announces that Starke Industries would no longer develop and manufacture weapons. The decision is not well received by the stakeholders, which included the Cordoza Corporation, a proxy division of the former, defunct Rothchild Corporation, and particularly his uncle, Obadiah Starke, whom orchestrated the entire kidnapping incident in an attempt to control Starke Industries. In fact, Obadiah specifically paid The Four Seasons to kill Ezekiel, but when the leader of the group realises the identity of the hostage, he reneged on the arrangement in return for weaponries. But the conspiracy plays into Obadiah's hand. The Board of Directors remove Ezekiel as CEO and appoint Obadiah Starke, whom later sold all his shares and assets to Cordoza Corporation. When the remains of the armour suit used in his escape is discovered and realising its potential as a powerful offense weapon, the United Americana Defence and Weapons Research Committee forces Ezekiel to hand over the knowledge and information to built it. When he refuses, foreseeing the lethality of the armour, Ezekiel is indicted for treason. Captured and handed over to the Terra Military Intelligence Bureau, he is tortured extensively. After Cordoza Corporation successfully reverse engineered the technology behind the armour, Ezekiel is released from captivity but has become a paraplegic with missing arms and torso. Together with Pepper, his secretary and Harkon "Happy" Favreau, his loyal cyborg bodyguard, Ezekiel escapes to USCF (United Space Colonies Federation) where he is granted political asylum. Augmenting himself with prosthesis cybernetic parts, Ezekiel establishes Starke International through the funds he accumulates in off-world accounts. As part machine, he is physically imposing.

1968. Ezekiel has become a recluse and eccentric, due to worsening OCB (Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour) and declining health from the Arc-Reactor due to palladium poisoning. Over the span of five years, he has secretly  develops numerous power armours, continuously improving each version with its own niche specialisation. He also replaces palladium with a new element and heightened the cycle per seconds of the power generator, effectively advancing the armour suit, which Ezekiel calls the "Iron Man", to another level. While he rebuilt his business empire which now focus on the development of consumer products based on sustainable, clean energy technology, Ezekiel begins to clandestinely don the "Iron Man" armour to pursue a personal vendetta against the Terra governments and mega-conglomerates. His primary objective is to eliminate all the previous "Iron Man" replica armour develop as drones by Cordoza Corporation known as the "Iron Monger". Eventually, Ezekiel would be invited by other like-minded individuals to join them in the secret organisation known as Ferrum Legionis based on USCF. He continues to hold on to the technological secret of the Arc-Reactor personally. Comprise of individuals wronged in certain way, Ferrum Legionis is a vigilante clandestine group which holds no allegiance to any existing factions but are based on the primary principle of justice and protection of the oppressed.

The Stealth Armour MK XII is primarily used by Ezekiel for reconnaissance and infiltrate heavily defended stronghold. It could also be used as an assault armour. The advanced power armour is composed of Luna titanium hyper-alloy with nano-technology driven poly-alloy epidermis internal protection. The poly-alloy epidermis layer mesh with the primary armour, linking the Ezekiel's nervous system to the suit's mind impulse controls, turning the entire armour into a second skin that moves with all the speed and precision of Ezekiel's own body with unprecedented reactionary time. The entire armour is powered by an advanced ultra-compact Arc-Reactor power generator. The power generator and the suit's mechanical servos allows Ezekiel to achieve super human physiology and flight speed capable of escaping velocity into space. The jet boosters include advance gyro-stabilisers for un-precedent maneuvering, with design to operate in low and zero-gravity environment. It has the standard Unibeam particle energy weapon built into the Arc-Reactor,  and a pair of Repulsor Gauntlet power fists with built in plasma weapon. The Unibeam could deliver a particle-beam powerful enough to punch through the void shield of a space battle cruiser. The Repulsor Gauntlets functions as a highly tuned power fists, enabling the "Iron Man" to pulverise and tear apart armour plates from even the most well protected vehicles or warbots. When activated, it is sheathed in bluish crackling energy which violently disrupt any object at the molecular level. Alternatively, it also allows Ezekiel to project deadly plasma shots, either continuously or in short bursts, at its target from both palms. The entire armour is sheathed in force field to repel any form of energy or projectile weapon attack. The force field is generated on molecular level of the armour. The force field also gives the armour extra protection in extreme climates and environments, including atmospheric re-entry without any damage to the armour. The primary difference of the Stealth armour is the multi-stealth enabling system. Each molecular structure of the poly-alloy epidermis and primary armours are coated with advance version of Cameoline, which effectively enable the MK XII to blend into the surrounding like a chameleon. The Cameoline, which was used by bot snipers in the Great War, also prevents the armour from detection across the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, rendering it virtually invisible. The jet-boosters backpack has super-coolant system to hide heat emission as well as super noise dampeners at a near zero decibels level. Internally, the entire armour is a self-contain environment, possesses a full suite of life-support functions for operation in hostile environments, an automated medicae system to provide some level of first aid to a wounded wearer and a modified, superior Auspex fully integrated multi-sensors, which include tactical targeting and threat analysis system.

 

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ThreeA x Marvel's Iron Man is designed by Ashley Wood based on the classic, golden age era version of one of the most recognisable superheroes in comics. Several versions are released by ThreeA and I decided to go for the Stealth version. When the teaser is released, its design has mixed reaction from Iron Man fans. But I like it enough to order one. Still as more information is released over the period, I begin to have my own personal reservations about the figure. The limbs would be covered with rubberised/pvc material. And I know what that means - bunched up joints, discolouration, deterioration, depending on the climes. I guess it is a matter of capturing the aesthetic look versus practicality, just like Lasstranaut. When the box arrived (which after a severe delay of several releases, suddenly a slew of those orders just shown up on the doorstep, resulting in my surprise and overwhelm feeling), I had the prior opportunity to read the review of those whom had the figure already in hand. And as most would aware by now, the figure suffers from virtually none existing joint support or tightness in the torso area. There are feedbacks of paint peeling (which shouldn't be since it is announced that the pvc material would be dyed instead of paint on, unless it is due to the weathering effect which happens sometimes) and oil-like substance secretion (Hot Toys' Batman belly oil syndrome?). With the figure in hand, the torso joint is indeed loose and floppy. No amount of effort nor the recommendation by 3A would rectify it. I basically just let it lean back and balance. But if I want to pose it in fluffy manner, I would need to forget it. I do not even want to risk bending the arms and legs. I did not try on the light-up effect as I am too lazy to move the gauntlets etc. apart. It is one tall figure, at least 14 inches tall, and the weathering is great. I very much like the design, cuirass-like with those bolts and overlapping layering of armour design. Regardless, it seems like this year would go down as 3A's historic moment of a slew of floppy joints and QC concern figures. Too bad because the early years figures are indeed great, both in terms of characters and more importantly, QC. Hopefully this would be rectified for the new year. All I know about Iron Man is from the movies, and I took some infos from Games Workshop's WH40K universe and Marvel on the fan fiction crappy "mis-interpretation" story. Excelsior!