Thanks!Jabroniville wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 4:18 amYeah, I kinda like that notion, too- it makes Iron Man a lot more unique and interesting if not just anyone can find similar gear. That he doesn't even have a proper "Mirror Image Villain" on his own level (Dynamo is much weaker, and Titanium Man much bigger, like you said) makes this more clear.Ares wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 2:59 am Titanium Man's armor shows one idea I've frequently had about Power Armor; namely that the hyper compact armor Iron Man wears should be limited to Tony Stark style genius/experts with a lot of resources.
Basically, Iron Man is the epitome of armor technology. It's the peak of the raw amount of power and versatility you can make while keeping the suit form fitting. If you want to be a power armor guy without Tony's brains, skills or resources, you have to sacrifice either size, power or versatility.
If you sacrifice power, you wind up with Street Level power armor like the Beetle.
If you sacrifice size, you wind up with Titanium Man sized armor, or Hulkbuster sized armor with the power of basic Iron Man armor.
That makes Power Suit guys like Guardian/Vindicator an oddity, but in that case each suit should be a one trick pony.
It was something I liked about Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. SHIELD had a team of power armor guys, but their armor was significantly bulkier than Tony's armor while also being much less powerful and versatile. Meanwhile Crimson Dynamo in that setting had armor roughly on par with Tony's (save for the huge flaw with the head dome), but was likely much bulkier.
I'd actually be okay with the Crimson Dynamo armor being slightly less effective than Tony's armor, since it's suppose to be the most advanced piece of tech the Russian government could come up with. Maybe have it be more like the War Machine armor where the emphasis is more on physical power and weaponry at the cost of Tony's more advanced sensors, versatile energy manipulation systems, etc. Then again, I prefer Dynamo as a Russian hero who occasionally has to fight his American counterpart (again, all thanks to Dimitri), rather than an outright villain. For a villain mirror image to Iron Man, I'd say go Titanium Man. It even has the same "(Metal) Man" mirror image style.
But yeah, everyone who isn't Tony and doesn't have a major nation's worth of power and resources would have to either have something inferior to Tony in some way, or do something unique. The Force Armor would be something along those lines, where the overall armor is inferior to Tony's, but it has something unique: a versatile force field system. One so advanced that it makes Force a unique challenge.
Meanwhile, something like the Guardsman armor is effective against run of the mill supervillains, but only if the Guardsmen are all well trained, working as a team, and significantly outnumber the villains. Otherwise they're going to get creamed, and individually the suits are way below Iron Man's level.
Using an Armor Wars example, the United States Government could build something on-par with or superior to Tony's armor with the Firepower suit, but it was a massive suit that was entirely focused on offensive power. Meanwhile Tony was able to build a suit of Iron Man armor that surpassed it within a few days, and it was actually slimmer than his previous suit.
Really, I tend to think of Tony as the most versatile Avenger outside of a very few. Thor is overall more powerful, but Tony's armor has a range of abilities that are all on the higher end of things that make him adaptable to most situations, and his brain gives him the capacity to out-think his opponents most of the time. It's more like the armor is a mobile tool box to give him whatever his brain needs at the time to come up with a solution to the problem.
Which makes it annoying when he appears in Carol Danvers book and she takes him out with no problem, because of his "affection" for her. Right. The lady that killed him.
That was kind of the weird thing in the 80s, because it seemed like power armor was just popping up all over the place. At least with someone like the Seekers or the Raiders the armor was pretty limited, and you couldn't expect any of them individually to take on Iron Man. But then you'd get weird things, like some guy having a suit of power armor that apparently his uncle made for him, that he uses to annoy Spider-Man for a bit.Like, if it were easy, everyone would have a suit of it.
And then you'd get the spandex suits like Guardian, Blizzard and the like that gave people powers, but at least then the costumes are complete one trick ponies with basically no protection.
.
