The last few decades have been a time of feverish invention for Tony Stark’sIron Man, debuting several of his most powerful armors of all time. Here are the absolute best of the best since 1999, showcasing the most jaw-dropping Iron Man armors introduction in this millennium.
Technology has come a long way since the ’90s, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in real life and what ‘cutting edge’ can mean in Marvel lore. These suits are marked by Tony embracing nanotechnology, vastly increased scale, and impossible materials that only exist in a world of gods and mutants.
10Iron Destroyer
Debuted in 2011’sFear Itself #7from Matt Fraction & Stuart Immonen
When the ancient fear god known as the Serpent came to Earth inFear Itself, Tony Stark sequestered himself away with the dwarves of Nidavellir to create new weaponry for his allies.Odin added his own enchantments and the mystic metal Uru - the same material that Thor’s hammer Mjolnir is made of.Tony risked his life by jumping into the molten metal, but emerged with his ‘Destroyer Armor,’ enhancing his Model 37 suit with the power of the Asgardian gods.
Theenhancement gave Iron Man durability, strength and energy blasts comparable to Marvel’s gods, as well as adding stopping power to the various missiles, energy blades and repulsor blasters already built into the suit. Sadly, when Odin took his leave from the battle, Tony’s suit lost its upgrade.
Iron Man used the Thorbuster armor to stop Mjolnir in mid-air.
Iron Man’s Asgardian Armor Makes Thor Look Like a Pushover
Iron Man’s Asgardian armor is easily one of the most metal suits of armor Tony Stark has ever worn, so much so in fact that it puts Thor to shame.
9Thorbuster
Debuted in 2003’sIron Man #64from Mike Grell and Alan Davis
Tony’s Thorbuster armor is one of his biggest betrayals of all time, powered using an Asgardian crystal which Thor had gifted him for energy research. Sadly, Iron Man instead planned for the day he might need to battle the Thunder God, creating an incredibly powerful suit. The suit had the durability and power of a god, while also possessingthe ability to manipulate Asgardian magic, allowing Tony to stop Thor’s hammer in midair.
The ‘Standoff’ arc saw Tony and Thor fight over Thor’s attack on Slokovia - a nation which was suppressing its citizens from worshiping the Asgardian gods. Doom manipulated events to make sure the Avengers came to blows.
The Thorbuster allowed Tony to match Thor’s power level for a short amount of time, but ultimately the Thunder God’s rage proved superior, and he tore the armor to pieces. Thankfully, Captain America was on hand to stop his friends killing each other.
8Monster Hunter Mech
Debuted in 2022’sMech Strike: Monster Hunters #1from Christos Gage and Paco Diaz
Avengers Mech Strikewas a 2021 comic series and toy line in which various Avengers heroes and villains were enhanced with towering mech suits that harnessed their natural powers. The 2022 sequel further enhanced select mechs with the power of the mystical Monster Eye, which gave them semi-biological upgrades.
Tony’s Monster Hunter mech is essentially a tricked-out Hulkbuster, with the missiles and lasers to take down literal kaiju. It also boasts enhanced repulsor cannons, monstrous strength, and a gigantic ridged sword. While Tony has built his own anti-monster armor before (most notably the Fin Fang Foombuster), it’s rare that he lets Doctor Strange push his designs even further than technology can accomplish alone.
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Iron Man’s Art Noveau armor redesign highlights his similarities to the Eternals, and their shared attempt to escape the influence of their creators.
7Mysterium Armor & Sentinel Buster
Introduced in 2024’sInvincible Iron Man #15by Gerry Duggan and Creees Lee
In 2020’sS.W.O.R.D.series by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti, the X-Men combined some of their most powerful teleporters to access the heart of reality and retrieve a mysterious new metal dubbed ‘Mysterium.’ The metal had impossible qualities, being immune to both magic and precognitive gifts like Spider-Man’s spider-sense, while also being so durable that Captain Marvel couldn’t bend it. After Tony took the mutants' side against the villainous Orchis, he was gifted an amount of Mysterium to create his own suit.
Theresulting Mysterium suit was a work of art- so durable thatwhen Tony was stabbed by a Sentinel made of adamantium, its claws actually bent. However, the big reveal was that the Mysterium suitwasn’this main project - it was just a piloting suit for his gigantic Sentinel Buster armor. Orchis member Feilong had stolen Tony’s designs for advanced Sentinels, with each possessing the power of a giant Iron Man. Seeing the new Sentinels as his responsibility, Tony created a suit that could destroy themen masse.
Iron Man’s final suit uses nanotech to instantly disable and vaporize enemy armor.
6Nano Particle Armor
Introduced in 2008’sIron Man: The End #1by David Michelinie, Bob Layton & Bernard Chang
Marvel’sThe Endstories imagine the circumstances where iconic heroes will finally die or retire. That’s the case inIron Man: The End, whereTony hands on the Iron Man codenameto his protégé Nick Travis. Tony also gives Nick a new cutting-edge suit made of nano particles, with ‘hard air’ cannons and a ‘duron’ beam many times stronger than Tony’s iconic unibeam.
However, the most impressive aspect of this armor was that it could strip down other machinery if it made direct contact. This allowed Nick’s Iron Man to face off against similar advanced suits and wreck them with a touch, asits nanites disassembled and neutralized enemy tech. Ultimately, this suit was the culmination of Tony Stark’s life’s work - to create a weapon that destroys weapons.
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Iron Man has no shortage of incredible suits of armor, but some are definitely cooler than others, and these 10 future suits are coolest of them all.
5Iron Man Six
Debuted in 2006’sUltimates 2 #12by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch
Launched in 2000, Marvel’s Ultimate Universe continuity was grittier, meaner and more realistic than its mainstream continuity. In this world, Tony needs an entire crew to get him into his Iron Man armor and help him take off, while its obscene energy needs mean it can only be used when absolutely necessary. However, when theUltimates met their opposite numbers the Liberators, Tony revealed he’d been working on a secret project - Iron Man Six.
Housed in a hidden space station,Iron Man Six is a weaponized aircraft that can unleash a barrage of laser fire. Iron Man Six helped the team defeat Crimson Dynamo’s proxy drone bodies, as well as a literal army of superhuman attackers. It was Iron Man pushed to his weaponized extreme.
4Celestial Hulkbuster
Introduced in 2022’sThor #25by Donny Cates and Martin Coccolo
Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor was first introduced in 1993, so it doesn’t qualify for this list, but its ultimate form definitely does. During theKing in Blackevent, Tony was able to acquire the corpse of a Celestial killed by the terrifying cosmic villain. He spent months tinkering with the cosmic being, turning it into a wormhole generator that was accessed by the Hulk. Worried about what Hulk was up to, Tony converted theCelestial corpse into a giant Hulkbuster, with a staggering array of missiles and other weaponry.
The Celestial Hulkbuster is one of Tony’s most durable suits of all time, protecting Iron Man from both Thor’s hammerandan explosion of gamma energy equal to thousands of the gamma bomb that created the Hulk.
3The Godkiller Armor Mk. II
Debuted in 2018’sAvengers #5by Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness
Created to fight off any evil Celestials who came calling on Earth, this suit is so gigantic that Tony had to keep it in orbit around Mars. The suit allowed Tony to fight one-on-one against the Dark Celestials, whose strength surpasses even the gods, and is so powerful,it’s powered by eight nuclear reactorsand requires a dedicated AI to run. Capable of space travel, even the Godkiller Armor Mk. II couldn’t stand against the Celestials for that long, and Tony ultimately self-destructed it after it sustained too much damage. The Godkiller Mark II shouldn’t be confused with the original…
TheoriginalGodkiller armor was a suit designed to kill Celestials. Due to complex events, the alien android Recorder 451 believed that Tony was genetically perfect to control the armor, but he was ultimately wrong.Tony didn’t create and was never able to pilot this armor, but its design did give him ideas he used in the Mark II.
The Godbuster armor is the most powerful suit that Tony Stark ever built in the traditional sense.
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Tony Stark is well known in Marvel Comics for his high-tech Iron Man suits - but what about his low-tech ones? Here are his 11 coolest low-tech suits!
2The Godbuster Armor
First Seen in 2019’sTony Stark: Iron Man #10by Dan Slott, Jim Zub and Valerio Schiti
TheGodbuster armor is the most powerful suitthat Tony Stark ever built in the traditional sense. Tony originally shaped this suit in his virtual reality world the eScape, eventually recreating it in real life. It was described as ‘the ultimate weapon,’ witha power level beyond the ability of modern sensors to measure. It’s named the Godbuster because its energy output is enough to take down a divine being. The Godbuster is the pinnacle of Tony Stark’s genius, with the eScape allowing him to work without the limits of the physical world.
1The Iron God
Introduced in 2021’sIron Man #14by Christopher Cantwell, CAFU and Ángel Unzueta
When Iron Man attempted to stop the supervillain Korvac from stealing Galactus' power cosmic, he ended up taking the ancient power source for himself. Ascending beyond godhood, Tony forged a new ‘suit’ from cosmic energy,becoming the Iron God- a form that’s essentially omnipotent. The suit was so powerful that the universal abstracts of Marvel’s reality warned they wouldn’t allow its abuse, and Tony casually tried out its power by giving everyone in New York his own genius intellect.
The armor turned Tony into a Galactus-level being, revealing that this Iron Man form is how he truly sees himself. It’s unlikely Iron Man will ever create anything more powerful, since in this case he was working purely with one of the fundamental powers of reality, with no limits on what he could do or create.
Those are the 10 most powerful Iron Man armors Marvel has introduced since 1999, taking Iron Man from a man in a powerful suit to a Galactus-level god - these suits beg the question, what will thenext25 years bring forIron Man?
Iron Man
Anthony “Tony” Edward Stark, AKA Iron Man, is a Marvel Comics superhero who has enjoyed several years of the spotlight and has become a mainstay in several Marvel media franchises. After suffering a critical injury, Tony creates a specialized armored suit powered by an arc reactor, which keeps him alive. Egotistical but good-hearted, Tony utilizes his super intellect and inventions to fight to protect humanity from various threats, eventually becoming a founding member of the Avengers. In 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was kicked off with the film Iron Man, which starred Robert Downey Jr. as the superhero.
