ROBIN TUNNEY, LIV TYLER AND RENE ZELLWEGER

ROBIN TUNNEY, LIV TYLER AND RENÉE ZELLWEGER

Empire Records (1995) dir. Allan Moyle

Superior Iron Man —— I can’t be covering my face all the time. How could I deny the world all of this?

😋Hi! What is the sentient armor arc? I don't know much about the comics but I'm trying to get into them.

Hi Anon! You have come to the right place, when it comes to Sentient Armor. I’m a little obsessed. I have a Sentient Armor 15k WIP just sitting in my Scrivener program, waiting for me to get my life together and finish writing and editing it, so I’ve spent a lot of time reading, re-reading, and analyzing panels from this comic.

The Sentient Armor Arc refers to a several issue storyline contained within Iron Man Volume 3 (issues #24-#30). Basically, Tony Stark’s armor takes on a consciousness of its own after Tony makes some upgrades after a health incident, and Tony has to wrestle with the ethics of artificial sentience, creation of life, and accountability for his creations, and the crimes of his creations. This question asks the question, who is Iron Man? Who is Tony Stark?

And we hear that, canonically, at least at this point in time, Tony’s mind is a mess and he’s just a pile of nightmares and anxieties in a trenchcoat:

 In all seriousness, it’s really psychological which is my jam, especially with Tony, because I enjoy using Tony as a medium to explore my own relationship with mental illness, and I find it very cathartic seeing him work through these things, and to read/write it in fic as well.

One thing I love about this storyline (and much of this volume, to be honest) is that it’s very character driven. Some of Tony’s greatest fears and insecurities are explored in depth. For example, there is some exploration into his alcoholism and recovery, his relationship with the Avengers, his identity issues and how they relate to his secret identity as Iron Man, his guilt complex. It’s very hard on poor Tony.

Another thing that I like about this story is uh. Uhhh. The armor falls in love with Tony.

Oh, I’m not joking.

In a very dramatic “If I Can’t Have You, Nobody Can” way, the armor takes control of Tony’s life, poses as him, and tries to isolate Tony all for himself. At this time in the comics, Tony has a girlfriend named Rumiko Fujikawa. You might know her name from fandom; she’s a very popular Tony ex-lover. 

Ru is featured in the story, endangered by the armor’s mad jealousy, and their relationship endangered by Tony’s secret-keeping and hero-ing (she does not know his secret identity as Iron Man!) 

Tony tends to pull away in the name of protecting her, and because of the secret, but it’s my opinion that Tony uses justifications like this to self isolate as a symptom of mental illness and relationship trauma. I wonder what Doctor. Jocasta would have to say about this 😅(Tony has his AI, Jocasta, give him therapy in a virtual reality setting.) “I don’t need therapy!” Okay, Tony...

I won’t spoil the ending because I highly encourage you to give it a read, but let’s just say it’s a great comic for fans of Tony angst, and I think that even a total comics newbie could read it, generally understand it, and enjoy it. But if there are any questions, please feel free to ask!

King In Black #1 by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman is a Stevetony event, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 🥰

holy ……!

I am proud to announce one of my greatest creations, something that has taken me a few days to put together.

The Iron Man Database. A compendium of Tony Stark’s armors throughout the comics, primarily the 616 universe, and their capabilities. Other armors include War Machine armors, Rescue, and Iron Spider. In the future this may include MCU armors, but this is the current. 

This is primarily intended to be used by fanfic writers, but frankly I think Marvel themselves could use a better grasp on the armors sometimes.

For desktop users, this can be viewed on my blog in the menubar, under Iron Man Database. For the rest of you, it may be visited at https://tony-the-mage.tumblr.com/ironman!

(Below I’m tagging some people who may enjoy this, or to signal boost it.)

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