MCU Theory: Iron Man’s Armor is Based on Asgardian Technology

In the MCU, Tony Stark’s arc reactor is a miracle of engineering – but could Iron Man have actually based it on Asgardian technology?

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Tony Stark’s Iron Man suits are among the most powerful weapons in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, capable of allowing their wielders to fly, shoot repulsor rays, enjoy incredible strength, and even improvise new weapons on the battlefield. However, none of these powers would be possible without Stark’s original invention – the miniature Arc Reactor which saved his damaged heart and powers his armors.

Based on an earlier design created by his father, Howard Stark, the Arc Reactor enabled Tony Stark to become a clean energy leader thanks to the unbelievable levels of energy such devices can output. The fact that Tony could build such a sophisticated generator in a cave with a box of scraps seems impossible… unless the Arc Reactor’s design was based on something beyond normal human technology.

Strange as it may seem, it’s actually very possible that the MCU’s version of Stark’s Arc Reactor owes much to both Asgardian technology… and even the Infinity Stones, based on what’s known of the Stark family history. While the films have not completely confirmed this theory, evidence actually exists throughout early MCU films that Howard Stark reverse engineered Asgardian tech to help build the Arc Reactor.

Howard Stark Studied The Tesseract For SHIELD

To explore this theory, one must go all the way back to Captain America: The First Avenger where the Red Skull retrieves the Tesseract cube from Norway and comments that it was from Odin’s vault. Later movies would reveal the Tesseract drew power from the Space Stone, but Red Skull’s words suggest the cube itself was built by Asgardian scientist/sorcerers to contain the Infinity Stone, and make it safe for use. The Tesseract passed through many hands, but eventually wound up with Howard Stark, who got a chance to study the cube for several years after finding it during his search for the missing Captain America. According to Nick Fury in the end scene from Thor, the cube contained potentially limitless power, and that Howard Stark had been conducting energy research on it while it was in SHIELD custody.

SHIELD itself has a habit of collecting and reverse engineering alien technology. In the comic book miniseries The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week, readers get a chance to see that after SHIELD collected the remains of the Asgardian Destroyer robot, they learned how to access some of its devastating power and used what they had learned to build new weapons. Audiences got to see one of these weapons in action when Agent Coulson fired one such gun at Loki in the first Avengers movie.

Of course, Howard was unable to tap into the Tesseract’s full power due to the limitations of the technology he had to work with. Seeking to find an alternative, he teamed up with Russian scientist Anton Vanko and created the first Arc Reactor to power Stark Industries headquarters. When Vanko attempted to turn the device into a weapon, Howard had him deported. While their invention was branded an alternative to the power generated by the Tesseract, however, it’s actually very likely its design was still based on the Tesseract.

After all, Howard was intent on finding a way to use the Tesseract to create a clean form of alternative energy and had been working with the cube for years. It seems highly unlikely that he wasn’t able to learn something from the cube during all of this time – and even more unlikely that he wouldn’t take this know-how and apply it to the Arc Reactor project itself.

Howard Stark’s Tesseract Research Led To The Arc Reactor

Once again, however, Howard was limited by the technology of his time and the Arc Reactor wasn’t a cost-effective form of alternative energy. Later, however, Tony Stark found a reason to dust off this retro technology when his chest was filled with shrapnel and he was held hostage in a cave by the Ten Rings terrorist group. Seeking to find a way to save his life and escape, Stark built a new, miniaturized version of the Arc Reactor capable of powering his first suit of Iron Man armor.

While this Arc Reactor was built completely with human tech, it was still based on Howard Stark and Anton Vanko’s early designs and thus, a reverse-engineered form of Asgardian tech. When he discovered the palladium he used in the reactor’s core was killing him, however, Tony used another of his father’s designs to create an entirely new element that powered his future Arc Reactors, one that would help generate more power with no unhealthy side effects. Howard could not make this element himself because his technology wasn’t advanced enough – but the very fact that he knew such an element could exist is likely because he observed it in the Tesseract cube.

Thus, Tony Stark may not have created a “new element” like he thought (which he wanted to name “badassium” according to the comics) but simply artificially re-created an Asgardian element used in the Tesseract cube to stabilize the Infinity Stone within it. And since this element was used in all of Iron Man’s subsequent armors, the link between Stark tech and Asgardian engineering only became stronger. Nick Fury himself indicated this in Fury’s Big Week when he commented that the element Stark had created “might be extremely useful in reigniting the Tesseract.”

Iron Man’s Armor is Linked To Asgardian Power

This may also help explain a curious scene in the original Avengers movie where Iron Man gets hit by a full blast of Thor’s lightning… only to discover it just made him stronger. If Stark’s Iron Man tech was running on reverse-engineered Asgardian technology and used an Asgardian element as its power source, this could be why Thor’s Asgardian lightning was so beneficial and compatible with Stark’s armor. Stark would later take advantage of this compatibility by asking Thor to intentionally hit him with a few lightning bolts and charge up his armor during Avengers: Endgame.

Indeed, after joining the Avengers, Stark had access to even more Asgardian and other alien technology thanks to his affiliation with Thor, which caused his own tech to go through a major renaissance. Both Stark and Banner got to analyze Loki’s scepter (which contained the Mind Stone) which allowed them to create the technology to build Ultron. Later, Happy Hogan states that “Thor’s magic belt” is among the many items being moved from Avengers Tower to their new headquarters. This could be the MCU version of Thor’s belt of strength which temporarily doubles Thor’s power level in the comics.

And once he got to examine all of this Asgardian tech, the Iron Man suits made a quantum leap in innovation. Granted, a lot of this is due to Stark’s own brilliance – but the fact that Stark went from building a clunky suit made of missile parts to designing a Bleeding Edge suit made of nanotechnology in just a few years indicates Iron Man had plenty of help, likely from analyzing Asgardian weapon designs which were responsible for the foundations of his technology from the beginning.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/mcu-iron-man-armor-asgardian-technology-theory-explained/