Warning! Spoilers ahead for Invincible Iron Man #3While fighting a darker version of himself, Iron Man is forced to reveal a huge flaw in the technological masterpiece that is his armor. Tony Stark has always been his worst enemy when it comes to dealing with his own creations. Now the Iron Avenger has made fans aware of his greatest weakness.
Invincible Iron Man #3 by Gerry Duggan and Juan Frigeri sees Iron Man and his best friend, Rhodey aka War Machine, take on a doppelgänger of Tony Stark. As Tony continues to deal with the fallout of his past as a black-market arms dealer, a rogue Iron Man armor is used to kill Tony’s close friend, Zhong Wei. When Iron Man and War Machine infiltrate Stark Unlimited to investigate this clone armor, they find robot known as a Life Model Decoy (LMD) of Iron Man/Tony Stark waiting to attack them. After a brief skirmish, Tony is able to completely immobilize the LMD Iron Man armor by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. Perhaps he borrowed this strategy from a classic villain who has used this same freezing technique against Tony to great success.
Iron Man Has Faced This Flaw In His Armor Before
Iron Man’s greatest flaw is personified in the classic villain Blizzard. The original Blizzard, Gregor Shapanka, made his debut in 1963’s Tales of Suspense #45 by Robert Bernstein, Don Heck, and the legendary Stan Lee. Shapanka is introduced as a disgruntled, former employee of Tony Stark who is caught stealing tech from Stark Industries to experiment with immortality. Vowing revenge against the man who exposed him, Shapanka creates his own cold suit to slow his aging, rob banks, and kidnap Tony’s loved ones as Jack Frost. Though Stark would defeat him and send Frost to prison, Shapanka would escape and create his new and deadlier persona, Blizzard.
Under his new alias, Blizzard would use his new cryogenic battlesuit to expose Iron Man’s ultimate weakness: cold. Blizzard returns to battle Iron Man in 1976’s Iron Man #86-87 by Bill Mantlo and George Tuska, using his cold armor blasts to shut down Iron Man’s suit completely. Tony is the type of man who always upgrades when faced with an opponent as dangerous as this. But Iron Man’s new armor at the time is totally defenseless against a liquid nitrogen blast that stops his motor functions. As a result of the endless freeze blasts, Blizzard nearly stops Tony’s heart. Luckily, Iron Man’s better half, Pepper Potts, steps in to thaw him out and helps bring Blizzard to justice.
Tony Stark Has Tipped His Hand
After Tony uses liquid nitrogen to freeze his villainous doppelgänger in Invincible Iron Man #3, the LMD inside the suit takes time to taunt him before self-destructing. In a preview for the following issue, it’s revealed that the mutant-hating industrialist Feilong is behind the attack, and now has total control of Stark’s company. While it’s understandable that Iron Man would want to neutralize the threat posed by the LMD in his armor, he has also inadvertently revealed a major flaw in his armor to a competitor. Feilong’s genius-level intellect rivals Iron Man’s, and he possesses resources that Blizzard could never dream of having. With the knowledge of what extreme cold can do to Iron Man‘s armor, there’s no telling what kind of damage this villain can cause.
Invincible Iron Man #3 is now on sale from Marvel Comics!
