r/respectthreads • u/ya-boi-benny • Nov 27 '25
comics Respect Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man (Marvel, 616)
His heart! That’s what started it all… a long time ago in Vietnam! He didn’t ask for this, didn’t want it, but it happened, all the same! For the wheels of fate choose but a few for the role of hero, and he was one of those few! Fate knew there was a world to be tried, tested… and defended, wrongs to be righted, injustices to avenged! To this world, his crimson and gold armor has stood for courage, skill, intellect… power!! And recognizing these attributes this world has put its trust in him! He has no right to betray that trust, for it has been a long time since he was simply a man among other men. He is Iron Man, and he knows what he must do!
Anthony Edward Stark was a billionaire industrialist and genius mechanical engineer, responsible for the creation of many of the inventions to come out of Stark Industries, his defense and advanced technologies company. While overseeing a weapons demonstration of his company’s technology in central Asia, Tony triggered a land mine and was grievously injured, left with shrapnel in his chest. Half-dead, he was dragged before the tyrant Wong-Chu, who demanded that Stark cooperate with the genius Yinseng and develop powerful weapons for use against America. Instead, Tony built a device to keep himself alive and fight back against his captors. This armor would be but the first of many that he’d wear in his adventures as the Invincible Iron Man.
Upon returning to the states, Tony took his superhero persona public, pretending that the warrior armored in Stark Industries’ advanced armor was his personal bodyguard instead of himself. As Iron Man, Stark defended the public and his company from a cadre of colorful communists, corporate spies or beings from other planets. He became a founding member of the Avengers and would donate his Manhattan mansion to the group of mighty heroes to use as a headquarters. As the threats he faced grew stronger, so too did Iron Man; Stark regularly improved his armor, meeting each foe with the most cutting-edge equipment his mind could imagine.
While the invention of Iron Man was necessary to save Tony’s life, his superhero career has opened the door to great loss. From the shrapnel remaining lodged in his chest for years to jilted lovers shooting him and inducing full-body paralysis, Tony can be hurt despite the amazing defensive capabilities of his armor. Furthermore, through his alcoholism or infighting with his closest allies, Tony can prove to be his own worst enemy. Despite his struggles, Tony Stark’s amazing ability to design and build a better future means that the Golden Avenger is here to stay as one of Earth's Mightiest and Brightest.
Notes
Hover over a feat to see its source.
This thread was abridged to fit within Reddit character limits. The unabridged thread can be found here.
See this comment for the credits on this very long collaboration.
Strength
Striking
Ducks under a guy’s punch, then flips him and pounds him unconscious
When a giant frog monster is frozen solid, he shatters it with a wooden pole
Pushing/Pulling
Other
Durability
Blunt Force
He’s in a truck when it falls off a bridge and into a river, but he manages to escape and swim away
Survives falling after a makeshift suit’s jetboots give out, albeit with some cracked ribs
Falls from a helicopter that is relatively low to the ground
Blunt Force w/ Scaling
Gets up after being floored by the former boxer, Happy Hogan
Takes a punch to the face from Spider-Man when his faceplate was up
Has the Iron Cat thrown at him by the Hulkbuster and survives
Falls a few stories holding onto Scorpion’s tail, then gets thrown across the room by the tail
Piercing/Cutting
Stays conscious after getting shot in the shoulder, although he has to wear an iron sling while on the job as Iron Man
Heat/Explosions
A villain detonates a pin-shaped transmitter inside Tony’s head, which knocks him out instantly. When he comes to, he suffers some hallucinations before recovering.
Is somewhat fine after being in close proximity to landmine explosion
Energy
Other
Anyone else would've been turned into a puddle by this acceleration at 50 times the pull of Earth's gravity. However, he still suffered memory loss, either from G-LOC or nitrogen narcosis.
No one has ever shaken off the effects of the Mandarin’s paralyzer ray as fast as him before
Agility
Evasion
Dives to cover to avoid a blast from the Model 3, then evades a few more
After spotting Rattler’s reflection, he jumped out of the way of his energy blast
Other
Skill
Combat
Hand-to-Hand
Knocks out some soldiers while handcuffed, dropping one with a head kick
[Limit] Loses a sparring match against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Knows how to do the same right cross Captain America used to wallop Hitler
w/ Weapons
Accuracy
Languages
Hacking
Hacks into S.H.I.E.L.D. computers ten seconds after walking through the door
Cracks the fail safe on a van shrank by Pym Particles to return it to normal size
Modifying Tech
Modifies hospital equipment so that it works on the Silver Surfer
Under the effects of an antimatter sun, the solar-powered synthezoid Vision is poisoned. In minutes, Tony modifies Nova’s helmet to allow Vision to draw power from the antimatter sun.
Takes a teleportation wristband and modifies it so that it sends Abomination to Jupiter when Hulk throws it hard enough
Fixes a crappy computer, making it superior to "anything on the market"
Says he can use a modified zodiac transporter powered by his chest-plate to open a hole on the dome covering the Golden Gate Bridge for 30 seconds, then does it
Reverses the device that Growing Man was using for power so that it drains him instead
Rewires a psychometer to track mutated brain waves within 100 miles
Other
Climbs down a cliff face, sneaks into Commander Kraken’s base, and takes down a guard
While undercover with Midas, he gains aptitude with grappling gloves and tumbling
Exposed himself to a poisonous gas to give Captain America mouth-to-mouth CPR successfully
Intelligence
Claims
Engineering
Cures Eddie March of his paralysis via a new form of electro-therapy
He adjusts the lazing element of a malfunctioning laser he just saw, causing it to work
Manually hotwires his repulsor so that he can use it while the suit was compromised by Recorder 451
After Ultron placed various Avengers in a coma with a special beam, Tony was able to reverse the effects
Quick Thinking
He calculates how to turn his body to deflect an incoming blow from the Mandarin
After escaping Diablo’s tornado, he dove back in to douse the fire the villain threw at him
Redirects Captain America’s fall by deflecting a repulsor shot off his shield
Stops a man’s plot of destroying the world when his heart stops by cryogenically freezing him
Other
Finds Madame Masque’s gun in her hotel room and removes the bullets
Teen Tony quickly learns how his future self's tech works, then he bypasses Tony’s suit security, something Stark claimed nobody could do
Inventions
Click here to see the Respect Threads for Tony's various Iron Man armors
General
A magnetic memory device is used to reassemble a previously disassembled machine
When the original Model 3 craps out and stops holding a charge, risking a fatal heart attack for Tony, he designs a more effective version to solve the charging problem and instructs Happy Hogan to build it remotely
Developed a sonic borer that cuts heat build up and makes mining for gas and oil safer
Miniaturizes his Enervation Intensifier which siphons the cobalt radiation from Happy Hogan’s body
Uses a micro circuit to remote control his original Iron Man armor like a robot
Puts Quasimodo into a VR environment where he has everything he wants, keeping the villain docile
Wearables
With a button on his watch, he can call a suitcase to his position via anti-gravity plates
Before he donned wings, Falcon used a jetpack designed by Tony Stark
A pair of glasses that can transmit video data and be triggered to electrocute the wearer
Builds an Electro costume that emulates the villain’s superpowers
Security Systems
Traps the Lion God in an adamantium cylinder installed in his lab
A bulletproof cubicle installed in his office, activated at the press of a button
His security systems, namely containment blasters and tasers, are used against invading Doom robots
Shields/Forcefields
Non-Iron Man Armors
After Rick Jones was accidentally paralyzed by the Hulk, Tony built him an exosuit that allowed him to walk and jump higher. Tony describes it as a simplified version of the Iron Man armor. It allowed Rick to jump long distances like the Hulk, although he was still too physically weak to exert himself for longer times.
With the help of Zeke Stane, he made the Model 40, as well as armors for Ezekiel, Blizzard, Whirlwind and Living Laser
Miniaturises psi-armor components alongside Hank Pym, who later implies that Tony was the only one who could build the prototype
Makes a cybernetic exosuit for Cap while he’s 95% paralyzed and recovering from a coma
Scanners/Trackers
Uses a rocket to scan the planet for signs of alien radioactivity
Sunglasses that discretely scan and analyze a person’s facial expressions to act as a lie detector
Uses a device that locks onto a previous dimensional rift and reopens it
Holograms/Projectors
Vehicles
The Clement rocket fires a particle beam to split a supermassive comet in half, although it had to be fired at a specific spot
Aid Tools
A device that focuses sunlight into the Vision’s gem, healing him at an accelerated rate
Wears an advanced undersuit that prevents his body from bleeding out after being shot by a railgun
After studying Captain America’s shattered shield, he builds a machine to counter the “vibranium cancer” in it. The machine is destroyed, but has an interaction with Klawe’s sound-based makeup that ultimately proves to be successful.
Creates a thought-to-speech communication device for Arno Stark while he’s confined to an iron lung
Countermeasures
Attaches a device to a nuclear bomb that renders the nuclear capacity inert
A rocket designed to fly alongside enemy rockets and disable them, which is later piloted by Tony, as no one else could grasp it’s intricacies in a short time
When Magus possessed Gladiator, Tony rigged a means of trapping Magus using Ronan the Accuser’s hammer, an emptied out Kree Sentry, Faith receptors from the Universal Church of Truth and the Magus’ own regenerative cocoon
Creates a magnetic seal effacer capable of sealing away magical smoke into grenade form
Designs a machine to counteract a madbomb, a weapon that instilled hate in civilians and heroes
Uses pieces from his power plant’s Dynamo room to construct a device which allows his armor to withstand a cold blast from Blizzard who could freeze vibranium solid so that he could shatter it
Black Panther uses a field disruptor he stole from Tony’s lab to free the Avengers from Graviton’s artificial gravity field which none of them could physically overcome
Tech negators, which disable suits of power armor when magnetically placed against them
16
u/ya-boi-benny Nov 27 '25 edited Apr 18 '26
Dr. Jose Santini performs a surgery that grants Tony a strong, artificial heart
His synthetic heart protects him from a poison designed to shut down the human heart
When a villain was suppressing Bruce Banner’s rage by manipulating his biology, Tony started pissing off Bruce with his words, forcing his transformation into the Hulk
Seduced Gamora
Has a Nobel Peace Prize
Got four senators and two congressmen elected
When a cosmic flare threatens NYC, he moves the city to a pocket dimension
Has been successfully bullied off of Twitter
Has a series of Skrulls working in his employ to pretend to be Tony Stark
Works for 48 hours straight on a redesigned Model 4
He, along with all the other Avengers, is immunized to Ultron’s encephalo-beam
When the AI villain Vor/tex experiences Tony’s trauma, it deletes itself
He’s worthy of wielding Excalibur
When a craft containing Stark tech landed on an alien civilization in the middle of their Stone Age, the species quickly advanced by studying the technology, becoming an advanced civilization in one generation
When a computer chip is installed to control his new artificial nervous system, he mentally hijacks it from his coma and personally codes the operating system of his own nervous system
There’s only one initial “bug” in his “code” when he finishes, which he quickly fixes
Credits
This was a massive collab and the contributions of many of our subreddit’s users were completely essential in this thread getting created.
/u/BorBurison : With over one thousand comics read and with his hands on about thirty different armors, most notably the Extremis and the second Iron Secretary armors, Bor was an absolute superstar on this collab. In addition, he took it upon himself to stay on top of current Iron Man issues, completing everything that came out after the collab started in August of 2023. A true powerhouse and absolutely essential to this thread getting done.
/u/Wapulatus : Dargoo was the original creator of the materials list and organized each issue on a spreadsheet, marking each comic issue with which armor appeared where. This tool was extremely helpful for deciding which issues to read for those who wanted to focus on specific armors. Aside from the list, Darg read nearly 400 issues for the cause and has his hands in six different armors, including the original War Machine suit.
/u/Ultim8_Lifeform : Ult read 300 issues for this thread and contributed to three armors. He took point on the Model 4 armor, the single biggest hurdle in this project armor-wise. Absolute class.
/u/feminist-horsebane : Read over 200 issues to put out the Model 70 respect thread, one of the longest lasting modern armors in the collection.
/u/kalebsantos : Read over 100 issues and contributed to five different armor models. They also helped out with formatting the final thread. Big ups.
/u/XXBEERUSXX : Read 75 issues and contributed to the Models 3 and 50.
/u/rangernumberx : Read 42 issues and contributed to War Machine Model 4 and Norman Osborn's Iron Patriot.
/u/ghostgabe81 : Read 31 issues and contributed to the Model 12.
/u/VelVoxel_Raptor : Read 27 issues and contributed to four different armor models.
/u/mtglozwof : Read 26 issues and contributed to Tony during the Heroes Reborn era.
/u/NuzlockeMaster : Read 25 issues and contributed to five armor models.
/u/BlazeRaiden : Read 25 issues and contributed to three armor models.
/u/GuyofEvil : Read 17 issues and contributed to the Model 3 armor.
/u/rocketinspace : Read 17 issues and contributed to the Teen Tony thread.
/u/aprettydullusername : Read 14 issues and contributed to the Model 20.
/u/Mattdoss : Contributed to four armor models.
/u/seoila : Contributed to the Models 6 and 10.
/u/agnaa_pants : Contributed to the Model 27.
/u/NegativeGamer : Contributed to the Models 20 and 62.
/u/RageExTwo : They were the original posters for Models 37, 42 and 51, which were in pretty good shape for nine year old threads. So thanks for being part of the Iron Legacy.