5 Times Iron Man Upgraded Other Heroes With Powerful Armors (Including Spider-Man)

The genius billionaire Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is widely revered as one of Marvel Comics’ strongest and smartest heroes. A true visionary, Iron Man is constantly seeking to push the boundaries of technology by constantly upgrading his armors. Nowadays, Iron Man has an absolutely enormous collection of armors designed for every situation imaginable. With so many powerful armors that can make an ordinary person virtually invincible, it’s unsurprising that Iron Man would build some suits specifically designed to upgrade his fellow heroes. And although these other superheroes rarely take up Iron Man’s offer for upgrades, when they do suit up, they become just as powerful if not more so than the Armored Avenger himself.

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Despite having no superpowers to speak of, even Iron Man’s most basic armor gives him the strength and firepower to contend with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. And when Iron Man gives other heroes some of his suits, they become even more powerful.

5) Black Widow

It’s a long-running joke among many people that Black Widow’s lack of superpowers makes her unfit to deal with the types of Earth and universe threatening villains that the Avengers fight daily. Iron Man recognized this problem, so he developed the War Widow Armor. This War Machine-style armor greatly enhances the wearer’s strength and durability, and is outfitted with rocket boots, repulsor blasters, missile launchers, and six small retractable mechanical arms that can fire lasers. Black Widow rarely uses this suit because she prefers stealth and agility over giant suits of armor armed to the teeth. However, Black Widow eventually decided to suit up in the War Widow Armor when the Avengers went on a journey through space to track down the cosmic Starbrand. The War Widow Armor allowed Black Widow to keep up with the rest of the Avengers on their interstellar travel as they fought armies of Skrulls.

4) Avengers

The Avengers may be Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but on Earth-21443, Iron Man decided to make them even mightier. In the universe of Avengers Mech Strike, Kang the Conqueror sent giant kaiju called Biomechanoids to destroy the Avengers. Iron Man recognized that the only way to stop these monsters was to fight them on equal footing. Working quickly, Iron Man developed eight multi-story-tall mechas called Biomechanoid Response Units. The Armor Avenger built mecha suits for himself, Captain America, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and even the Hulk. These armors are among the biggest suits any version of Iron Man has ever constructed, and their raw power made even the weakest Avenger more than a match for the gargantuan Biomechanoids. Over time and as new giant monsters emerged, Iron Man would also develop mechas for Wasp, Spider-Gwen, Doctor Strange, and Groot. With armors like these, no villain would dare face off against Iron Man’s mecha Avengers.

3) Spider-Man

Like many aspects of the MCU, Iron Man developing a high-tech suit of armor for Spider-Man was lifted directly from the comics. In the lead-up to Civil War, Iron Man took the Wall-Crawler under his wing to gain his support. As part of his method of getting on the Wall-Crawler’s good side, Iron Man gifted him the Iron Spider Armor. Made of nanotechnology, the Iron Spider Armor complemented and enhanced Spider-Man’s abilities. The suit made Spider-Man bulletproof, allowed him to glide, and could create small robot spider-drones. Of course, the most notable feature of the Iron Spider Armor is the three retractable mechanical arms on the back that offer great defense and offense. However, when Spider-Man decided to join Captain America’s rebellion, Iron Man revealed that he installed a failsafe in the suit that would shut down at his command. Although Spider-Man managed to override the shutdown and escape, he still tossed what was left of the armor. The failsafe is the perfect example of why most Avengers don’t usually trust Iron Man to take one of his suits.

2) Rescue

Iron Man is willing to do anything to protect the people he loves, including gifting them an awesome suit of armor. Pepper Potts has been Iron Man’s love interest and assistant for decades, so it was inevitable that Tony gave Pepper her own suit. When Iron Man was forced to go on the run from the Superhuman Defense Initiative, all his loved ones were issued arrest warrants as well. Already planning for this, Iron Man left behind a suit of armor for Pepper so that she could escape. Taking on the name Rescue, Pepper would use the armor to be a hero in Iron Man’s absence. Pepper has mostly returned to her civilian life and only dons her Rescue armor when it’s necessary. Still, despite Pepper’s general lack of interest in a superhero career, Iron Man is constantly upgrading her armor and has currently developed five models that are each more advanced than the last. The Rescue armor allows Pepper to lift 75 tons, fire repulsor blasts, fly at supersonic speeds, and generate force fields.

1) War Machine

Aside from Iron Man himself, War Machine is the most famous armored superhero in Marvel Comics. Like Pepper, James “Rhodey” Rhodes is a close friend of Iron Man whose loyalty eventually earned him his own suit of armor. Initially, when the Armored Avenger was relapsing with alcoholism, Rhodey stepped up to fill in the role of Iron Man. Later on, Rhodey would get a chance to become his own hero when Iron Man was seemingly assassinated. In his will, Iron Man left Rhodey his Armor Model 11, aka the War Machine Armor. Armed with a Gatling gun, missile launchers, machine guns, lasers, and flamethrowers, Rhodey’s new suit made him a walking tank. Rhodey’s extensive military training makes him able to use the War Machine Armor to its full capacity. War Machine is easily the most recognizable hero to have acquired his armor from Iron Man, and he continues acting as the Armored Avenger’s closest partner in crimefighting.

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