Since his debut in the pages of 1962’s Tales to Astonish #39, industrialist Tony Stark has frequently updated and upgraded his Iron Man armor. His first, the rudimentary Model 1, was a battery-powered hunk of metal meant to prevent shrapnel from piercing his heart. The red and gold Model 2 was sleeker and more lightweight. The Model 3, or the “Shell-Head” armor, outfitted Iron Man with palm-based repulsors. Stark modified his suit once more to become more form-fitting and flexible with bracelets that activated the polarized unit in his chest beam to suit up in micro-seconds, removing the need to have his attache case at his side.
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After creating specialized suits of armor for space flight, submergence, and stealth, Stark debuted his most advanced armor yet in 1985’s Iron Man #200: the Model 8. The red and silver suit that would come to be known as the Silver Centurion Armor was constructed at the West Coast Avengers Compound in California, and Stark would use its advanced tech — cloaking devices, disruptor field generators, a force field, energy-absorbing coating, the new pulse bolts, and enhanced strength and speed — to defeat Obadiah Stane, his chief business rival who misappropriated Stark tech and suited up as the hulking Iron Monger.
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Stark had mostly retired from being a superhero, fearing that becoming Iron Man again would cause him to relapse into alcoholism. While his friend and pilot Jim Rhodes took over as the red and gold-clad Iron Man for a time, Stark would don the Silver Centurion Iron Man armor through the end of Armor Wars.
The storyline that inspired 2010’s Iron Man 2 pit Stark against supervillains supplied with stolen Stark tech by Justin Hammer, including Stingray, Crimson Dynamo, and Titanium Man. Feeling guilt over his technology being used to hurt people during the Armor Wars, Stark retired the Silver Centurion in 1988’s Iron Man #232 and returned to his red and gold look with the Model 9.
Decades after the silver-and-red Iron Man joined Hawkeye’s California-based team of Earth’s mightiest heroes in 1985’s West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #1 — a stint that would last until issue #31 — Stark returned to the team in this week’s West Coast Avengers (Vol. 4) #1 by writer Gerry Duggan (Invincible Iron Man) and artist Danny Kim (Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance). Amidst armor trouble caused by Justine Hammer and the combined forces of Roxxon and A.I.M. (in Spencer Ackerman and Julius Ohta’s Iron Man series), Stark comes under attack by the terrorist group known as the Sovereign Sons while in Los Angeles.
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Stark takes refuge in a storage unit from his first stint in California and retrieves the brief case containing the Silver Centurion. “She was always my favorite,” Stark says, suiting up in the antique powered by car batteries.
When Iron Man assembles the new West Coast Avengers team — War Machine, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), and new recruits Blue Bolt (Chad Braxton) and Ultron, part of the new Avengers prison work release program — the lightning-powered Blue Bolt gives the Silver Centurion a jump with a burst of electricity, and they defeat the Sovereign Sons. In Santa Monica, Stark reveals he purchased an old airport to transform into an Avengers stronghold so that Earth’s mightiest heroes will be able to “avenge anywhere on the West Coast in a matter of minutes.”
West Coast Avengers: assemble.
