Alternative Iron Man Suits That You Didn't Know Existed

Everyone knows about Iron Man's suits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And of course everyone always knows about the HulkBuster from the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

But in the comics, Tony has many types of Armour/Suits to tackle almost every Marvel hero in the Marvel Universe. He has almost all kinds of suits to handle Gods to Superhuman to even Mutants. 

Considering your excitement in mind, I have shortlisted 7 of the best Tony Stark's inventions from the Comic Universe.

7) Phoenix Killer Armour

You might notice a running theme with some of these suits - despite being designed for one specific circumstance, they don't always tend to work in said specific circumstance. The 'Phoenix Killer' is no exception, another specialised suit from the Avengers/X-Men dust up event. This one was designed to, you guessed it, destroy the Phoenix Force before it came back to Earth.

Tony succeeded in obliterating the Phoenix Force - into 5 separate parts, which promptly possessed a few nearby X-Men, creating even more of a problem than having to deal with the singular Phoenix Force. GOOD JOB, TONY.

6) HulkBuster Mark II

What's better than a Hulkbuster? A new and improved Hulkbuster. The Hulkbuster Plus! (II)

Hulkbuster 2: This time it's Bustier than ever, created to combat an enraged Hulk, who returns to Earth after some forced time away on Sakaar - understandably pissed at Tony and the other members of the Illuminati who exiled him. As ever with HulkBusters though, despite its hyped up armour and strength, it was no match for the Hulk, who took it out of action by literally collapsing Avengers Tower on Iron Man.

5) ThorBuster 

ThorBuster. Yes, the armour exclusively made for the God-Of-Thunder is powered by an Asgardian Gem gifted by Thor to Humanity to develop a source of clean energy - however, as political tension rose between Earth and Asgard over the killing of Asgardian worshippers in Sokovia (the strings pulled by Doctor Doom, of course), Thor turned against his fellow Avengers and stood to defend Asgard, requiring Tony to go up against him in this suit powered by the Asgardian crystal, allowing him to beat up the mighty God of Thunder. It didn't work though - Thor quickly destroyed the suit's core, forcing Tony to eject out of it.

4) GalactusBuster 

It's actually not the first time an anti-Galactus armor concept has been thrown around. An alternate, smaller version that still borrows from Galactus' look appears in Iron Man's ending from the fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds:

Galactus was the final boss of the game's story mode, which saw heroes from both Marvel and Capcom's roster duke it out after Doctor Doom unites a team of villains from both universes - the dimensional wobbliness naturally awakens Galactus for a multi-universe buffet, forcing everyone to unite to stop him.

3) Anti-Transformers Armour

Yes, I said Transformers. Those cars which turn into humanoid like structures. Yes, exactly them. 

Apart from the Marvel/DC crossovers, Marvel has also done crossovers with Transformers. 

When the Tony Stark of Earth-7642 - an alternate Marvel universe where heroes exist alongside characters from DC, Transformers, Witchblade and more because of course there's one of those - hears talk of alien robots (that may or may not be in disguise) heading to Earth, he starts developing a suit to combat them. It would've been really awkward if they came in peace, right? Well, good job it was the Decepticons.

2) Anti-Magneto Armour 

Okay, so this wasn't a specifically specialised suit for Tony, but it was designed for facing off against Magneto - not usually a great idea to go up against the Master of Magnetism with a name like Iron Man, but Tony was prepared when the two went toe-to-toe in the Avengers vs. X-Men event. 

In order to avoid being flung around like an action figure by Magneto's anti-metal powers, Tony creates a version of his armor made entirely out of carbon nanotubes - it's kind of a dumb comic-booky thing to use modern science in such a way, but a pretty clever move for Mr. Stark.

1) Sorcerer Supreme Armor 

Another alternate universe armor, but still too crazy to not include.

In this "What If" story, Tony Stark is in a car accident with Stephen Strange, giving Strange crippling nerve damage in his hands - making him unable to cast spells as the sorcerer supreme. Feeling guilty, Tony tries to look for a cure for Strange's nerve damage, which in a roundabout way leads to him going 'screw it, I'll learn magic instead!', wielding the power of the Sorcerer Supreme for himself instead, and eventually creating this awesome looking suit to do battle with Dormammu. The eye of Agamatto embedded in the place of the usual power core, and with the robotic gauntlet coming with pre-programmed hand motions for spellcasting, this suit was topped off by something all magic users need, even the ones powered by tech like Tony: a sweet cape. Marvellous!