When Tony Stark invented his Iron Man armor, he made sure to use only the most durable components. Despite his superhero name, Iron Man’s suit isn’t actually made of iron, but a much stronger form of titanium – with some suits incorporating nanotechnology into the mix for a virtually indestructible suit. Nevertheless, there are certain things that can penetrate or even tear apart the Iron Man armor – from powerful lasers, to Wolverine’s adamantium claws, to Magneto’s mutant ability to manipulate metal.
Yet all of these weapons pale against one innovative device that an almost forgotten villain once used against the Armored Avenger… to embarrassing effect.
In Marvel Adventures: The Avengers, Wolverine) found themselves up against a New Masters of Evil team that broke into Stark Tower to steal some battle suits. Although Spider-Man and Iron Man manage to take on the team’s muscle, the Man-Bull, they run into some problems when they find the Masters of Evil also includes a nearly forgotten villain – the Melter.
An old Iron Man villain from the 1960s, the Melter had a particularly interesting ability. Although he had no innate superhuman powers, his gun could loosen the bonding forces between the molecules of any substance he fired upon, causing them to liquify or “melt” into useless slag. Since the Melter’s gun didn’t use heat, the melting process wouldn’t actually burn or injure anyone who touched the melted objects, but his gun was very useful for breaking into secure buildings, damaging vital equipment… or melt Iron Man’s gauntlets and disable his repulsor rays.
As the Melter warned he could adjust his gun’s settings to melt human flesh as well, he was stopped by the archer Hawkeye, who had broken into Stark Tower to see if he could the Avengers. Leaving their teammate behind, the remaining Masters of Evil took off with the stolen battle suits. Unwilling to surrender, the Melter fired his gun one final time – and ended up melting Iron Man’s pants right off of his body, leaving Tony Stark standing in his boxers. Spider-Man broke into a laughing fit and Tony, annoyed at the embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, stalked off to the armor lab.
The Masters of Evil would go on to save the Melter from imprisonment and commit more crimes thanks to a bug they implanted on Captain America’s suit that gave them a way to track the Avengers’ movements. Once the Avengers’ discovered what they were doing, however, they disabled the bug and tracked the villains to their headquarters – where Spider-Man quickly webbed up the Melter before he could liquify Iron Man’s armor. Informing the team that “Your only mistake was melting Iron Man’s pants,” Spider-Man and the rest of the Avengers made short work of the Masters of Evil.
Despite being used as a comedic villain, the Melter had a very effective power that could be quite devastating against armored heroes (as well as people in general if he was willing to use his gun for flesh-melting purposes). True, Tony Stark could probably design a suit of armor that immunized him against the Melter’s attack (likely with a nanotech design that constantly rearranged itself to compensate against the Melter’s gun) but any villain capable of taking out Iron Man so easily deserves to be given some notice. Especially after he melts Iron Man’s pants.
