2024 was a huge year in the Marvel Universe, with Tony Stark's Iron Man undergoing a drastic change in circumstances. Tony defeated the nemesis who'd ruined his life, only to plunge into an even grander battle that will define his legacy. He also debuted the ultimate Iron Man armor - an unbreakable suit with a game-changing secret purpose.

Iron Man Debuted His Mysterium Armor in 2024

But The Suit Was Only Part of a Bigger Weapon

Tony spent much of Invincible Iron Man volume 5 working on his Mysterium armor. The suit is made from a metal mined from the heart of creation (the source of all superpowers, known as the White Hot Room), which was acquired by an alliance of X-Men's most skilled teleporters. At the time, the X-Men were at war with the anti-mutant group Orchis - a group that included Tony's ruthless nemesis Feilong.

The Mysterium suit acts as a symbol of Tony Stark's for mutantkind in their time of crisis, helping to hide the fugitive X-Men and even marrying telepathic antihero Emma Frost. The Avengers have been accused of failing to the X-Men in the past, but the X-Men/Orchis War proved that's no longer the case. It also proved that the Avengers and X-Men are stronger together, with Tony in particular reaching new heights of invention.

The Mysterium Suit fully debuted in Invincible Iron Man #15, from Gerry Duggan, Creees Lee, Walden Wong, Bryan Valenza and Joe Caramagna.

Mysterium Changed What Tony Stark Is Capable Of

The Anti-Magic Metal Is a Major Addition to Marvel Lore

Tony made the mutant fight for survival his own, and in response the X-Men gifted him a stockpile of Mysterium. Tony's testing revealed that the metal was unbreakable - even by Captain Marvel's strength - and could be used to negate magic and precognitive gifts like Spider-Man's Spider-Sense. Tony forged his new Model 72 armor from the substance, creating a suit so strong that he could crush adamantium (something he found out when Orchis sent an adamantium Sentinel to assassinate him.)

Tony's engineering genius has no limit, and his Iron Man suits are often defined by the resources he has available. Mysterium changed the game, giving Tony Stark a whole new material to work with, even as Feilong systematically destroyed his life.

Tony's Mysterium suit was unbelievably powerful, with the abilities and firepower to equal Marvel's gods. However, it was only the start. Feilong's most potent blow against Tony was unearthing his research into Sentinel technology, with Iron Man having conceived of a way to make the mutant-killing robots far more powerful. Feilong put Tony's theory into practice, creating an army of Stark Sentinels which began targeting innocent mutants.

It was Tony's greatest nightmare: his most personal invention being turned into a weapon of genocide. Invincible Iron Man emphasized Tony Stark's longterm goal of creating a weapon that destroys weapons, rather than lives, and Feilong's Sentinels took him further from that than ever. Tony resolved that he wouldn't leave a single 'Stark Sentinel' standing, revealing the Mysterium armor's secret purpose...

The Sentinel Buster Armor Is Iron Man's Masterpiece

The Stark Sentinels Challenged Tony's Legacy

The big reveal behind the Mysterium armor was that despite its power, it was only intended as a piloting device for Tony's real masterwork - the Sentinel Buster armor. In The Invincible Iron Man #15, Tony called this "my most powerful creation ever," and it's important to note that the 'Sentinel Buster' name is something of an understatement.

The Stark Sentinels weren't just the usual giant robots the X-Men face, but 30-foot-tall Iron Men. Tony explained that the Stark Sentinels (pictured below) were as many times more powerful than his Iron Man armor as they were bigger. Each was designed to take down entire teams of mutants, towering over them with repulsor beams and arc reactor technology. To wipe out this new weapon, Tony used Orchis' intelligence apparatus against them, tricking them into committing their entire Stark Sentinel army to a single attack.

In what Tony called his "biggest armor yet," he laid waste to the entire stockpile, wiping the concept of a Stark Sentinel from the face of the Earth. It was a hugely cathartic win against Feilong after the villain had killed Tony's friends, imprisoned his best friend James Rhodes, and stolen his company out from under him, even destroying a final message from his father. In grand style, Iron Man unleashed the ultimate 'weapon that destroys weapons' and wrested back control of his company and inventions. Sadly, his victory didn't last long.

Post-Mysterium, Tony Is the 'Improvised Iron Man'

Iron Man Trades in World-Beating Armor for a Brutal Work in Progress

While Invincible Iron Man ended with Tony's victory, the new Iron Man series that has followed (from Spencer Ackerman, Julius Ohta, Alex Sinclair and Joe Caramagna) sees him under immediate attack. The terrorist group AIM and evil corporation Roxxon are using Tony's perilous position to steal his company before he can truly take back control. As part of this villainous takeover, former Avenger Doctor Druid has unleashed a magic virus, disabling Tony's entire armory of suits.

As quickly as he unleashed the Mysterium armor, Iron Man is without it again, turning instead to his new 'Improvised Iron Man' suit - a low-tech armor that is designed to be a work in progress over the series, with Tony constantly updating it and adding new weapons and abilities. The first addition will be a gigantic sword made from a destroyed Roxxon pipeline - the perfect declaration of war. Speaking to Comicbook.com, Ackerman described this new suit:

This is something a very smart person makes when all else has failed and what comes next can't. He's not in a cave, but he is building it out of scraps. It's "Improvised" in the sense of "Improvised Explosive Device."

As cool as this change is, it's a huge technical downgrade from the Mysterium suit, and especially the towering Sentinel Buster. However, it suits where Tony is as a character - desperate, backed against a wall, and ready to come out fighting. While the Improvised Iron Man suit might not compare to the Mysterium armor yet, Iron Man has a whole new series to turn his new creation into something equally legendary.

Source: Tim Adams, Comicbook.com