The Orions kept telling every other race that their women were slaves. If you had watched "Enterprise", you'd know that the Orion women had things their way among their own people. Orion males were mostly controlled by their women. They, and all other bipedal males, were very easily controlled by the "so called" slave girls. It was more than just looks. They could gift a slave girl to a ship, come back later to find a very different crew on that ship. These women were in charge of their race and were gifted or sold to others to gain an advantage on commerce, war or whatever purpose or endeavor. Their control was physical, chemical and who knows what else. But go ahead....put whatever spin on it that makes you happy. But do not try too hard. They are, after all, an alien race. Not from Earth. The NX-01 was in serious danger when the wiles of the "slaves" began affecting the male of the crew.

So. Vanko must have necessarily invented solid state electronics (as well as the vacuum tubes that preceded it). Many things that did not exist in 1909, would be necessary to power and control powered armor inhabited by a person. A compact power source would also be necessary. The use of the term knockoff, is also not correct. The Stark powered armor would be an evolution over the previous iteration. Not a knockoff. If all your here for is to throw shade at Ironman....go for it. But lets, at least, use something that will hold water. The early Vanko work was old. In order to make it work, it would need advanced an advanced power generator or advanced elecyrical power storage. None of the industrial infrastructure needed to make these things existed in 1909. All in all, the 1909 suit would be a static unit at best. If I were Tony Stark, I would not be embarrassed in the slightest way. He didn't know about Vanko when he made his first suit (see first movie). Tony learned about him in the second movie, when he already had a suit that installed itself around his body. No need for embarrassment on his part. He was lucky enough to live in a time where the industrial infrastructure provided the power, metals, hydraulics etc. that allowed him to make the machines that he used to bring his ideas to life. None of it would have happened without his intellect. Embarrassed? I doubt it.

I'm more than a little tired of people who want to reinvent characters and stories of super heros and others for whatever self serving reason they come up with. Gunn is as bad as Abrams about this. The hubris, of thinking that your version of a story or character, is better than the older versions, is just plain egotistical. You take the old, change it, and declare the new better. The height of ego. You made something different. That alone does not make it better. You change characters to suit your own vision and bless it as "improved". What a "load" of you know what. If you want new versions of a character type, develop a new character. Leave the old well based characters as they are/were. There are literally millions of people that liked them the way they were. You want stories for the new generations, then write new stories/characters for the new generations. Leave those that have been around for a long time alone. The people that developed those stories/characters knew who or what they wanted. I guess those rewriting these things have just decided they know better than the creators of the origjnal materials. Here's where that word "Ego" comes in. Of course, these are only my opinions. A question.... just who thought Superman was a fascist? Really not a very bright idea. If Superman was a fascist, he would have conquered his new home. Think about it.