Iron Man’s Ablative Armor’s smart force field
Model 2, Tales of Suspense #40 (1963)
Most Iron Man armors have a force field. In fact, the idea of Tony Stark having a force field as part of his armor goes all the way back to the Model 2 in 1963. It’s such a common part of each suit that it would be special if an armor didn’t have a force field. Sure, this invisible shield might not be as iconic as the chest beam or the hand repulsors, but you’d probably notice if it were missing. It’s there to protect Tony from projectiles, energy weapons, impacts, and just about anything else that might cause him harm..
Iron Man’s Model 23 certainly has a force field, but it’s special. How? Let’s take a look.
It’s A “Smart” Force Field
Axol’s force field isn’t just there to protect Tony, but to work with the tessellated tiles that make up the armor. When the Ablative Suit loses tiles due to impact, the polymer kiln on the back cooks up new tiles; the force field puts them back into place.
But the force field has to be “smart.” It has to be able to identify the tiles, meaning that the tiles themselves have to be chipped. This could be accomplished by something as simple as radio or infrared signals. If not for the information-exchanging contact with the tiles, the force field would grab anything that happened to be around and try to press them onto the suit. This could be embarrassing, such as attaching up rocks, soda cans, or leaves. It could also be dangerous if a small missile barely missed Tony and then the force field grabs it and hugs it up against the suit!
Finally, without communication between the tiles and the force field, it couldn’t put differently shaped tiles (like those that curve around the back of the helmet) or differently sized tiles (like those that go on the knuckles) tiles back in the right place.
It Doesn’t Just Replace Tiles
When you take a look at other sites talking about the Iron Man Ablation Suit, most bring up the “chaff wall.”
This is a super-cool idea, one that Tony specifically calls out on the page that introduces the armor. Unfortunately, it’s never used in this way!
What we do get are two ways the suit uses the forcefield to destroy the nanoplasm Tony fights in the issues. First, the tiles are forcefully expelled when the nanoplasm attaches to the tiles. Second, he uses tiles as projectiles to destroy any remaining goop that isn’t attacking him. This second use proves that the tiles can be used for offensive purposes like shuriken (aka throwing stars, ninja stars). If the Ablative Suit proved popular, no doubt we would have seen the tiles form into swords, handheld shields, and oversized fists.
What If It Gives Out?
If the force field can no longer perform its role as a handler of tiles, what then? The suit pretty much becomes a one-hit-wonder, in that it can no longer replace any tiles that the kiln cooks up. Unless Tony catches the tiles falling out like coins from a slot machine and reloads them onto the suit by hand…well, you’d better hope that you don’t suffer any more impacts than you have tiles.
Is the Forcefield Holding Every Tile In Place?
In a previous blog I pointed out the only hints of what Axol looks like under the tiles. From what I can tell, the exposed shoulder shows that it’s pretty much just a gray Iron Man suit.
The Ablative Armor’s shoulder after all tiles have been chipped away / expelled.
In that blog I also noted that there’s no evidence of a structure that holds the tiles into place, no “scaffolding” that keeps the tiles on the suit.
So the question becomes, is the suit the only thing holding the tiles in place? I can say with certainty that it’s not the sole means of tile attachment. The following panel pretty much proves it.
As you can see, the force field has been set to cover just the underlying armor skin while leaving the tiles outside exposed. (This was part of Tony’s plan, see that link above for details.) Since the force field is protecting the gray suit and not the tiles, there has to be some sort of superstructure keeping each tile in place. Also, the text says that when one tile is broken, another “snaps” in to take its place; that really sounds like it has nothing to do with the forcefield.
Why don’t we see what’s keeping everything in place? The lack of such a holding lattice in the art is probably because the artist didn’t want to spend 10X the time on each panel!
Is It Practical?
Someday soon I’m going to write a blog about the overall practicality of Axol, and I’m sure the smart forcefield will play a big part in my analysis. Until then, we can be pretty sure that the Model 23’s is the smartest forcefield Tony’s ever created!
