Tony Stark’s Mid-Air Iron Man Suit-Up In Marvel’s Avengers Had To Be Reverse-Engineered
According to Jason Surrell’s “Marvel Studios’ The Infinity Saga – The Avengers: The Art of the Movie,” one such complication arrived during the post-production of “The Avengers.” According to concept artist Phil Saunders, director Joss Whedon presented him the challenge of retaining the feel of the Mark V suitcase suit (introduced in “Iron Man 2”), while giving Tony Stark’s armor a “bulkier, fully armored silhouette.”
As Saunders told Surrell:
“There is a scene in ‘The Avengers’ where Tony is thrown out the window of his office tower – and a cruise missile-like package flies after him, unfolds and wraps itself around him as the Mark VII suit. While I kept that ultimate goal in mind while designing the suit. I didn’t tackle that until the suit was designed and modeled so that it wouldn’t compromise the ultimate design of our hero.”
This is the prelude to the climactic Manhattan battle, where Stark confronts Loki (building New York City in “The Avengers” was a gargantuan labor unto itself). This had to be a small fist-pump moment to juice the audience for what was in the offing, so Saunders and the animators took great care in getting it right. Per Saunders:
“In a process of reverse-engineering, I was able to take Josh Herman’s amazing digital model, import it into Luxalogy Modo, break it into components and figure out an articulation that would allow it to collapse into a missile-like shape.”
This all sounds terribly impressive (even if you wouldn’t know Luxalogy Modo from the Luxor Hotel & Casino), but, amazingly, Saunders’ job wasn’t quite finished.
