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( Books of Note: Galacta, Atomic Robo )

   Dave Van Domelen, "All of the human video wavelengths are open to me! The Nickelodeon is fuzzy, but IT TOO will crumble and FALL before the heavy weight of my GENIUS!" - Doctor Dinosaur, Atomic Robo v4 #3 (of 4)

   Bonus quote: "That is for me to know and FOR YOU TO DIE!" "That's not even a sentence." "The simple mammalian subject AND predicate were both represented! I challenge your claim." - Doctor Dinosaur and Atomic Robo

( Other-media: Iron Man 2; Book of note: Prince of Power #1. )

   Dave Van Domelen, "Looks like Comet just *realized* that the six-foot-four, half-naked supermodel is, well...a half-naked supermodel." "Sooner or later, all the boys do..." - Adam Strange, Alanna Strange, REBELS #16

For those who know Shadowfist, this is as close as I could get to Ting Ting. Her "Braid of Doom" would probably have to be included as a cape option or something, so I gave her looped braids.
( And yes, I gave her the Sands of Mu vet power so she could have a shadow fist )

( And a bunch of backordered Antarctic Press books )

   Dave Van Domelen, "'Tis foreign technology. (What do they call the mechanical golems of Earth?)" "'Robots'...and sometimes 'minivans.' THIS might be of THAT SORT." "It's NOT a 'minivan.'" - Luan, Carla and Gar, Gold Digger v3 #117

Last night, thandrak pointed me at Project Rooftop, specifically their Iron Man redesign contest. As I looked at the entries, I mostly thought, "Well, that's nice powered armor, but it ain't Iron Man" (with a few exceptions). That got me thinking today about the question of what constitutes an iconic Iron Man armor: a suit that you look at and can't mistake for anything BUT Iron Man. Keeping in mind that plenty of canonical armors don't meet these criteria, here's what I think makes the essence of an Iron Man suit, in rough order of importance (most to least):

1. Red and gold. Preferably the red should dominate the chest, helmet, boots and gloves, while the yellow is on the faceplate and the upper limbs. The red and silver armors have never really looked right to me.
   
2. Faceplate with rectangular eyeslits and rectangular mouth slit (with or without "bars").
   
3. Some sort of chest "jewel", which may or may not project an energy beam.
   
4. Bulky enough to obviously be armor (i.e. no skinsuits) but with the exception of special purpose suits it should never be more bulky than the MkI "built in a hut/cave with scraps" armor.
   
5. Most of the bulk is concentrated in the forearms, boots and maybe shoulderpads. So, by taking off the gloves, boots and helmets it's plausible to wear the rest under a business suit.
   

The very first red and gold armor, which was also the first armor built by Tony in the comics after getting back to America (the Golden Avenger suit was his MkI with gold paint), meets pretty much all of these criteria.

Sure, even starting the clock at the first red and gold suit leaving aside the special purpose suits, there's plenty of official suits that don't meet all five of these criteria. But Superman spent some time running around in a blue and white skating suit, and Spider-Man's had red and gold armor. Not every official costume change makes it to iconic status.

But if you design an armor that hits all five of my points, then anyone who has even an inkling of who Iron Man is will recognize it as an Iron Man armor.