Given Tony Stark’s limited time and materials, the original Model One Iron Man armor (occasionally called Mark Zero) is impressive mostly just because it works. It was built for strength, not stealth or speed; its primary purpose was to protect Tony from gunfire and help him escape. A version of this suit was seen in the film Iron Man, although the comic version also had magnetic field manipulators, micro-buzzsaws, suction cups, pressurized boot jets, and a flame-thrower.

When he returned to the U.S., Tony Stark reworked this armor into a version that could collapse and fit into a specially designed suitcase. When ordinary citizens found Iron Man’s appearance too unnerving, Tony immediately repainted the armor gold to make it look more heroic. In the first Iron Man movie, Tony’s third suit is made of a gold-titanium alloy as a nod to this armor (though he quickly decides to have parts of it painted “hot rod red”).