Tony Stark won't be the only "superhero" to wear a high-tech suit into battle if the U.S. military has its way.

Development of the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, for short is moving forward with a complete working prototype anticipated sometime in 2018, according to WTSP. In the meantime, the "Iron Man" suit, as it's been dubbed, is under development with much of the design work taking place at Tampa's MacDill Air Force base, the station reports. Nicknamed the "Iron Man" suit by the U.S. Department of Defense, the suit's development first hit the news in 2013 when the military announced that U.S. Special Operations Command had tasked Army researchers with the development of a suit very much like the one worn by Marvel's superhero Iron Man.

"[The] requirement is a comprehensive family of systems in a combat armor suit where we bring together an exoskeleton with innovative armor, displays for power monitoring, health monitoring, and integrating a weapon into that -- a whole bunch of stuff that RDECOM is playing heavily in," Lt. Col. Karl Borjes, a RDECOM science advisor assigned to SOCOM, was quoted in an Army media release in 2013 as saying. See Also:

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MacDill Ranks 6th in Best Bases for Airmen The military's push to get these suits developed has put Tampa at the epicenter of development. Rich McClain, head of the Tampa Bay Defense Alliance, told WTSP the suit's eventual production will help boost the Bay area's tech industry while better positioning MacDill for defense against downsizing.

A desire to see TALOS become reality fasterprompted a December 2014 call for white papers from SOCOM. The impetus behind the call is to "accelerate the delivery of these innovative capabilities to the Special Operations Forces (SOF) warfighter," the announcement stated.

Realization of the dream is still a few years away, WTSP points out. A working prototype of the suit isn't anticipated until 2018.