It’s Marvel concept art time again!
Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios Head of Visual Development, has been a rich source of unseen MCU concept art recently – from an alternate Doctor Strange design to a special Iron Man poster to young Thanos and beyond.
This time, he’s sharing a design he created for Iron Man’s suitcase suit (the Mark V) in the second Iron Man flick.
As the artist writes in his caption: “This was a design I did for Iron Man 2 for the suitcase suit. It wasn’t used for that movie, but was repurposed and modified to become the ‘Bones’ suit from the house party protocol at the end of Iron Man 3.”
Right off the bat, fans will notice the difference in color; this darker idea was ultimately replaced with a more familiar (especially for Iron Man 2 audiences) red color scheme.
This suit was the first one Tony developed that could be compressed into, well, a suitcase size! Its use in Iron Man 2 is a throwback to comics in which Tony transports his suit in a briefcase. As Meinerding explained, while this design didn’t make it into Iron Man 2, an altered version was included in Iron Man 3 as the “Bones” suit (Mark XLI), another flexible piece of armor that boasted an interlocking ability.
Given the myriad of different suits Iron Man has donned throughout his 10+ years in the MCU, we can’t imagine how many other unused designs are out there!