>>I grant that the military trying to retro-engineer it was extremely gauche. But Tony made War Machine for Rhodey. He had to. A suit like that doesn't have much wiggle room; it's made to fit the pilot like a glove. The later, prehensile suits could adjust to different pilots -- that made sense -- but the earlier ones couldn't. We know Tony was running an elaborate shell game to keep his friends from finding out about his imminent death. Handing off War Machine was part of that plan. It's just an example of Tony's epic fail at relationship issues.<<
Yes, the original was made for Rhodey, and he "stole" it per Tony's expectations.
But one of the things that makes Tony Stark's tech so far ahead of the norm in the Marvel Universe is that he thinks differently about EVERY aspect of an engineered item (like the "all glass" look of the Stark Phone). Once the military had hold of the prototype, they began to look at it under a microscope, reverse-engineering every single aspect of it from the gears, pistons and actuators in each limb to the circuitry and eventually the software. (Justin Hammer's OS was made of Fail, but it showed exactly how far the military was going to re-create the armor, and them GIVING Hammer access to the suit was an invitation for Hammer and his company to ALSO rip off Tony's work and then patent it as their own. That Hammer could not meet expectations to create an army of the suits for them is completely beside the point.
Cumulatively, considering a single patent for something as simple as a carabiner with swivel joint can be worth hundreds of millions, the level of theft is just mind-boggling. The metallurgical patents alone would be astronomically valuable. The US military treated Tony exactly the way Ross treated Hulk-- like their own golden goose. Extremely ironic that Obie used the exact term when intending to murder Tony for the mini reactor, because Obie -died- as a result, but there has been NO indication of repercussions or fallout from the situation to the military.
"Genius" is not synonymous with "public property". Tony's right to the fruits his own creativity has been badly ignored in canon. Frankly, the only comparisons I can think of which are severe enough are also inflammatory enough that I'm not going there.
Re: Oh, Phil!
Yes, the original was made for Rhodey, and he "stole" it per Tony's expectations.
But one of the things that makes Tony Stark's tech so far ahead of the norm in the Marvel Universe is that he thinks differently about EVERY aspect of an engineered item (like the "all glass" look of the Stark Phone). Once the military had hold of the prototype, they began to look at it under a microscope, reverse-engineering every single aspect of it from the gears, pistons and actuators in each limb to the circuitry and eventually the software. (Justin Hammer's OS was made of Fail, but it showed exactly how far the military was going to re-create the armor, and them GIVING Hammer access to the suit was an invitation for Hammer and his company to ALSO rip off Tony's work and then patent it as their own. That Hammer could not meet expectations to create an army of the suits for them is completely beside the point.
Cumulatively, considering a single patent for something as simple as a carabiner with swivel joint can be worth hundreds of millions, the level of theft is just mind-boggling. The metallurgical patents alone would be astronomically valuable. The US military treated Tony exactly the way Ross treated Hulk-- like their own golden goose. Extremely ironic that Obie used the exact term when intending to murder Tony for the mini reactor, because Obie -died- as a result, but there has been NO indication of repercussions or fallout from the situation to the military.
"Genius" is not synonymous with "public property". Tony's right to the fruits his own creativity has been badly ignored in canon. Frankly, the only comparisons I can think of which are severe enough are also inflammatory enough that I'm not going there.
-Sarah-