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Extremis (comics)
Encyclopedia
"Extremis" is a six-issue Iron Man
story arc
written by Warren Ellis
with art by Adi Granov
and published by Marvel Comics
. The arc first appears in Iron Man (vol. 4)
#1-#6. "Extremis" profoundly redefines the status quo for Iron Man, introducing a new origin story for Iron Man, the first since the character's creation, and increasing the power of Iron Man's armor
significantly.
"Extremis" received mostly positive reviews, and is often listed as one of the best Iron Man stories. Elements of "Extremis" were adapted for the 2008
film Iron Man
.
The story was meant as a sort of "new start" for the character - to redefine him from his origins as an arms dealer, to the "test pilot for the future" Ellis intended him to be. The story rarely mentions any of Iron Man's past, and references to the rest of the Marvel universe are limited to brief, passing mentions of the Avengers
and Fin Fang Foom
. Warren Ellis admitted he had intentionally not read any Iron Man material besides the very earliest issues.
This is similar for Adi Granov. "My first official introduction to the character occurred a year prior to Extremis. [...] Upon reading the script, I realized how realistic Warren's approach was to the story. [...] When illustrating the book I wanted my art to mirror the realism in Warren's writing [...] I felt that Warren wrote a story that's a sort of techno-thriller action story and I wanted the art to reflect this. [...] I saw Iron Man as not just a superhero in a suit; rather he is a pilot or weapon. To me, the Iron Man armor is more akin to a jetfighter than it is to an outfit.
The story, which lasts about three to four days in comic book time, takes place at an undefined time between the founding of the New Avengers, and the Stamford catastrophe (which led to the Marvel Civil War).
In his Coney Island workshop/garage, Tony Stark is woken from fitful sleep to undertake his morning ritual of struggling to look himself in the mirror, before heading off for a scheduled interview with journalist John Pillinger (based closely, by Ellis' admission, on leftist filmmaker John Pilger
). Pillinger discovers, in on- and off-camera conversation with Stark, that Stark's guilt is not chiefly for his history as a weapons designer (in flashback we see a younger Stark injured by a land mine of his own invention, the start of his Ellis-reworked origin story) but even more for the world-changing improvements he had hoped to fund with his weapons design, but which have yet to materialize. "Have you changed anything?" he asks Pillinger, and it's clear both men are anguished by the question.
The injected man's body, still lying in the Bastrop warehouse, is now covered completely in a bizarre layer of scar tissue.
Days later at Futurepharm Corporation offices in Austin, Texas, Dr. Aldrich Killian commits suicide at his computer, his note informing coworker Maya Hansen that he has stolen and "loosed" the company's immeasurably dangerous Extremis serum for some compelling but undisclosed purpose. Hansen phones Tony Stark, who is an old flame, and who speeds off to his private airport after taking the call on helmet-speaker flying high above New York State in his Iron Man suit.
Back in the Texas slaughterhouse, the two men return to find their companion - nearly normal again in appearance, although he has nearly punched holes in the locked metal door - is conscious and alive.
Stark arrives in Texas by private plane, ending a teleconference where he rejects calls from his company board to step down as CEO, saying they'll only restart weapons manufacture if he does. Arriving at Futurepharm he learns from Hansen only that the stolen project involves "robotic microsurgery" and they don't know who it's been given to, as they can't hack Killian's computer. Stark satellite-emails Killian's entire hard drive to be hacked by one of his contacts, and to distract Maya, jets her to San Diego to talk with their old friend and teacher Sal Kennedy.
Kennedy speaks about technological development in general, dubbing it the "creation of better hunters", and the two of them in particular, dubbing Hansen "the Edward Teller
of biology" and Stark "the Dean Kamen
of technology". They banter at length on the disappointments of great minds: Kamen, despite his many good works, is known primarily as the inventor of the Segway. Clive Sinclair
revolutionized Britain's computer industry, but is remembered for the C5
- "A Segway with pedals". He laments that the epitaph for many such individuals is "Almost Useful" - all three of them included.
Meanwhile, the three men from the slaughterhouse drive up in their van outside FBI headquarters in Houston, Texas, and the injection survivor gets out. While Kennedy harangues Tony and Maya on their military work and thus-far-failed promise, the survivor walks empty-handed into the FBI station, face distorted in a rictus of hate, and easily slaughters everyone he sees, armed or unarmed, many with his fists, many incinerated by flames in his breath.
Maya catches the story on the news, realizing that the terrorist - and his fifty casualties - must be her fault, and the result of her project, which she calls "Extremis." Tony calls for the plane to be ready to take them to Austin, and for his armor to be waiting there. Back in the van, the killer rejoins his confederates and tells them he's only started.
In flight back to Texas, Maya tells Stark that Extremis is a military nanotechnology serum, an attempt to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum
, which interfaces with the brain's 'repair center' and directs the body to rebuild itself from scratch as if it were all wound tissue to be replaced. The design for the new body is programmable prior to injection and can involve superhuman abilities, giving it an (untested) military application. Maya had taken the military contract to fund and advance her anti-cancer research. Stark receives a call from his hacker friend and reveals that Killian has given Extremis to a local domestic militia.
He debriefs area police authorities with a transmission to Avengers Mansion before landing and, once more alone, donning his armor. Mallen is heading back to Bastrop in the van, and flashes back briefly to the death of his entire family before his eyes in an ATF raid on their house when he was young. Iron Man, tracking the van from above, disables the van and battles Mallen, but is roundly defeated by him, with civilian casualties. Mallen flees, leaving Stark trapped beneath a car with armor at zero power and flames approaching, but Stark saves himself and the car's passengers by raising his armor to 1% power on thermal energy from the flames.
Tony phones Maya and has her people airlift him to Futurepharm, where in a private medical bay, she removes his armor, revealing his identity. His internal injuries from the fight are critical, and Tony has realized that the only way for him to survive them - and to upgrade his response time enough to defeat Mallen - is to undergo the Extremis process himself. He remarks that it's the second time he had to test a weapon in order to survive a deadly injury. Maya fears Stark won't survive the process, but Stark insists; she injects him with the serum and he convulses, falling into coma.
While in his regenerative coma Stark relives his origin story as Iron Man, starting with his first deadly injury - wounded by his own landmine in pre-Gulf-war Afghanistan, he wakes an Al Quaeda prisoner expected to manufacture their weapons. Fellow prisoner and experimental medical researcher Ho Yinsen informs him that the shrapnel is working into his heart and will soon kill him, so they develop a prototype Iron Man suit which magnetically keeps the shrapnel out of Stark's heart while arming him to free himself and eliminate his captors.
24 hours into his coma, the scablike cocoon which has enveloped him bursts and Stark awakes healed and newly fit. An internal control sheath for his Iron Man armor is now contained within his body to emerge on mental command. The sheath lets him "low jack" himself not only into his armor, but phone and computer and even global satellite networks. He unveils new suitcase-sized Iron Man Armor which self-assembles around his body when thought-commanded. He sets off after Mallen.
Tapping into the SI satellite cluster, Iron Man finds Mallen heading towards Washington, DC. The two fight but now it is Mallen who is outmatched and Stark pleads with Mallen to surrender, working hard not to kill Mallen while defending himself. Stark claims Mallen's story terrifies him because it so much like Stark's own, down to the fifty Al Quaeda he killed trying to free himself and his fellow prisoner in the first Iron Man armor. The difference is that Stark is trying to rise above killing and make a difference, whereas Mallen can't see the future. Mallen eventually gets the upper hand, and declaring that he will kill the future anyway, begins to rip apart the metal of Stark's chest plate - either this action, or Stark in desperation, releases a bolt of energy which runs Mallen through - after which, as a mercy killing, Stark decapitates Mallen with repulsors.
Torn with anger and guilt at having once more had to kill, he returns to Futurepharm, at last to act on his realization that Aldrich Killian could not have opened the company vault alone, and that Maya must have helped steal and release Extremis in order to provide her project with a human test and prove its viability in combat - in this case, with Iron Man - and thereby save her military funding for the cancer research. Maya confesses to Stark and the troops he's brought with him to arrest her, but tells him that he's no better than her - he agrees, but says at least he's trying to be better than her, and because of that he'll be able to look himself in the mirror the next morning.
prior to the first Gulf War
. During an inspection tour, one of Stark's own bombs detonates, sending a piece of shrapnel into his chest, nearly killing him. He is then captured by Afghan terrorists. As with the original origin story, Tony creates the armor with Dr. Ho Yinsen
and escapes the terrorists, but Yinsen does not survive.
and suspended in a carrier fluid. A magic bullet, like the original super-soldier serum - all fitted into a single injection. It hacks the body's repair center - the part of the brain that keeps a complete blue print of the human body. When we're injured, we refer to that area of the brain to heal properly. Extremis rewrites the repair center. In the first stage, the body essentially becomes an open wound. The normal human blueprint is being replaced with the Extremis blueprint, you see? The brain is being told the body is wrong. Extremis protocol dictates that the subject be placed on life support and intravenously fed nutrients at this point. For the next two or three days, the patient remains unconscious within a cocoon of scabs. (...) Extremis uses the nutrients and body mass to grow new organs. Better ones..."
In reality, no such neurological 'repair center' is known to exist.
Effects of the Extremis process, apart from the changes specific to Tony, included: greatly accelerated healing, an immensely boosted immune system, the generation of "new, improved organs" (Tony's cardiovascular and respiratory systems were greatly upgraded) and, as a side effect, increased aggressiveness. Tony had the super powers removed from the Extremis compiler, replacing them for the ability to interface directly with machines and his own armor, but Mallen retained these, so that he also possessed high-level super strength, super-speed, a high level of invulnerability, and the abilities to breathe fire and project electric arcs from his hands.
As well as the obvious physical changes, Extremis also affected Stark on a mental level, allowing him to process information at light speed on a subconscious level to help him better cope with the direct technological link he now possessed to his armor, even as his standard thought processes remained at a human norm. As a result, his brain, taking in more information than he could consciously process, began to sublimate it into his unconscious mind, causing Stark to experience occasional hallucinations of particularly relevant information, manifesting as people whose deaths he felt personally responsible for- such as Captain America
or Happy Hogan
- making him aware of facts that he had noted subconsciously while not recognising their relevance or existence on a conscious level (Such as that a member of the Initiative had lied about his powers or that Maya Hansen was actually alive after her death was faked). Doc Samson
speculated that the hallucinations appeared because the excess information was filtered into the same place Stark subconsciously stored his guilt to stop himself facing it.
During a later story with the return of the Mandarin
, who attempts to release Extremis on a large scale as part of his plan to 'reshape' the human race, it is revealed that Extremis can only be successfully used on people who possess a rare genetic sequence, found in only 2.5% of the human population; this percentage includes Tony Stark and Maya Hansen, but does not include the Mandarin. Anyone without this sequence who is exposed to Extremis will be killed by the system.
After Tony was forced to cause himself brain damage to stop Norman Osborn
gaining access to the Superhuman Registration Act, his mind was 'rebooted' using information that he had saved when he first injected himself with Extremis, with the result that he lost all memory of the actions he had committed after receiving the Extremis upgrade, although he has spent time researching his activities between then and his restoration.
as Iron Man: Extremis as a softcover (ISBN 0-7851-2258-3) and three hardcovers (ISBN 0-7851-1612-5), one of which in includes a motion comic
adaptation.
film Iron Man
closely resemble those introduced in "Extremis". Based on his work on "Extremis", artist Adi Granov was brought on as a producer for the film, and he created the final designs for Iron Man's armor. On the DVD
of Iron Man, "Extremis and Beyond" is included as a special feature. In other featurettes, Adi Granov and Warren Ellis were interviewed on the origin, the suits, John Pillinger (the interviewer), and the suit being on a crate, not a briefcase. In Iron Man 2
, a small plot arc of the story involves Tony trying to find a solution to the palladium poisoning from his Iron Man arc reactor, eventually coming to creating a new element for a pacemaker resembling Extremis armor.
The trailer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
shows Iron Man wearing the Extremis suit.
In 2010 Marvel Knights Animation created a motion comic with 3-d Cell shading graphics. The six part mini series is currently available on Netflix
and on DVD from Shout! Factory
.
Reviews
Iron Man
Iron Man is a fictional character, a superhero in the . The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, first appearing in Tales of Suspense #39 .A billionaire playboy, industrialist and ingenious engineer,...
story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
written by Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis
Warren Girard Ellis is an English author of comics, novels, and television, who is well-known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which covers transhumanist themes...
with art by Adi Granov
Adi Granov
Adi Granov is a Bosnian-British comic book artist and conceptual designer.-Career:Granov teamed with comic book writer Warren Ellis for the post-Avengers Disassembled relaunch of Iron Man...
and published by Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
. The arc first appears in Iron Man (vol. 4)
Iron Man (vol. 4)
Iron Man was an ongoing comic book series published for four years from January 2005 to January 2009 by Marvel Comics. It starred the superhero Iron Man. It was the fourth series with this title to be published, following series that ran from 1968–1996, 1996–1997, and 1998-2004...
#1-#6. "Extremis" profoundly redefines the status quo for Iron Man, introducing a new origin story for Iron Man, the first since the character's creation, and increasing the power of Iron Man's armor
Iron Man's armor
Iron Man's armor is the fictional powered exoskeleton worn by the fictional Tony Stark when he assumes his superhero role of Iron Man. The first version of the armor was created by Stark with the help of Ho Yinsen....
significantly.
"Extremis" received mostly positive reviews, and is often listed as one of the best Iron Man stories. Elements of "Extremis" were adapted for the 2008
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
film Iron Man
Iron Man (film)
Iron Man is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron...
.
Background
"Extremis" was the first Iron Man story arc after the "Disassembled" story lines (which ran through various Marvel comics, but mainly affected the Avengers), as well as the first story arc of the fourth volume of Iron Man overall.The story was meant as a sort of "new start" for the character - to redefine him from his origins as an arms dealer, to the "test pilot for the future" Ellis intended him to be. The story rarely mentions any of Iron Man's past, and references to the rest of the Marvel universe are limited to brief, passing mentions of the Avengers
Avengers (comics)
The Avengers is a fictional team of superheroes, appearing in magazines published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 The Avengers is a fictional team of superheroes, appearing in magazines published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 The Avengers...
and Fin Fang Foom
Fin Fang Foom
Fin Fang Foom is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Strange Tales #89 Fin Fang Foom is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Strange Tales #89 Fin Fang...
. Warren Ellis admitted he had intentionally not read any Iron Man material besides the very earliest issues.
This is similar for Adi Granov. "My first official introduction to the character occurred a year prior to Extremis. [...] Upon reading the script, I realized how realistic Warren's approach was to the story. [...] When illustrating the book I wanted my art to mirror the realism in Warren's writing [...] I felt that Warren wrote a story that's a sort of techno-thriller action story and I wanted the art to reflect this. [...] I saw Iron Man as not just a superhero in a suit; rather he is a pilot or weapon. To me, the Iron Man armor is more akin to a jetfighter than it is to an outfit.
The story, which lasts about three to four days in comic book time, takes place at an undefined time between the founding of the New Avengers, and the Stamford catastrophe (which led to the Marvel Civil War).
Plot
Three men furtively enter a disused slaughterhouse in Bastrop, Texas, where two of them inject a willing third, whom the call "Mallen", with an experimental drug which makes him fall to the floor in immense pain while a bizarre physical change overtakes him; his horrified compatriots flee the room and lock him in.In his Coney Island workshop/garage, Tony Stark is woken from fitful sleep to undertake his morning ritual of struggling to look himself in the mirror, before heading off for a scheduled interview with journalist John Pillinger (based closely, by Ellis' admission, on leftist filmmaker John Pilger
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....
). Pillinger discovers, in on- and off-camera conversation with Stark, that Stark's guilt is not chiefly for his history as a weapons designer (in flashback we see a younger Stark injured by a land mine of his own invention, the start of his Ellis-reworked origin story) but even more for the world-changing improvements he had hoped to fund with his weapons design, but which have yet to materialize. "Have you changed anything?" he asks Pillinger, and it's clear both men are anguished by the question.
The injected man's body, still lying in the Bastrop warehouse, is now covered completely in a bizarre layer of scar tissue.
Days later at Futurepharm Corporation offices in Austin, Texas, Dr. Aldrich Killian commits suicide at his computer, his note informing coworker Maya Hansen that he has stolen and "loosed" the company's immeasurably dangerous Extremis serum for some compelling but undisclosed purpose. Hansen phones Tony Stark, who is an old flame, and who speeds off to his private airport after taking the call on helmet-speaker flying high above New York State in his Iron Man suit.
Back in the Texas slaughterhouse, the two men return to find their companion - nearly normal again in appearance, although he has nearly punched holes in the locked metal door - is conscious and alive.
Stark arrives in Texas by private plane, ending a teleconference where he rejects calls from his company board to step down as CEO, saying they'll only restart weapons manufacture if he does. Arriving at Futurepharm he learns from Hansen only that the stolen project involves "robotic microsurgery" and they don't know who it's been given to, as they can't hack Killian's computer. Stark satellite-emails Killian's entire hard drive to be hacked by one of his contacts, and to distract Maya, jets her to San Diego to talk with their old friend and teacher Sal Kennedy.
Kennedy speaks about technological development in general, dubbing it the "creation of better hunters", and the two of them in particular, dubbing Hansen "the Edward Teller
Edward Teller
Edward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
of biology" and Stark "the Dean Kamen
Dean Kamen
Dean L. Kamen is an American entrepreneur and inventor from New Hampshire.Born in Rockville Centre, New York, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out before graduating after five years of private advanced research for drug infusion pump AutoSyringe...
of technology". They banter at length on the disappointments of great minds: Kamen, despite his many good works, is known primarily as the inventor of the Segway. Clive Sinclair
Clive Sinclair
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair is a British entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s....
revolutionized Britain's computer industry, but is remembered for the C5
Sinclair C5
The Sinclair Research C5 is a battery electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair and launched by Sinclair Research in the United Kingdom on 10 January 1985. The vehicle is a battery-assisted tricycle steered by a handlebar beneath the driver's knees. Powered operation is possible making it...
- "A Segway with pedals". He laments that the epitaph for many such individuals is "Almost Useful" - all three of them included.
Meanwhile, the three men from the slaughterhouse drive up in their van outside FBI headquarters in Houston, Texas, and the injection survivor gets out. While Kennedy harangues Tony and Maya on their military work and thus-far-failed promise, the survivor walks empty-handed into the FBI station, face distorted in a rictus of hate, and easily slaughters everyone he sees, armed or unarmed, many with his fists, many incinerated by flames in his breath.
Maya catches the story on the news, realizing that the terrorist - and his fifty casualties - must be her fault, and the result of her project, which she calls "Extremis." Tony calls for the plane to be ready to take them to Austin, and for his armor to be waiting there. Back in the van, the killer rejoins his confederates and tells them he's only started.
In flight back to Texas, Maya tells Stark that Extremis is a military nanotechnology serum, an attempt to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum
Captain America
Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...
, which interfaces with the brain's 'repair center' and directs the body to rebuild itself from scratch as if it were all wound tissue to be replaced. The design for the new body is programmable prior to injection and can involve superhuman abilities, giving it an (untested) military application. Maya had taken the military contract to fund and advance her anti-cancer research. Stark receives a call from his hacker friend and reveals that Killian has given Extremis to a local domestic militia.
He debriefs area police authorities with a transmission to Avengers Mansion before landing and, once more alone, donning his armor. Mallen is heading back to Bastrop in the van, and flashes back briefly to the death of his entire family before his eyes in an ATF raid on their house when he was young. Iron Man, tracking the van from above, disables the van and battles Mallen, but is roundly defeated by him, with civilian casualties. Mallen flees, leaving Stark trapped beneath a car with armor at zero power and flames approaching, but Stark saves himself and the car's passengers by raising his armor to 1% power on thermal energy from the flames.
Tony phones Maya and has her people airlift him to Futurepharm, where in a private medical bay, she removes his armor, revealing his identity. His internal injuries from the fight are critical, and Tony has realized that the only way for him to survive them - and to upgrade his response time enough to defeat Mallen - is to undergo the Extremis process himself. He remarks that it's the second time he had to test a weapon in order to survive a deadly injury. Maya fears Stark won't survive the process, but Stark insists; she injects him with the serum and he convulses, falling into coma.
While in his regenerative coma Stark relives his origin story as Iron Man, starting with his first deadly injury - wounded by his own landmine in pre-Gulf-war Afghanistan, he wakes an Al Quaeda prisoner expected to manufacture their weapons. Fellow prisoner and experimental medical researcher Ho Yinsen informs him that the shrapnel is working into his heart and will soon kill him, so they develop a prototype Iron Man suit which magnetically keeps the shrapnel out of Stark's heart while arming him to free himself and eliminate his captors.
24 hours into his coma, the scablike cocoon which has enveloped him bursts and Stark awakes healed and newly fit. An internal control sheath for his Iron Man armor is now contained within his body to emerge on mental command. The sheath lets him "low jack" himself not only into his armor, but phone and computer and even global satellite networks. He unveils new suitcase-sized Iron Man Armor which self-assembles around his body when thought-commanded. He sets off after Mallen.
Tapping into the SI satellite cluster, Iron Man finds Mallen heading towards Washington, DC. The two fight but now it is Mallen who is outmatched and Stark pleads with Mallen to surrender, working hard not to kill Mallen while defending himself. Stark claims Mallen's story terrifies him because it so much like Stark's own, down to the fifty Al Quaeda he killed trying to free himself and his fellow prisoner in the first Iron Man armor. The difference is that Stark is trying to rise above killing and make a difference, whereas Mallen can't see the future. Mallen eventually gets the upper hand, and declaring that he will kill the future anyway, begins to rip apart the metal of Stark's chest plate - either this action, or Stark in desperation, releases a bolt of energy which runs Mallen through - after which, as a mercy killing, Stark decapitates Mallen with repulsors.
Torn with anger and guilt at having once more had to kill, he returns to Futurepharm, at last to act on his realization that Aldrich Killian could not have opened the company vault alone, and that Maya must have helped steal and release Extremis in order to provide her project with a human test and prove its viability in combat - in this case, with Iron Man - and thereby save her military funding for the cancer research. Maya confesses to Stark and the troops he's brought with him to arrest her, but tells him that he's no better than her - he agrees, but says at least he's trying to be better than her, and because of that he'll be able to look himself in the mirror the next morning.
Updated origin
The story arc incorporates an updated origin for Iron Man. Tony Stark is a weapons designer whose weapons are being used against Al Qaeda in AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
prior to the first Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
. During an inspection tour, one of Stark's own bombs detonates, sending a piece of shrapnel into his chest, nearly killing him. He is then captured by Afghan terrorists. As with the original origin story, Tony creates the armor with Dr. Ho Yinsen
Ho Yinsen
Ho Yinsen is a fictional supporting character of the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man , who is key to Iron Man's origin story and was a mentor to him.Actor Shaun Toub portrayed Yinsen's character in the 2008 superhero film, Iron Man....
and escapes the terrorists, but Yinsen does not survive.
Extremis
Extremis has been referred to as a "virus" constantly since the story. However, the verbatim description offered by Maya Hansen, its inventor, goes: "...Extremis is a super-soldier solution. It's a bio-electronics package, fitted into a few billion graphite nanotubesCarbon nanotube
Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...
and suspended in a carrier fluid. A magic bullet, like the original super-soldier serum - all fitted into a single injection. It hacks the body's repair center - the part of the brain that keeps a complete blue print of the human body. When we're injured, we refer to that area of the brain to heal properly. Extremis rewrites the repair center. In the first stage, the body essentially becomes an open wound. The normal human blueprint is being replaced with the Extremis blueprint, you see? The brain is being told the body is wrong. Extremis protocol dictates that the subject be placed on life support and intravenously fed nutrients at this point. For the next two or three days, the patient remains unconscious within a cocoon of scabs. (...) Extremis uses the nutrients and body mass to grow new organs. Better ones..."
In reality, no such neurological 'repair center' is known to exist.
Effects of the Extremis process, apart from the changes specific to Tony, included: greatly accelerated healing, an immensely boosted immune system, the generation of "new, improved organs" (Tony's cardiovascular and respiratory systems were greatly upgraded) and, as a side effect, increased aggressiveness. Tony had the super powers removed from the Extremis compiler, replacing them for the ability to interface directly with machines and his own armor, but Mallen retained these, so that he also possessed high-level super strength, super-speed, a high level of invulnerability, and the abilities to breathe fire and project electric arcs from his hands.
As well as the obvious physical changes, Extremis also affected Stark on a mental level, allowing him to process information at light speed on a subconscious level to help him better cope with the direct technological link he now possessed to his armor, even as his standard thought processes remained at a human norm. As a result, his brain, taking in more information than he could consciously process, began to sublimate it into his unconscious mind, causing Stark to experience occasional hallucinations of particularly relevant information, manifesting as people whose deaths he felt personally responsible for- such as Captain America
Captain America
Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...
or Happy Hogan
Happy Hogan
Harold "Happy" Hogan, is a fictional character who appears in books published by Marvel Comics, usually as a supporting character in books featuring Iron Man.-Fictional character biography:...
- making him aware of facts that he had noted subconsciously while not recognising their relevance or existence on a conscious level (Such as that a member of the Initiative had lied about his powers or that Maya Hansen was actually alive after her death was faked). Doc Samson
Doc Samson
Doc Samson is a fictional character, a superhero and psychiatrist in the Marvel Comics universe, known as a supporting character in stories featuring the Hulk.-Publication history:...
speculated that the hallucinations appeared because the excess information was filtered into the same place Stark subconsciously stored his guilt to stop himself facing it.
During a later story with the return of the Mandarin
Mandarin (comics)
The Mandarin is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics supervillain and the archenemy of Iron Man.In 2009, Mandarin was ranked as IGN's 81st Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.-Publication history:...
, who attempts to release Extremis on a large scale as part of his plan to 'reshape' the human race, it is revealed that Extremis can only be successfully used on people who possess a rare genetic sequence, found in only 2.5% of the human population; this percentage includes Tony Stark and Maya Hansen, but does not include the Mandarin. Anyone without this sequence who is exposed to Extremis will be killed by the system.
After Tony was forced to cause himself brain damage to stop Norman Osborn
Green Goblin
The Green Goblin is a fictional character, a supervillain who appears in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, and first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #14 ....
gaining access to the Superhuman Registration Act, his mind was 'rebooted' using information that he had saved when he first injected himself with Extremis, with the result that he lost all memory of the actions he had committed after receiving the Extremis upgrade, although he has spent time researching his activities between then and his restoration.
Collected editions
The arc is collected in a trade paperbackTrade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
as Iron Man: Extremis as a softcover (ISBN 0-7851-2258-3) and three hardcovers (ISBN 0-7851-1612-5), one of which in includes a motion comic
Motion comic
A motion comic is a form of comics combining elements of print comic books and animation.-History:The earliest examples of motion comics are found in independent creations such as Broken Saints....
adaptation.
Influence on the Iron Man film and other media
The origin and armor of Iron Man used in the 20082008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
film Iron Man
Iron Man (film)
Iron Man is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron...
closely resemble those introduced in "Extremis". Based on his work on "Extremis", artist Adi Granov was brought on as a producer for the film, and he created the final designs for Iron Man's armor. On the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
of Iron Man, "Extremis and Beyond" is included as a special feature. In other featurettes, Adi Granov and Warren Ellis were interviewed on the origin, the suits, John Pillinger (the interviewer), and the suit being on a crate, not a briefcase. In Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 is a 2010 American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the sequel to 2008's Iron Man, the second film in a planned trilogy and is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Jon...
, a small plot arc of the story involves Tony trying to find a solution to the palladium poisoning from his Iron Man arc reactor, eventually coming to creating a new element for a pacemaker resembling Extremis armor.
The trailer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
is a crossover fighting game developed by Capcom. It features Capcom's own characters and characters from American comic book company Marvel Comics. It is the fifth installment of the Marvel vs...
shows Iron Man wearing the Extremis suit.
In 2010 Marvel Knights Animation created a motion comic with 3-d Cell shading graphics. The six part mini series is currently available on Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
and on DVD from Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...
.
External links
- "Extremis" at Marvel.com
Reviews
- Iron Man: Extremis trade review, Comics BulletinComics BulletinComics Bulletin is a website with an emphasis on the American comic book industry, updated daily with news, reviews, interviews, and editorial content. Coverage ranges from mainstream to independent/small press comic book and graphic novel publishers.-History:...