It’s part and parcel of the Iron Man movies to showcase countless weapons and gadgets, but along the way, some of them are easy to forget. And perhaps one of the forgettable MCU installments is Iron Man 2, and yet, looking back, it may have featured one of the franchise’s deadliest weapons. Whiplash utilized his energy coils to devastating effect as the film’s villain. By the end of the film, he even managed to improve it and integrate it into an armor that rivals any Tony Stark created. And if the technology were to return, particularly in the hands of a certain X-Men villain, then it could spell disaster for the Marvel heroes of the franchise’s future.
The 2010 Iron Man 2 followed up on its predecessor’s success in establishing the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a franchise, but in the dozens of films since, it proves easy to forget about. The film dealt with Tony Stark settling into his role as a superhero as he made discoveries about his father’s past and the mysterious connections to the Russian scientist Ivan Vanko. Vanko claimed that the Stark family stole his father’s designs for the arc reactor, and in creating his own, Vanko managed to power a uniquely deadly weapon: energy coils.
Attaching a whip to each arm and infusing it with the energy of the arc reactor, Vanko was able to slice a racecar in half and even bring Iron Man to his knees. Though he was cut short in his first attempt, when Vanko returned later with an improved version of the whips that integrated them into a full-on armor he proved an overwhelming threat against both Iron Man and War Machine both, with the energy coils rending their armor useless and pouring more energy into them than they could handle. In the wake of the film’s events, it seems incredible that Stark himself did not advance the designs, perhaps respecting Vanko’s sensitivity to the theft of his intellectual property following the Russian scientist’s death.
But that does not mean the energy coils will never return, and there are a few likely avenues where they could prove deadlier than ever. With War Machine set to head the Disney+ series Armor Wars, based on a comic story in which the Iron Man technology spreads throughout the criminal underworld to see further abuse in irresponsible hands, it’s likely that others would not have Stark’s same reservations about reviving the designs. The unwieldy weapons could prove suicidal in the hands of someone like Justin Hammer, shown in Iron Man 2 maiming his test subjects with even basic armor designs, but there is one character from the comics who could use them more effectively than anyone: Omega Red.
Primarily an X-Men villain, Omega Red shares Vanko’s Russian background and proclivity for energy coils as weapons. Omega Red’s origins even tie him into a Russian Super Soldier program, conducted on a coldhearted serial killer who gains not only the ability to absorb life through the whips on his arms but a devastating death spore that instantly incapacitates almost anyone in his surroundings as well. As the MCU expands into new territory, the world of the X-Men promises to be different from any incarnation seen previously in film, and Omega Red could prove to be the perfect union of the MCU’s past and future.
Though few hold Iron Man 2 up as one of their favorite Marvel features, bringing back Vanko’s energy coils would be a great way to draw out a fun idea from the film. That same film gave the MCU’s Black Widow ger debut and had James Rhodes suit up as War Machine for the first time, so it’s clearly a proven success in establishing memorable characters that last through the franchise to this day.
Whether they return in the hands of Omega Red or simply in recreated armor as part of the Armor Wars plot, it is not a technology the film franchise should be quick to forget. So many of Iron Man’s own weapons advanced uniquely throughout the series, with the nanotechnology of his later armors putting his earliest designs to shame. Seeing how Vanko’s designs could advance with the same leaps and bounds of technology could make them more devastating than ever.
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