Five Times Superheroes Used Armors to Replace Their Missing Superpowers

In the latest Drawing Crazy Patterns, where we spotlight five recurring themes in comics, we examine five times that superheroes used suits of armor to substitute for their missing superpowers.

As I noted last week when discussing the release of Wolverine #49 this week (the penultimate chapter of the epic Sabretooth War in the pages of Wolverine), Sabretooth’s storyline in this crossover has been building for years, as Sabretooth was the first mutant in the newly formed mutant island nation of Krakoa who was exiled to Krakoa’s Pit, the place where mutants go for punishment. Sabretooth was soon joined by other mutants, including Nekra and Oya (a former student of Wolverine’s). Eventually, Sabretooth escaped, and Doug Ramsey, of the Krakoan Quiet Council, freed the other exiled mutants in exchange for them agreeing to hunt Sabretooth down. Sabretooth, meanwhile, has teamed up with a variety of Sabreteeth from alternate realities (including their leader, known as the Bad Seed).

Sabretooth succeeded in neutralizing Wolverine’s superpowers, and was about to finally kill his longtime rival, when the Exiles showed up, and trapped Sabretooth. Meanwhile, Wolverine (now without his mutant powers) has donned an Adamantium suit of armor he had made for him for emergencies, just like this. This reminded me of how often this exact thing seems to come up in the comics. Here are five examples of superheroes using armor to substitute for their missing superpowers.

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Wolverine has had experience with using armor to replace his missing powers

The amusing thing about Wolverine using an Adamantium armor now to replace his lost powers is that this isn’t even the first time that he has run into this exact situation! In 2013, Paul Cornell became the writer on a new Wolverine series, and in the series, Wolverine ran into a sentient virus from the Microverse, and it shorted out his powers.

Now he had no healing powers, and he also had all of this Adamantium in his body, so he had an armor built that allowed him to continue to fight the good fight and protect himself from being killed (he still had his strength and agility). However, ultimately, his loss of his healing factor is what led to the death of Wolverine in 2014.

Captain America has used armor a couple of times when he lost his powers

At the end of Mark Gruenwald’s long run on Captain America, he decided to go out with a bang by basically killing Captain America. Gruenwald revealed that the Super Soldier Serum that gave Captain America his amazing abilities (super-strength, agility, etc.) had essentially an expiration date. And well, now that 50 years have passed, that expiration date has been reached, so Captain America’s powers are slowly killing him!

He was close to total paralysis when Tony Stark built him a special armor to keep him going. This only delayed the inevitable, and Cap was near death when the Red Skull showed up, and used a cure that he had stolen (Red Skull was a clone of Cap, so he needed the cure, as well) to cure Cap, because Skull needed him for a mission.

Years later, Captain America had his Super Soldier Serum “neutralized” by a villain who could cancel out stuff like that. Cap was now suddenly a super fit guy in his 90s. He retired as Captain America (this was when Sam Wilson took over as Captain America), but he eventually found his way back into the superhero community, as a sort of wisened older leader. He then used the armor again to take on Iron Man during the Time Runs Out event, as Cap and Iron Man were on different sides of the whole “How to handle the fact that the Multiverse is collapsing on itself” deal.

Total Justice was a toyline involving armored superheroes, so a miniseries had to explain how it all worked

Total Justice was a toyline by Kenner that involved “fractal armor.” You know, you would have your traditional Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Robin and Green Lantern action figures, and then you could add modular armor to them to make them look cooler. That worked for a toyline, of course, but how do you work that into a comic book?

That was the job of Christopher Priest in the Total Justice miniseries, which came out right before Grant Morrison re-did the Justice League. He had a rogue Parademon cancel out everyone’s powers. So Aquaman, Flash, and Green Lantern were trapped on an island with Batman and Robin without their powers. Blue Beetle developed “fractal armor” to substitute for their powers until they saved the day.

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Guy Gardner used an armor before he surprisingly discovered new superpowers

When Guy Gardner received his own solo superhero series, he used a yellow power ring that once belonged to Sinestro. The ring was powered by the rings of Green Lanterns. Well, during the Green Lantern event, “Emerald Twilight,” Hal Jordan was driven insane by the loss of his hometown of Coast City, and tried to attack the Green Lantern Corps to access the power of the entire Corps so that he could get enough power to bring Coast City back to life.

As a result, Guy’s ring now no longer could be charged up (since the Green Lanterns he was bumming charges off of were now all off fighting Hal). So Guy had Blue Beetle build him an armor. Meanwhile, Hal succeeded in absorbing the Green Lantern Corps Power Battery, which temporarily SUPER-charged Guy’s ring. Guy and some other heroes traveled to Oa, only to find the death and destruction left in the wake of Hal Jordan. Hal showed up, and he and Guy battled, but ultimately, Hal destroyed Guy’s ring, and left Guy in a coma. Luckily, Guy then discovered he was half-alien, and thus had his OWN superpowers (it was a whole thing).

One of the strangest New Warriors teams was made up of heroes using armors to replace their powers

The kick-off of Civil War was the death of the New Warriors, who died in a battle with a group of supervillains (the battle resulted in the death of a number of innocent civilians, as well). Meanwhile, during the House of M, the Scarlet Witch eliminated almost all mutants on Earth. Well, the brother of Night Thrasher (the leader of the New Warriors) decided to form a NEW New Warriors.

The team was made up of former mutants who lost their powers due to the Scarlet Witch’s actions, like Jubilee, Wind Dancer, Beak, Angel (the female one who was dating Beak), Stacy X, and a few others. They had armors to either approximate their old powers, or to substitute new ones.

Remember, everyone, that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I’ll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is “missing” if it is not listed. It’s just not one of the five examples that I chose. If anyone else has suggestions for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at [email protected]!