Iron Man Armor: Mark III

The Mark III armor is Tony Stark's third Iron Man suit and an upgrade from the Mark II, improving on its previous flaws. It is the first suit to integrate an actual advanced weapons system and was the first to use the standard red and gold color scheme.

History
After nearly perfecting his Mark II armor, Tony Stark discovered a nearly fatal icing problem in the suit during a high altitude test flight after which he decided to move on to develop the Mark III suit. Tony later solved the suit's icing problem by using a new metal composition that wasn't prone to freezing. He also opted to integrate a new, miniturized weapons system that was concealed by the suit's exterior plating. Tony pesonalized the suit by giving it a new red and gold color scheme.

Due to learning that his supposedly discontinued weapons, including a set of his Jericho Missiles, were being used by the Ten Rings to terrorize Gulmira, the home village of Ho Yinsen, an enraged Tony Stark suits up in his Mark III armor to destroy his pillaged weapons and stop the terrorists. While leaving Gulmira, Stark gets into an altercation with two F-22 figher jets in US air space, and puts the military in the area on high alert. During the altercation Stark accidentially downs one of the F-22s after crashing into its wing, prompting the military to step up its assault. However, Tony is able to prove he isn't a threat after revealing his identity to his friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes and saving the pilot of the downed F-22, whose chute didn't deploy upon ejecting. The whole incident is later written off to the public as "an unfortunate training accident".

Some time later, Tony is confronted by Obadiah Stane, who paralyses Tony with a sonic device and takes the advanced arc reactor from his chest in order to power his own reversed engineered Iron Monger suit. After struggling to retrieve his older arc reactor to save his life, Tony suits up in the Mark III and flies to the Stark Industries building to confront Obadiah and save Pepper Potts. Despite having to use the older, weaker arc reactor Tony is able to hold his own against Obadiah's heavier, weapons laden suit as their battle spreads to the nearby streets. In an attempt to trick Obadiah, Tony flies up into the upper atmosphere with Obadiah following behind him. However, Obadiah's suit begins to freeze over, having failed to account for the icing problem Tony faced with the Mark II suit, and proplty shuts down and falls back to earth. Tony lands on the roof of the Stark Industries building, running dangerously low on power, but Obadiah reappears to confront him. While sabotaging Obadiah's suit Tony instructs Pepper to overload the giant arc reactor that powers the Stark Industries building. After luring Obadiah over the arc reactor Pepper detonates it releasing a massive amout of energy into the atmosphere, subsequently killing Stane, leaving Tony nearly dead, and the Mark III in shambles.

After the fight with Iron Monger the Mark III was labeled battle damaged and, believed to be beyond repair, was subsequently replaced by the Mark IV suit.

Abilities
The Mark III made a number of advancements from the previous Mark II, creating a new standard from which his later suits were created. Tony was able to solve the icing problem, which was the biggest design flaw of the Mark II, by substituting the same metal that was used in Stark tactical satellites, which was far less prone to freezing, into the suit's new design.

Like the previous suits the Mark III inhanced the user's physical capabilities, granting them near superhuman level strength (which the Mark III proved is enough to lift a car), near bullet-proof durability, and enhanced movement speed and reflexes.

In addition to the other advancements, Tony also decided to integrate his own advanced, miniturized weapons system concealed beneath the suit's exterior plating. This included a set of mini-guns concealed in the shoulders of the suit that could fire a total of twelve shots at a time, six from each shoulder, and used a computer guiding system to fire at multiple individual enemies, in different positions, at the same time. The suit contained a small set of miniturized, high explosive missles, concealed in each forearm, each capable of taking out a full size tank.

The Mark III also contained a set of non-weaponized flairs contained in two circular launchers located at the suit's hips. Tony has used these in atleast two occations: to distract the two F-22s that were persuing him in the skies over Gulmira, and to temperarily blind the Iron Monger in their fight.

In addition to the other weapon additions, Tony upgraded the energy output of his requlsors to weapons grade levels after which they have become the standard weapons of every Iron Man armor since. Stark also modified the suit to fire unibeams or beams of concentrated energy, siphoned strait from the arc reactor, and shot through the apeture on the suit's chest.