Warning! Spoilers for Iron Man Annual #1
Tony Stark’s iconic Iron Man armor is one of the most impressive inventions in Marvel Comics, but it’s not perfect. In fact, Iron Man’s newest foe just exposed and exploited a major flaw in the suit thanks to his unique set of powers.
Iron Man Annual #1 by Jed MacKay has the Armored Avenger tracking down the Assessor, a new Marvel villain who previously went up against Miles Morales. In Miles’ solo series, the Assessor kidnapped and experimented on the young Spider-Man, who only managed to escape with help from his father and uncle. Given Tony’s personal history with being held hostage - and the fact that tech-oriented villains are his specialty - Iron Man makes it his mission to find and take down this Assessor. But while finding him proves to be fairly easy, taking him down is a different story.
When Iron Man discovers the Assessor’s lair, he easily takes out most of the villain’s henchman. However, Tony hits a bit of a speed bump when he encounters Quantum, the Assessor’s most powerful lackey and arguably one of the best teleporters in Marvel Comics. Not only does Quantum have the ability to full-on teleport, but he can also create miniature portals in virtually any space, which allows him to hit Tony on the inside of his suit. Try as he might, Tony can’t seem to land even a single attack on Quantum, forcing him to think outside the box.
After making it through the Assessor’s trials, Iron Man and Quantum face off once more. However, Tony manages to get the upper hand by using quantum entanglement, essentially disabling Quantum’s powers long enough to hit him with a repulser blast and knock him out. While Stark’s quick thinking was able to snag him the win this time, the fact that Quantum has the power to basically bypass his armor is certainly concerning. One of the biggest advantages of Iron Man's suit are its defensive capabilities, which are essentially null and void in a fight against someone like Quantum. After all, there’s nothing stopping the villain from using a knife next time to deal much a more lethal blow.
Knowing Tony Stark, he’s already begun thinking of ways to upgrade his armor and eliminate this newfound weakness. Still, he had better hope Quantum doesn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve, otherwise the Invincible Iron Man may wind up being stripped of his title.