If your goal was to build a flying suit, as Robert Downey Jr.'s seems to be, I think iron is a poor choice so far as materials go. I was perusing through my periodic table of elements the other day when a number jumped out at me: 55.845. That's the standard atomic weight of Iron. Are there heavier metals out there? Well sure, but we don't measure our flying suits by the standard of "well, he could have done worse."

The fact is that there are better materials readily available. Scandium (SC) for instance. It's lighter and it melts at a higher temp, which would certainly come in handy if people were aiming to set you on fire. Scandium Man! You could even do a tie-in with Scandinavian countries. Downey Jr. could use his Nokia phone (Nokia is Finnish, crazy eh?) while putting together something from Ikea. The backstory of Iron Man is that he attended MIT at the age of 15; shouldn't he know all this with ease already?

I tell you another nice element is manganese. Now I know what you're saying, "Hey man, manganese has a terrible boiling point in comparison to iron!!" This is true and I can't really deny it. Our newfangled Manganese Man would have to make sure he stayed out of boiling vats of... well, anything. But he'd get some benefits too. For instance, according to Wikipedia:

Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl is used as an additive in unleaded gasoline to boost octane rating and reduce engine knocking.

How cool is that? The answer: very cool.

Obviously Tin Man is out, too many negative connotations there. And Vanadium Man sounds like a club DJ, not befitting of a tough superhero type. Osmium Man?? Please, how dense do you think I am? That, for the record, was probably the first science based punchline of my life. Get some! This is going great!

I think what I'm saying here is we should weigh all of our options. Superman is from another planet so there is no hope for improvement there. Batman, my personal favorite, is always turning to Wayne Enterprises to build him new gadgets - he clearly doesn't need our help. But Iron Man? I feel like we can do something there. He should pick another element to be the "man" of. It would just be good science.

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