Comic Book Questions Answered – where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Reader Chris C. wrote in to ask:

Has Iron Man ever had an adamantium suit of armor?

In general, there are a few major drawbacks to making an armor out of adamantium.

First off, adamantium is very rare. Iron Man goes through a whole lot of armors, as he is always coming up with new armors. There probably isn't enough adamantium out there for all the new designs he comes up with.

Secondly, because of its rarity, adamantium is very expensive. Tony Stark has a ton of money, but again, he goes through so many armor designs, it would be hard for even HIM to keep up with something like a pile of adamantium armors.

Similarly, adamantium, once hardened, basically cannot be re-set, so that limits the ability of Iron Man to modulate his armor. He loves to make changes and he is sort of locked in when he can't do anything with the adamantium.

Notice that most uses of adamantium have been on straightforward stuff, like claws or simply coating a skeleton...

On that same point, what if he gets trapped in an armor made out of adamantium? He'd be screwed!

However, you'd think he would occasionally use it for SOME armors, right?

Read on to find out if he did!

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Sure enough, he DID once make an Iron Man armor out of adamantium.

In the storyline "Execute Program" by Daniel and Charles Knauf, Patrick Zircher and Scott Hanna, Iron Man runs into trouble when a hacker takes control of a few of his automated Iron Man armors. They wreak havoc around the globe.

One of the armors is, in fact, made out of adamantium...

Iron Man, though, knows of the properties of the first metal in the Marvel Universe to be called Vibranium, the specific ANTI-METAL Vibranium, which can destroy any metal...

Honestly, I'm a bit iffy on whether that gambit would necessarily even WORK, as I don't think I've seen it used on Adamantium before, but, well, obviously it did because it was used in the book!

Oddly enough, though, that's been it for Iron Man's adamantium armors.

Thanks for the question, Chris! If anyone else has a comic book question, drop me a line at brian@cbr.com!