Dear Always Following Ored Leaders,

Great random question! It looks like Tony is only partially wearing his suit in this Lego set. According to one description, "Stark wears a plain black outfit and wears part of his Iron Man Mark 8 suit. The chest is printed with a trapezoidal chest plate from the Iron Man Mark 8, along with some printed silver armor and muscle detail. Stark also comes with one dark red armored arm and an Iron Man helmet."

Not really sure why they decided to go with the half-and-half instead of the full suit.

-guppy of doom

Dear Adult Fan of Lego,

Okay, so guppy is right—the arm is red because the minifigure is supposed to be in partial armor.

But like she says, it's kind of unclear why. My first thought was that it was just trying to capture Tony's transformation into Iron Man, like in this scene. There are lots of cool transformation scenes in the Iron Man movies, so that would make sense. Allen "Tormentalous" Tran on thebrickfan.com seems to have the same idea, saying that the figure is "Tony Stark in a mid-transformation."

There are also a few times in the movies when Tony ends up with just the arm of an Iron Man suit on, like at the end of the "House Party Protocol" battle in Iron Man III, so I also thought the partial armor might be referencing that.

However, what doesn't make sense to me is why the description guppy referenced, as well as Allen "Tormentalous" Tran, would say that it is the Mark VIII suit. According to the Iron Man fandom wiki of Mark VIII, the Mark VIII suit was basically just in storage from the time it was built until it was activated with all the other suits for House Party Protocol. Then at the end of the battle (while Tony is lying on the ground with the arm of some other armor on), Mark VIII targets Pepper Potts because of her Extremis heat signature, so Pepper destroys it by punching it with her Extremis-induced fire hands, puts one of the arms on, and uses it to kill Aldrich Killian.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if anyone should be wearing just one arm of Mark VIII, it is Pepper Potts.

Sincerely,

Cerulean

Dear me too,

I'm hoping by the summer of 2021. This is because a vaccine and/or effective treatments will have to be developed and mass produced. But confirmed cases, at least in Utah, appear to be trending in the wrong direction.

-Sunday Night Banter

Dear you-ler,

Love,

Luciana

Dear Reader, 

Unfortunately, your question has sat for far too long. While many of us expressed interest in getting the book and reading it so we could answer your question, it just didn't happen that way. That being said, Alta, Cerulean, and I all have it on our reading lists. I've heard AMAZING things about it from my cousins (granted, none of the ones who rave about it are LDS anymore...). Perhaps if you ask this question again in the future you might strike gold. Or, I will personally find this question and either update it or post another question that will allow me to write my full thoughts. 

We're sorry to leave you hanging like that. 

Cheers, 

Guesthouse

Dear you,

I was going to, and then I heard they were multiple days and I was like "heck no I don't want to be that fired up/depressed for more than one day." Plus now I can claim ignorance when my conservative family members try to use the conventions to start an argument.

Serious respect to those of you who did watch all of them.

-guppy of doom