Inventing Iron Man (24 page)

Answering the question of whether or not just anyone could actually be Iron Man is tricky. Throughout this book you have read my take on how and what might be needed for an Iron Man suit of armor to be controlled by a human operator. There aren't really any special limitations on who could be the operator, so long as that person doesn't mind undergoing the highly invasive interfacing required. So, the answer to that part of the question is clearly yes. However, can anybody just pull on the armor and rip around with it? The answer to that part of the question is equally clearly no. It would need to be integrated with that person and that would take some time. The more important consideration, though, would be learning to operate the system well enough to do something useful. Now, that would take a lot of training.

This discussion is relevant to some issues that have arisen numerous times in the Iron Man comics and now in the 2010 Marvel
Iron Man 2
movie in which War Machine figures prominently. One issue is whether someone could steal Tony's armor and then maraud around as him wreaking havoc or whatever. This has come up a few times in the comics but was addressed recently in a four-part story arc in 2009–10 called Iron Man Armor Wars. As a side note, writer Joe Caramagna and main artist Craig Rousseau do a neat job of retelling the origin story and doing nice homage to many of the early armors. This includes cleverly working in the original gray armor in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and showing a version of the original “Golden Avenger armor” (the one with the pointy face plates) in “How I Learned to Love the Bomb.” It also includes an interesting twist with James Bond villain overtones with Dr. Doom lending a version of his armor to Tony just so that one day they can fight each other on even terms again. In any case, the main theme of the series is that some diabolical dude steals all the armor from Tony (including his new “Peace Keeper” armor designed only for search and rescue).
In this series, several bad guys climb into the armor without even warming up, let alone training in it, and then fight quite capably with it. The best example is Red Barbarian (Russian Madman), who uses the Hulkbuster armor with no problems at all! This is just not feasible given the amount of practice that would be needed.

Perhaps the example that most might be familiar with is the use of the War Machine armor in the comic books and in
Iron Man 2
. War Machine was created out of need by Tony to defeat the “Masters of Silence” who, in the words of Jim Rhodes from Invincible Iron Man #281 are “hi-tech samurai/ninja/kung-fu type hitters.” As we talked about in
chapter 4
, the conventional armor wasn't, well, “armed” enough, so War Machine was created. This new militaristic armor was shown fully in action in the 1992 Invincible Iron Man #282 story called—wait for it!—“War Machine.” Jim Rhodes's real debut in action as War Machine occurred two issues later in “Legacy of Iron” (Iron Man #284, 1992), in which Tony Stark is apparently dead (note: he is actually in cryogenic suspension). Tony's executor visits Jim Rhodes and makes him head of Stark Industries and lets him know that Tony has left him the War Machine armor for his use. Rhodey watches a video of Tony explaining what he has done.

Significant for what we are discussing here, Tony mentions that he is “asking you to take over.” He mentions that “I've designed the last suit of armor specifically for you—to work with your own individual attributes rather than mine.” So, the issue of how unique each set of armor would be is addressed at least partly, in the comics. This issue was also addressed in the 2009 20th Century Fox blockbuster
Avatar
. In the film, the identical twin of a scientist who was killed is recruited to take over his brother's use of a kind of brain-machine interface for remotely controlling a biological robot. It is interesting to see that the writers have worked into the script just how specific the neural connection for this kind of interface would need to be. Not just anyone could hook up and control the Avatar. Not just anyone can jump into the Iron Man suit and fly around either!

Jim Rhodes spent most of his career in the comics as Tony Stark's driver, pilot, and confidant. And, although he eventually became well known through his wearing the specialized “War Machine” armor (hinted at in
Iron Man
and shown very clearly in
Iron Man 2
), his first time in the tin can was actually shown in Invincible Iron Man #169 and #170 (1983) in two stories called “Blackout!” and “And Who Shall Clothe Himself in Iron?” The basic story is that Tony
Stark, who, as we saw in
chapter 7
, has a bit of a history with alcohol, has a few too many drinks, dons the Iron Man suit in order to defeat the villain Magma (who uses a huge kind of armored robotic spider as a weapon he can sit in). Somewhat impaired as he is, Iron Man is beaten up pretty good by Magma and returns to Stark Industries to regroup. This is where he meets up with Jim Rhodes. This is also the first issue where Tony Stark reveals to Rhodey that he is actually Iron Man (of course, Rhodey pretty much says he already knew that anyway). Then he has another drink (or two) and falls into a kind of fatigue and alcohol-induced stupor. Next, Rhodey really rises to the occasion. Since Tony is incapacitated, Rhodey, in true comic book dramatic fashion, takes it upon himself to put on the Iron Man suit and try to save the day. Also in true comic book fashion—and in the manner of a Shakespearean soliloquy—Rhodey comments aloud, “I just realized I'm putting on the Iron Man suit. Me. Jim Rhodes! Soon as I drop this helmet on, I'll actually be Iron Man!” Not quite, Rhodey. You will be a man in a suit of armor (look back at
figure 1.1
), for sure, but will you be able to function as Iron Man? In fact, in the very first panel of the next issue “And Who Shall Clothe Himself in Iron?” Rhodey says, “I've watched Tony Stark use this suit a million times, but I have no idea how it works.” Too true.

Rhodey's reservations about trying a solo flight in the suit are a great lead in for our next bit here. The question I want to consider going forward is, would it work? How simple would it be to just pull on the Iron Man suit of armor and do something useful with it? In that story we just talked about, the first thing Rhodey does is to accidentally demolish a wall when simply trying to move his arm. Then he mentions that it is “weird … every slight twitch becomes a great big gesture—and if I even think about moving, I do!”

The bottom line is it is really very difficult to use the Iron Man suit, especially without the direct nervous system coupling that would be required. Recall that the main underlying point for how Iron Man could ever be controlled by a human being is along the lines of brain-machine / brain-computer interfaces. This allows our thinking to “piggyback” on many concepts currently being advanced. Another summary of this overall approach, and one that also shows the potential for use in rehabilitation, is shown in
figure 9.1
.

Figure 9.1. Summary illustration of the goals of brain-machine interface technology. These range from more simple applications to control computer cursors all the way to linking up a human to a full-fledged Iron Man interface. The field moves forward based on advances in biomedical engineering for neural interface technology and improved understanding of plasticity in the nervous system. Courtesy Doug Weber.

Let's take the best-case scenario and pretend that the potential user (following on from above, let's say Jim Rhodes) is already in good mental and physical condition and has lots of experience in many different activities. You might wonder why that is relevant. Well, the better physical and mental condition means the more effective and efficient will be any interface with a machine—like Iron Man. Also, more experiences means a larger skill repertoire to draw on that can
be tapped into for using the Iron Man armor. So, assuming that, what is the big deal? Well, it is one thing to just interface with the Iron Man suit. It is another thing entirely to imagine being able to control that suit while it is running, jumping, flying, shooting weapons, performing evasive maneuvers, talking to others, responding to messages, regulating temperature, and so on. Even if we just take the most basic functions that Iron Man could possibly do, like standing up and walking across a room, and then reaching out, turning a door knob, and opening a door, we are talking about months and likely even years of training.

To come up with a “ballpark estimate” of the time needed for this, I spoke again with Jon Wolpaw. Recall that we met Jon when we discussed EEGs in
chapter 3
. Jon's work in brain-machine interface has largely involved brain electrical activity recorded from electrodes placed on the scalp. This interface allows for a good two-dimensional control system (think moving an image or cursor on a computer screen that has up/down and left/right as the two dimensions of movement). Such interfaces are on par with what has been achieved so far with electrodes implanted in the brain. I asked him about how long it might take a person to train and learn how to use this kind of mind-control interface. It seems that about eight to ten hours of practice time was the fastest to achieve a reasonable level of control. That training occurred in 24 sessions spread over eight weeks. Each of the three sessions each week totaled about 24 minutes of actual practice at moving the cursor in a targeted fashion. Jon advised that it is not uncommon for a person to take two or three times this time to achieve the same base level of control. They are currently studying ways to optimize the training but it is very difficult work.

Jon Wolpaw also spoke about something that I think is central to the issue of integrating a machine as intricate as the Iron Man armor with the complexities of the human brain and nervous system. And that is the issue not just of reaching some kind of level of control, or even of how fast it might take to achieve that control, but more of achieving consistent control. According to Jon, all of the methods, either invasive with electrodes right in the brain or noninvasive with electrodes on the scalp, have the same problem of “disconcerting unreliability. Control can be really good one day (or one three-minute period, or even one trial) and really bad the next.” Jon goes on to explain that the “proper conception of BCI [brain-computer interface] use is not as mind-reading but rather as skill development [that is,
it's like any other skill except it's executed by brain signals rather than by muscles]. The problem is that this skill doesn't become as consistent as muscle-based skills typically do. The fundamental reason for this is probably that BCI use is profoundly abnormal. The central nervous system evolved and is shaped throughout life to control muscles, period. A BCI asks it to control instead the signals (whether EEG or single neurons) from a particular cortical area. Thus, successful BCI use requires a major reorientation and a shift in the target of ongoing adaptive processes.” These points are directly in line with what we discussed earlier about how unusual it is to superimpose another “limb” or device on top of an intact nervous system (think back to our discussion about phantom limbs in
chapter 4
). Wolpaw's work so far suggests that the human central nervous system “can do this (for some cortical areas), but not all that well and not very reliably.” He suggests that the best way to “address this problem may be to use signals from multiple areas (thus imitating in some fashion how normal skills are executed).” This is a really interesting idea and gets at the concept of normal neuroplasticity in skill learning.

I also spoke with Doug Weber, another leading scientist in this field. He has experience with both invasive and noninvasive systems in both human and nonhuman primates. He told me that in the monkey it is possible to train “nearby ‘patches' of motor cortex to control arbitrary movements.” So, in this kind of experiment, monkeys could be trained to draw circles (remember this is drawing circles with brain signals, not actually using a pen or pencil!) over training with many repetitions and spanning numerous days. Doug suggests that a key issue that underlies the usefulness of machine interfaces is the quality of the brain signals that can be obtained. He said that it “is fairly easy to get good control in at least one dimension, when one or more electrodes are positioned in a brain area that exhibits strong, volitionally modulated signals—hand and face areas of motor cortex usually work very well, presumably because of the relatively large cortical map for those areas.” Doug has been working with his colleagues doing studies in patients with epilepsy who have electrodes implanted in the brain for one to four weeks.

In epileptics for whom surgery is contemplated to remove parts of the brain that have abnormal activity, doctors often implant electrodes to try to monitor and locate the source of the abnormal activity. In any case, the patients also agreed to participate in additional experiments to help with brain-machine interface. In those experiments,
they “start by finding electrodes over the motor cortex that show modulated activity during motor actions like hand open/close. Once we find a good channel, it is easy to couple the output to the control of a cursor movement…. The control is not perfect, but was achieved with only a few minutes of training. Per formance improves with experience, but we have not had enough time to really study this in humans.”