Avengers’ Mech Suits Take Inspiration From the 1980s and Transformers – Screen Rant

The suits that Iron Man makes in Avengers Mech Strike take clear inspiration from the 1980s and classic pop culture like the Transformers.

Warning: spoilers ahead for Avengers Mech Strike #2

The Avengers arent wearing Flock of Seagulls haircuts, but the mech suits Tony Stark builds for the super team definitely pull from 1980s style and pop culture staples like Transformers. The Avengers are facing biomechanoid monsters and need to match tech-for-tech, so Iron Man has given each of the founding members of the team their own mech suit.

Marvel Comics super team of the worlds mightiest heroes get a metal upgrade with each member getting their own personalized mech suit. Avengers Mech Strike #2 by Jed Mackay and Carlos Magno, borrows from the vaporwave aesthetic popularized in the 1980s beginning with the credits on page two. The main heroes are outlined in highlighter yellow on a spacey blue backdrop with the description and title in neon. The Avengers are facing an autonomous weapon sent from the future by Kang the Conqueror. The biomechanoids are intent on absorbing and converting matter into more mechanoid weapons.

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Each Avenger mech suit lets its hero use their own distinct powers. Thor has a big hammer attachment to his mechs hand and the lightning doesnt seem to short out his suit. Thors mech also has a design that harkens to early Optimus Prime. The Transformers franchiseappeared in the '80s and its chief character, Prime, had a unique blocky design that marked the style as both of its time and a shade of futurism. Thors mech suit has a similar face shield to Prime and the same color scheme. Thors color pattern of red, black, blue, and gold was already similar to Optimus Prime before the Odinson got a mech upgrade. But his mech suit appears to pay homage to the old comics and cartoons in both design and color palette.

The 1980s are alive in this issue, with the vaporwave look of blazing colors exploding from each page. This is contrasted with the biomechanoids, which are ugly, fleshy monsters with random mechanical bits jutting out at odd angles. These monsters are similar to the deformed monster in The Fly, a David Cronenberg film. Cronenberg is iconic for his brand of body-horror that populated multiple '80s films with practical prosthetic monsters mashed together into fleshy blobs. The biomechanoids in this comic also seem inspired by Cronenbergs aesthetic in films like Scanners and Naked Lunch.

The Avengers mech suits all have distinctive characteristics of their heroes, but the big shoulders and blocky appendages would fit in with the toys from the '80s. Those classic toysshare similar chunky shoulders and geometric design that this comic owes its design to. The intentional inspiration from the '80s gives the story its own place by paying homage but maintaining originality. The plot doesnt seem to follow any memorable arc from a piece of '80s fiction. But the style is definitely indebted to the decade.

The dialogue doesnt have any of the corniness of '80s action movies, but Kang the Conqueror sure loves to monologue. After he dispatches Black Panther by disintegrating the Wakandan King, Kang reveals his plan to wear down the Avengers with the monsters sohe can come in and sweep the globe in his conquest. Whether thisminiserieswill continue to pull inspiration from the '80s is anyones guess. And the mech suits alone are enough to relate it to Transformers in the future. But from the outset this story combines the right art elements to capture the retrofuturist outlook of much of the 1980s.

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Avengers' Mech Suits Take Inspiration From the 1980s and Transformers - Screen Rant