Is That The Silver Centurion Armor in The Iron Man 2 Trailer?

A medium-level fan may watch the end of the Iron Man 2 trailer and get shivers from the awesome briefcase that morphs into the suit.  Yeah, it's sweet, but it's not the only old-school comics homage I saw in that scene. No, the real reason I got all worked up was the color scheme: red and silver. Is this a nod to the Silver Centurion Iron Man armor from Iron Man’s heady West Coast Avengers days? Sure. Why not? These movies do take place in Los Angeles, right?

Superhero color schemes are important. Superman is best when he’s red and blue (with a dash of yellow). The Hulk is green most of the time. Iron Man fancies racecar red and gold. When comic publishers are looking for a cheap attention grabber they take a superhero icon and give him a dopey new look for a while. In 1985 Marvel Comics were looking for something big for Iron Man’s 200th issue. The fans had recently accepted a badass black and white Spider-Man makeover. Maybe they’d dig a new Iron Man look? Iron Man #200 not only featured the first appearance of the previous Iron Man movie’s supervillain, The Iron Monger, but to defeat his over-powered foe, Iron Man debuted his most drastic armor change of all time, The Silver Centurion armor!

As with most superhero costume changes, the novelty of the Silver Centurion armor wore off quickly. It was just as big of a headline for Tony to return to his original colors as it was to mix it up as the Silver Centurion in the first place. At the end of the seven-part “Armor Wars” storyline, Tony is forced to fake Iron Man’s death and sacrifices his Silver Centurion armor to sell the ruse.

Now it’s over twenty years later and the Silver Centurion armor holds a special place in the imaginations of aging fanboys. Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau loves to service the fans (it’s almost kind of slutty) so it’s not out of the question that the red and silver suit of briefcase armor is a flirty wink to us nerds.