Polite Dissent

12 Responses to “ Tony Stark’s Heart ”

1. Oliver Townshend
   January 13th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
   

   It must have originally been very healthy for him to survive all this (and possible paraplegia as well). The armour must be amazing, because you’d think that all that metal and what he does in fights would actually put a huge strain on it.

2. Slarti
   January 13th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
   

   Tony’s been back and forth between damaged heart, artificial heart, and new undamaged heart several times in the course of his history. I never read all of the mini where he got the Extremis nanites, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Extremis repaired any damage his heart might’ve previously had and then enhanced it some more for good measure.

3. Johnny Bacardi
   January 13th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
   

   What happened? Improvements in surgical technology happened, to the point where it seemed very ridiculous for Tony to be wearing a big chest plate that emitted magnetic waves that kept the shrapnel entering his heart! So, and I don’t remember when (late 60’s-early 70’s, I believe), they started changing it.

4. Seth Finkelstein
   January 14th, 2008 at 2:16 am
   

   Obviously, a tough one, that’s taken a lot of damage but still survives. Assuming he hasn’t gotten some magic or high-tech healing in the interim. Given all the superhero tech, you’d think there would be a booming market (or even a black market) in purely medical applications. Sort of like china organ-transplant medical tourism, but far crazier.

5. MSJ
   January 14th, 2008 at 5:27 am
   

   Sounds like Tony would be dead without all that tech he has.

6. Dwight Williams
   January 14th, 2008 at 6:05 am
   

   I suspect the Extremis intervened in the latter instance. The very thing that rendered him vulnerable to everything first Ultron and then the Sentry did to him ended up saving him.

7. Matthew E
   January 14th, 2008 at 8:09 am
   

   Reminds me of a story about a guy who took one of those magazine quizzes where you start with x number of years, add so much if you’re a woman, subtract so much if you’re a man, add so much if you live in the country, et cetera, and when you’re all done you’ve got your life expectancy. And this guy took the quiz and it turned out that he was five years older than his life expectancy. Someone asked him if this didn’t worry him a bit, and he said, hell no, imagine how healthy I must be to have made it this far.

8. Keith Martin
   January 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
   

   If I recall correctly (and it’s hard to keep up with the retcon cycle), Tony has a mechanical artificial heart these days. Can you have a “serious acute myocardial infarction” in an artificial heart?

9. Dr Archeville
   January 14th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
   

   I believe you’re right, Keith, the heart he’s got now was once in his “sentient” Armor; it ripped out it’s own “cybernetic heart” and crammed it into Tony (it somehow installed itself). Since then Tony’s gotten the Extremis, though, so maybe that nanotech turned his cybernetic heart into technorganic hybrid.

   ‘Course, with all that Stark’s been doing of late, one wonders if he truly has a heart….

10. Matt
    January 14th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
    

    As far as I know, “myocardial infarction” actually refers to the death of the tissue, so no, you can’t have one in an artificial heart.

11. Ed
    January 14th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
    

    Plus, what kind of communist guerrilla leader indulges in such a bourgeois affectation as a cigarette holder?

12. Mithel
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:50 am
    

    I just assumed the Extremis/Internal Armor was being referenced here.

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