The saddening loss of Grant Imahara is still a blow that a lot of people are trying to get over as the highly skilled and famous engineer passed just recently, but he did leave behind a lot of memories, one of which was the Iron Man project that was contracted to work on at one point alongside YouTuber Allen Pan. The two took on the challenge to create Iron Man’s gauntlet, with a working laser, and Captain America’s shield to see which one was superior to the other. Right away it’s easy to state that a lot of people might have gone one way or the other since both weapons are insanely impressive, even though Cap’s is used for defense as well and Tony’s suit pulled double duty just as much as Cap’s shield. Both designs were absolutely great and they both served their purpose, though it can be said that Cap’s shield needed a little extra boost in the form of a controllable drone that made it zip around and hit the targets as it was intended to do. But when you don’t have movie magic to rely on that’s about as good as it can get in the real world, and it worked great since it turned out to be highly impressive.
With Imahara’s design and skill being applied to the design it’s not hard to see how this could be pulled off, but it does make a person wonder if there are any applications that might be seen heading forward with this particular idea. How could you not really expect someone in the military to look at this and think that it might have a military application that could be used? It might reek of paranoia that’s fostered by movies and otherwise impractical, but human imagination can only be hampered so much before it finds a way to make the impossible come to life. The suit might take a while to fabricate and really come together, and there are likely a few gadgets that wouldn’t be practical since they all need a power source, and an arc reactor like Tony Stark’s isn’t going to be something that will be readily available at all times. The getup that Imahara had to wear looks like it would be kind of problematic without the rest of the suit, and it’s also evident that the laser was able to do some damage but wasn’t nearly on par with what we see in the movies. Of course, if it was then it would have been far too dangerous and it would have meant that Imahara had found a way to create a mobile power source, or a viable and strong enough source, that might make the Iron Man suit a reality a lot sooner than people might think.
But thankfully most if not all of that is still science fiction, not science fact. That Imahara and Pan could recreate any of it, even what they did, is simply amazing since it shows what hard work and ingenuity can do when paired with the desire to make something unique and, more importantly, functional. Out of the many weapons that the Avengers possess there are some that would be easy enough to make it would appear, though Iron Man’s armor would be pushing a lot of limits and would likely have to be made piece by piece since otherwise, the whole suit is something you might only see at comic conventions since some people are able to fabricate an entire suit but once they’re in it, they’re in it. Other weapons that would be fun to see would be Natasha’s shock sticks and Hawkeye’s bow, but maybe those are considered a little too simple. Thor’s hammer, in a realistic look, would be a big, unwieldy piece of metal that only a thunder god could hope to lift, but there have been videos of those that have taken the time and effort to make Stormbreaker, his new weapon. While it can probably do a lot more damage than Pan and Imahara’s weapons, it’s a lot harder to wield and might actually take a very strong individual to really get it moving.
The number of different ways that such weapons could be created is hard to nail down really but thanks to Imahara and Pan’s designs it’s likely that more and more people might start thinking that this is something that’s attainable and even possibly something that could be done if tweaked in certain ways. It might be a little nerve-wracking to think that one day we might have laser-wielding soldiers that sport iron armor and are virtually unstoppable, but chances are that this is still a long way off, and for the moment it’s more scientific interest than a concrete reality. But hey, you never know.
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