I'd like to see Iron Man pounding on cool robots and armored villains.

QUOTE: Worse than Dazzler's disco roller skate costume

I like Kitty's UXM 150 costume.

The costumes of the Big Guns, tho, be they fabric or armor or alien plasma, should be a whole lot less "topical". Superman has worn the same basic suit for more than 70 years, and while he has never been at the cutting edge of fashion, neither has he looked painfully dated.

Was it already time for me to "move on?"

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Perhaps it was, if you really asked that question. But, I wonder if you really, really did. One of my least favorite internet words is "Always", as in "I have always thought…" I see that, and I wonder if the people expressing the thought really have always thought as they say they do, or if they just think they have. Memory is a tricky thing.

I was around 14 when Iron Man got his skin tight suit, and it didn't bother me for an instant. I believed the world I was living in when I read those stories. And if, in that world, Tony Stark could manufacture some kind of covering that was as tough as iron as a flexible as cotton, I had no more trouble believing it than I did believing he could have built the original gray suit while being held prisoner in a Southeast Asian jungle. Or that he could wear the original cumbersome chestplate under a tux and look as slim as a normal man. He was just that good.

The first time Tony suits up in the new armor, he describes the "skin" of the chest plate as "wafer thin", and the arms and legs as "smooth, supple, form fitting, and with the strength of ductile iron." What more do you need?

(If you have trouble with the arms and legs of the classic armor being skin tight, tough as iron and flexible as cloth, tell me how the joints in the more "realistic" armor work. If Iron Man attacks me, should I aim my blaster at his hips? After all, "realistically" there's no way those seams could be as strong as the rest of his suit.)

You make a very good point JB.  But that's the same with every costume. They all have their weak points and bad guys are just too dumb to realize that and always aim for the chest or have bad aim all together.  Your explanation as to why Batman's chest emblem is yellow (in the Batman's new costume thread) comes to mind.

If I was a bad guy with amazing aim and was fighting Iron Man for instance, I would try to shoot him in the eye or at one of the weaker points in his armor. Though, I suppose, he would probably melt my bullets before they reach him...worth a try though...

Shmear?

One thing I have found, in the times I have drawn Iron Man, the helmet simply does not work with the faceplate off. Or even tilted up. Just looks… odd.

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I have no explanation of why Batman's chest emblem is yellow. Perhaps you are thinking of what Frank Miller had to offer in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

As to the "weak points" of "every costume" -- this is the same slippery slope onto which we step when we decide it is terribly clever to have characters trip on their capes. On the world they inhabit, that simply does not happen -- unless some wiseass writer wants it to happen.

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MYTHBUSTERS went thru a round of "busting" superheroes a while back -- a pointless exercise at best, since superhero comics never pretend to be anything other than myths!

"I have no explanation of why Batman's chest emblem is yellow. Perhaps you are thinking of what Frank Miller had to offer in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS."

My apologies...I just reread your response to my post in that other thread and you do indeed mention that it was Frank Miller who offered an explanation. 

When I was a kid I just assumed it was some super advanced metal that was pliable and flexible when worn...and that Tony Stark invented it. Come to think of it, I still think that!

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Same here, Joel.  His ability to create such a fantastic material is one of the things that made Iron Man/Tony Stark special.