Flashback Friday: Arc Reactor

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: the Arc Reactor!

The arc reactor first appeared in the film Iron Man (May 2008) as a portable power source that powered the magnet that kept a piece of shrapnel from entering Tony Stark's heart, as well as powering the Iron Man suit. It was a miniaturized version of a machine that Howard Stark built to create clean energy, a project that didn't go anywhere until Tony was able to miniaturize it. Side note: much evidence across the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows that the Arc Reactor is Howard Stark's attempt to create a man-made version of the Tesseract.

It later appeared in Invincible Iron Man #3 (July 2008), though instead called a Repulsor Technology Node. Pepper Potts was caught in an explosion that caused shrapnel to lodge into her body. Tony has a node implanted into her chest to keep the shrapnel from entering her heart. He also says he used one when the same thing happened to him in the Middle East, which essentially completely rewrites his origin to match the movie. Although the "Extremis" storyline from 2007 moved his origin to the Middle East, this is the first time it's been noted that he implanted something into his chest to help with his heart condition, rather than crating a whole chestplate to wear.

In Invincible Iron Man #21 (December 2009), Tony has to reboot the Extremis within his body to prevent Norman Osborn from gaining access to it. Doing so causes his body to shut down, so he has to get an RT Node implanted to restart it. Incidentally, this same issue seems to indicate he had both the RT Node and chestplate when he escaped Afghanistan.

The Arc Reactor/RT Node has continued to appear since then, although I'm not sure it's ever been vital to a storyline again. I'm also pretty sure neither Tony nor Pepper still have theirs; they're simply a way to power the suits these days.

Item Spotlight: Infinity Stones

These are the Infinity Gems. They have a long history in Marvel Comics, beginning in Marvel Premiere #1 (February 1972), when the Soul Gem first appeared. The rest of them appeared during The Power of Warlock (1972) and were originally called Soul Gems as a group. In The Thanos Quest (1990), Thanos changes the name to Infinity Gems since only one of them controls the soul.

In the MCU, Infinity Stones (note they're not called gems) first confirmed to exist in Thor: The Dark World (2013). However, that's not the first time one appeared.

The Tesseract (aka the Cosmic Cube in the comics) was first mentioned in Iron Man 2 (2010), first appeared in the post-credits scene of Thor (2011), played a major role in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and then was first confirmed as an Infinity Stone in Thor: The Dark World (2013). At some point, probably in an interview, the Tesseract was confirmed to be the Space Stone.

The Aether first appeared in Thor: The Dark World (2013). At some point, it was revealed to be the Reality Stone.

The Orb first appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). It was confirmed to be the Power Stone.

The Mind Stone first appeared (sort of) as the Scepter in The Avengers (2012). The Mind Stone itself was first alluded to in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and then first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). As the gem that powers the Vision, it was combined with the Sunstone from the comics.

The Time Stone was first alluded to in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), then first appeared as the center of the Eye of Agamotto in Doctor Strange (2016).

The Soul Stone (which is orange) has not appeared yet.

As you may have noticed, the colors of the Infinity Stones do not match the colors of the Infinity Gems. Keep that in mind below.

In the Marvel Universe, the universe was rewritten following Secret Wars. In practice, this doesn't mean much. No previous Marvel stories have been erased from existence. But it does allow them to change a few things going forward, and one of those changes is that Infinity Gems are now Infinity Stones. Other properties have changed as well.

They started reappearing in Marvel Legacy #1 (September 2017) with this blue stone.

The next one to appear was this giant purple stone in Guardians of the Galaxy #147 (November 2017). The writer says it's so big because of how much energy it has, but that it can be compressed.

Captain Marvel #126 (November 2017) debuted the next stone, a red one that was found in another reality.

The most recent one was also the first to be specifically named: the Time Stone. As you can see, it is now green. It showed up in Thanos #13 (December 2017). Interestingly, only a piece of it has been found so far, and it was found in the future.

Infinity Countdown Prime #1 (February 2018) shows that Turk Barrett has the Mind Stone...

...and Magus has the Soul Stone, until it's taken by Ultron.

Item Spotlight: Loki's Scepter

This is Loki's scepter. You know all about it.

But in case you don't, it first appeared in The Avengers (2012), as a weapon given to him by Thanos to help him invade Earth. In Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), we learn that it houses the Mind Stone inside its bauble.

It made its way into the comics in Loki: Agent of Asgard #16 (July 2015), although this one is just a modified version of Freyja's staff created by King Loki. (This particular image is from issue 17.)

I know they don't look exactly the same, but I think it's pretty clear the inspiration is there. Oh hey! I just realized kid Loki's jacket has the same weird half-zipper lapels that his movie outfits have. I'm not going to make a separate entry for that, but it's noted.

Item Spotlight: ISO-8

Iso-8 began as a collectible power-up resource in Marvel: Avengers Alliance (2012) and then spread as a connecting factor in other Marvel video games, including Thor: The Dark World - The Official Game (2013) and Spider-Man Unlimited (2014).

Those examples are interesting because they show that Iso-8 isn't just a feature of some "Marvel Video Game Universe". Thor: The Dark World is technically part of the MCU and Spider-Man Unlimited is a multiversal game that ties into Spider-Verse, showing that Iso-8 exists across realities. This makes it easy, then, to have it show up in the OG Earth-616 Marvel Universe...which it did.

Blue Marvel was seen studying Iso-8 in The Ultimates #1 (November 2015), where he put forth an interesting theory: Iso-8 is a "cosmic counter", meaning that it's in its eighth iteration because the Marvel multiverse is in ITS eighth iteration.

I will say that it's POSSIBLE Iso-8's first in-continuity appearance was in Contest of Champions, a video game tie-in series that is itself in continuity. That would make sense but I can't confirm it. I can confirm, however, that Iso-8 will appear for sure in Contest of Champions #5 (February 2016).

If someone can confirm an appearance of Iso-8 in Contest of Champions before showing up in The Ultimates, please let me know.