First and foremost, the main reason why writers don't have Tony make an armor out of pure adamantium is because it would basically make Iron Man almost completely impervious to harm (aside from King Thor's eye beams and Magneto's powers).
That would make the character extremely boring b/c he would basically be unbeatable (a la Pre-Crisis Superman). There would be no drama whatsoever.
All of those "Buster" armors are nice and all but to me, they're simply plot devices.
The best moments that I enjoy about Iron Man are when his armor malfunctions or when it becomes severely damaged because that's when you see the truly best part of the character of Tony Stark emerge; seeing him use his intellect and ingenuity on the fly. That part of his character is what I enjoy the most; seeing how he comes up with ways to defeat opponents when he can't completely rely on his armor or when he knows that he's clearly outmatched (ie. using CLOC to beat Sentry). To me, that's what so great about the character of Tony Stark (aside from all of the obvious cool armors).
Comicwise, I'd say that Tony doesn't make an armor completely out of adamantium is because:
1) it's rare
2) it's heavy
3) a denser, and heavier armor would place a huge drain on his power supply
Maybe he could lace the surface of the armor with adamantium, but again, with the magnetic forefield already surrounding the armor, it's overkill.
Okay guys, so I am relatively new in both forums and comic books, but I know a thing or two about real science and iron man. Tony Stark does not want a downgrade! What I mean by that is that his Extremis armor is nanotech. Nanotechnology is only so sought after because of molecular rearrangement. It can change the structure of molecules, replicate, and fix things. This means that it, at any time, could be as strong or weak as it wanted. It could be tin one second, and vibranium(Captain America's shield) or adamantium the next. With nanotechnology, there really are no more upgrades, so don't look forward to the new suits anymore, because extremis has to be destroyed before there is anything but a downgrade. The only way I see that Iron Man could go farther is by using medical extremis armor, making him the actual suit.
Vibranium is not that strong, it just is so impervious to vibration and energy that you either overkill or it does not have a scratch. Sorry guys, but it is not a question of overkill. It already is overkill. Marvel writers just aren't real scientists, because anyone could tell you that nanotech could not be beaten by anything. Anything, save for better nanotech
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I do have a question about something that keeps being brought up in this thread. I didn't think it mattered how thick adamantium was because it's supposed to be impervious to any change once its set, outside of re-arrangement on a molecular level.
Adamantium is heavy, insanely expensive, and inflexible making it pretty impractical as armor. Carbonadium is more flexible but is highly radioactive so it would poison everyone nearby and probably break down at some point.
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