Did Iron Man Die in the Avengers Trailer?
March 5, 2012 in Editorial
During the Super Bowl an Avengers spot ran where Loki tells Stark that he has an army. Stark responds that The Avengers “have a Hulk.” In the Avengers trailer released this March, we finally see why having the Hulk on your side makes a difference.
Iron Man is falling out of the sky when the Hulk catches him mid-air:
We’ve tried to find the speed of Hulk by comparing his movement to the size of Iron Man. In his armor Tony Stark is 1.98 meters tall and by carefully looking at the video, Centives determined that the Hulk travels around 2.27 times the length of Stark’s body from when he first appears on-screen, to catch him. Our video file sampled at a rate of 23 frames a second and assuming that this is the frame rate that VLC media player uses when determining its frames, it took three frames for the Hulk to cover that distance.
Thus the Hulk covered 4.49 meters in 0.130 seconds. This puts his velocity at 34.57 meters per second which is 124.5 km/h or 77.8 mph. The Hulk himself has a mass of 521 kg (1150 pounds), or the equivalent of a small car.
In other words, being ‘rescued’ by Hulk is only a favorable option if what is about to happen to you is worse than standing still on a freeway.
The force of the Hulk hitting Iron Man combined with the rapid deceleration of Iron Man from free falling out of the sky must have caused a significant amount of trauma on a suit that is already heavily damaged to the point of breaking down. While we’re moderately certain that Iron Man doesn’t actually die in the film (if nothing else then that would be a cruel prank to pull on Shane Black whose been told that he’s directing the third Iron Man film) Centives has little reason to believe that Iron Man could realistically have survived Hulk’s attempt to ‘save’ him.
Centives would like to thank Lehigh University Mechanical Engineer Robert Gower and Lancaster University student Aaron Miller for providing advice, guidance, and direction for this article.
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So you can travel at supersonic speeds, take blasts, crash through concrete, survive electrical lashings and blasts but can’t take a catch at 124.5.
I know you did speak to university people but did you take into account the following:
a) The angle at which the Hulk caught Iron Man? Hulk did not catch Iron Man at exactly 90 degrees. The Hulk caught Iron Man while travelling in a downwards angle so while he may have been travelling at 124.5 km/h, you have to take into account the falling speed of Iron Man and the angle change. The angle appears to be more along the lines of 20-40% difference, reducing significantly the force exhorted on a falling Iron Man… Hardly highway speeds
b) The Hulk is basically a mass of muscle but his flesh would have some amount of cushioning or padding while catching Iron Man.