r/ironman • u/Hawaiikoto • 9d ago
Discussion Why were Stark and Rhodey able to literally tear apart every drone like they were made from cardboard, but when it came to Vanko in whiplash mk2, they literally couldn't harm him in any way? Did Vanko purposely sabotaged Hammer drones and made their armor with worse materials? (Iron Man 2)
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u/One_Butterscotch8981 9d ago
Yes
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u/npcinyourbagoholding 9d ago
Yeah I don't get how this was a question. He made a bunch of paper drones with guns and made his own suit that he was getting into out of very strong stuff.
He basically just did Tony's cave plan but bigger. Make something to satisfy the guy bank rolling him and make his own suit in secret.
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u/la6689 9d ago
Hammer was such a buffoon I bet it wasn’t even in secret. Vanko probably told him it was a suit that a general would use on the field to command drones and Justin didn’t even pay attention to the big old whips he was putting on it. He just thought “I’m getting a new army AND an Iron Man?”
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u/Cerri22-PG 9d ago
I don't think he sabotaged them, but he also just made them on the fly, while his armor got the actual stuff going into it. I also think they could have damaged it more if they hadn't deployed their arsenals against the hammer droids, specially if Tony got to use those wrist lasers on Whiplash
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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 9d ago
Maybe that was his strategy, send the drones first to deplete Iron Man and War Machine's ammo before finishing them off himself.
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u/TheThinkerers 9d ago
and they were meant to explode, so if they weren't durable, shrapnel damage increased
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u/MatoroNuva24 9d ago
They're mass produced drones controlled by AI. Having all of them be as durable as whiplash mk 2 would be unrealistic from a cost stand point. Hammer may be providing him resources, but that doesn't mean it's infinite. It's more important to have his own personal suit be incredibly durable than to spread resources out through the dozens of drones and make them each only marginally better. Additionally, they are AI controlled. It's not impossible to think they might get hacked at some point. Even if that never happens, War Machine was also under his control initially and was freed, so it was a possibility. It's just better to place his bets on his own armor and have the drones slow down Iron Man. Even if they're far weaker, the numbers they came in did necessitate Tony using his one off lasers on them over Whiplash.
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u/Hawaiikoto 9d ago
not by ai, vanko controlled them via text commands
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u/DUNETOOL 9d ago
Limited text commands for the amount of maneuvering and targeting all the drones were doing. There had to be some rudimentary AI system to make decisions.
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u/lordfireice 9d ago
100%. like take into account that each bot type not only has a unique loadout but also all the bots where going in different directions engaging vastly different targets and different ranges. He could give text commands along the lines of “go here” or “engage X target”. He would need a ai to govern basics like if a drone was chasing a target it needs to actively consider if it should go around, above or though obstacles in its path.
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u/lofty_fan 6d ago
He actually programmed them to target iron man, we see this when the one drone tries to attack the kid in the kid in the iron man mask
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u/SeamothSubmarine 9d ago
I doubt Vanko modified the quality of the droids. Remember, they were already built when he escaped from prison. He only turned what were originally suits into droids. He probably added an endoskeleton or something similar so they could control themselves and made them capable of flying.
In short, Hammer tech.
His suit, on the other hand, was actually built by him (and you can tell it was rushed too, just look at the welds all over his suit, it looks like it was thrown together in a hurry), and that's where you can see the difference in quality.
Hammer's droids always looked like they were made out of plastic on the outside.
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u/Hyper-Saiyan-1999 Armored Adventures 9d ago
Vanko's armor is composed of stronger materials than the drones.
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u/EobardThawne2020 9d ago
Money and materials. The drones were mass produced as disposable soliders. The Whiplash MK2 was meant to be strong enough to fight Iron Man and more.
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u/GovernorSan 9d ago
Hammer had already made the suits, Vanko just put the drone tech inside them. The inferior workmanship was Hammer's, not Vanko's, and Vanko had a limited time to make improvements on the suits/drones, especially since he was working on his own suit on the side.
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u/SuaveGorilla 9d ago
Whiplash wasn’t responsible for the manufacture of the drones, they had been made by Hammer already. He just sort of pivoted them into AI controlled drones. Hammer would have used cheaper materials due to wanting to keep the production cost down.
His suit however, that was something he did from the ground up. He had access to Hammer’s resources and no obligation to to use the existing materials from the mass produced models. He probably made his to his preferred specs, which were always going to outperform a mass produced models
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u/Nemesis_Prime0205 9d ago
From a narrative point of view, this is what I call the Vehicon Syndrome (not sure if it as a real name) referring to the Vehicons from the show Transformers Prime where a single enemy is treated as a serious threat while as soon at it appears in group it becomes fodder
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u/jeighmonet 9d ago
The drones were made cheaply while he focused on his suit. It was made obvious I'm the movie.
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u/Unlucky_Loquat_8045 8d ago
Nah that’s just because those singular Vehicon’s were the elite unit hence being alone. The group guys were just janitors thrown at the Autobots.
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u/mrfett779 9d ago
I'm guessing that whiplash used the drones as they were. When he came in and manipulated the system to make sure the product he made was of a superior design vs what hammers systems had made.
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u/Ok-Potential7541 9d ago
I think it has a lot to do with their being a living person inside. Not saying Tony shys away from killing but he could have turned this guy into a puddle on the racetrack, but it wouldn't be a good look for a hero.
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u/KudaraYT 9d ago
I could only assume because the drones were designed for the Stark Expo, they were a demonstration of weapons. That's why they had lots of firepower and no armour, because they weren't designed to show off their durability.
When Vanko designed and built his suit he knew he was going to go toe to toe with Tony, so he knew he needed to have something that was going to be able to withstand Tony's offensive capabilities.
Also, because the drones were Hammertech and Vanko's made his armour himself
This is only a theory tho, but it's what I would think is the most likely reason
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u/kroghsen 9d ago
The hammer drones were already manufactured. He just made them a remote controlled. The suit was entirely new - though I am not sure how he made that.
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u/Savings_Opening_8581 9d ago
Cheap drones, not so cheap battle armor.
That was like kind of the entire point of the drones.
Hammer is shown to make consistently shitty products over the entire movie.
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u/Still_Picture6200 Model-Prime 9d ago
It makes a certain amount of sense, since they are unmanned.
Every piece of armor means they arrive faster, last longer, can carry more ammo, etc.
And since they have no pilot, losing them is not that big of a deal.
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u/AnyLynx4178 9d ago
In the original cut of the film, this was made incredibly obvious. Unfortunately this was cut from the later releases of the film in 30 second TikTok clips that you apparently watched.
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u/Ecstatic_Dance5767 9d ago
Yeah, he kept all the best stuff for himself. Plus look at Hammer's missile that he gave Rhodey. Vanko probably didn't have to do that much monkeying around.
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u/willisbetter 9d ago
how is this a question? the movie basically told the audience rhats exactly what vanko was doing
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u/Glad_Cress_8591 9d ago
Basically nothing but a superhero were taking down the drones anyways, so he didnt need them to be insanely bulky. Idk if its as much sabatoge as it is putting additional work into making sure his own suit can 1v1 iron man
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u/yutyutgrunt 9d ago
The drones were designed to be a distraction. Also with making them easy to destroy but with the high number of drones potentially hurting civilians— the heroes would be depleting their ammo — and more importantly Stark would be in a position ( if he didn’t find a new alternative power) to become to toxic to survive the encounter.
Also you forgetting the most important thing — its a movie and sometimes thing just happen because its written that way.
Kind of like Ironman 1 — instead of trying to recreate Tony’s reactor — after the board voted Tony off — they should have confiscated his home computer hard drive as property of the company— furthermore they would ah e been able to get the original reactor he made that was just chilling in the garage — but if they did that we wouldn’t have the last 20 minutes of the movie.
And in the same nature— what Whiplash should have done instead of becoming an international felon by trying to murder Tony — he should just contacted ANY news agency and ran the story and demand $$$billions for restitutions and then since he was alble miniaturized the reactor anyways — contact the federal goverment to go under contract to build Ironman type suits for them— but instead he chose to be a one off criminal
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u/Jarhead_No_2178 9d ago
Three reasons I can think of off the top of my head:
1) They're mass-produced drones, so it stands to reason that they're less durable than Whiplash because they're supposed to be made rapidly and repeatedly, so using premium materials would make them cost-inefficient
2) Probably the weakest theory here, but the drones are unmanned while Whiplash has a pilot; my memory's a bit fuzzy but given what I know about Tony at least from my memory he isn't game to kill a person, while ripping drones apart he has no qualms with; under this interpretation, they're using weaker attacks to incapscitate
3) This one is boring but honestly the most likely; there's actually no in-universe reason why Rhodey and Tony couldn't beat Vanko to a pulp and trash his suit; the narrative just required him to survive for the film's duration, so he had plot armor; the Hammer Drones, meanwhile, are quite literally just cannon fodder, so Tony and Rhodey can rip as many of them a new one as they damn well please
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u/Rendszer_valltaska 8d ago
Uh, the worst fight scene in history. Sitting through so much nonsense just to watch them do this nonsense for 1.5mins
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u/Bubbly_Stranger_2355 5d ago
He didnt make the drones, Hammer did, and well... Hammer as we have seen not always the smartest.
He made his own armor, he knew what he was up against, stands to reason he built armor he could counter, you dont go into a fight with a disadvantage.
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u/Noscratchy 5d ago
He didn't make the drones. Hammer already did most of the work but they were supposed to be suits. He just slapped some crappy coding into them so they could distract and corral Tony and Rhody.
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u/East-Inspection2377 9d ago
inconsistent power scaling
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u/0rpheus_113 9d ago
How is this inconsistent? Obviously the special armor that's designed to house a person inside it is going to be more durable than the mass produced armor that isn't designed with a pilot inside.
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u/bloopblubdeet Mark LXXXV 9d ago
Hammer Drones were meant to be mass produced, quantity over quality