DARK AEGIS

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Earth-534834) human technology user

Occupation: Planetary destroyer

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Formerly Titanium Man (of Earth-534834)

Enemies: Iron Man (Tony Stark), War Machine (James Rhodes), Jessik and the other Elysians (all of Earth-534834)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None known

Place of Birth: Unrevealed

Base of Operations: Elysian

First Appearance: Iron Man cartoon episode, "Distant Boundaries" (November 11, 1995)

Powers/Abilities: Dark Aegis piloted a massive armored battlesuit of unrevealed origin. Even before his incorporation of the Oracle superweapons, this armor made him capable of defeating Iron Man in a pitched battle. It was flight-capable and possessed sufficient life-support capability to have allowed Dark Aegis to survive otherwise unprotected in interstellar space. It also mounted a number of weapon systems including energy projection weapons and a number of racks of guided missiles.

He also made use of immensely powerful weapons called Oracles, which generated sufficient destructive force to completely destroy an object the size of a moon from a distance of hundreds if not thousands of miles. They could also produce almost indestructible force fields, although they were incapable of being used offensively while they did so. Powering the Oracles also required so much energy that it was impossible for Dark Aegis to use more than one simultaneously.

Height: Unrevealed (approximately 10' in armor)
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed (glowing red in armor)
Hair: Unrevealed

History: (Iron Man cartoon episode - "Distant Boundaries" (fb)) – Dark Aegis boarded the orbiting Stark Space Station and reprogrammed its defensive asteroid blaster to fire on the earth. Iron Man arrived to stop him, and during the fight, Dark Aegis disabled the hero's boot-jets with a barrage from his energy projectors. However, Iron Man was able to use his own repulsor rays to spin the asteroid blaster around just as it reached the end of its firing countdown, and the subsequent blast sent Dark Aegis through the observation window of the station and, out of control, into deep space.

(Iron Man cartoon episode -  "Distant Boundaries" (fb) - BTS) – Dark Aegis eventually found his way to the planet Elysian and used an incredibly powerful weapon called an Oracle to utterly destroy its civilization and biosphere, leveling its cities, exterminating its inhabitants and leaving the entire world a barren brown rock with a toxic atmosphere. He then employed the armored Russian cyborg Titanium Man in a scheme to bring Iron Man to Elysian, hiding him aboard an Elysian spaceship capable of instantaneous interstellar travel.

(Iron Man cartoon episode - "Distant Boundaries") – Dark Aegis' ship, with Titanium Man aboard, arrived at Earth, where it was guided to a landing by Iron Man and James Rhodes, who deployed a huge net by helicopter. Entering the ship, Tony Stark was confronted with a hologram of an alien calling himself Jessik, monarch of Elysian. The hologram requested Iron Man's aid in saving his people from Dark Aegis. Iron Man and War Machine used the ship and its space-fold drive to travel to Elysian, but upon arriving at the planet, Titanium Man emerged from the cargo hold and destroyed the ship, seemingly marooning all three occupants on the dead world.

Iron Man and War Machine split up, and Dark Aegis revealed himself to the hero shortly thereafter. Questioned as to why he would lay waste to an entire inhabited planet, Dark Aegis simply laughed and said it was the same reason Iron Man came to him - he felt the need. He explained that it had been easy to lure Titanium Man into his service with the promise of an Oracle he could use to overthrow the government of his beloved Russia, and that the whole arrangement had been to bring Iron Man here to join him. He then demonstrated the power of his Oracle weapons by obliterating one of Elysian's moons with a single blast and tried to convince Iron Man to embrace his destiny as Aegis' "armored brother in arms" by using a second Oracle to aid Aegis in the destruction of the planet's twin suns.

Iron Man refused to help, and realized that was why Aegis had needed him all along - two Oracles were required to destroy the suns, and Titanium Man's "outdated Russian energy core" couldn't power an Oracle, despite Aegis' promises to him. Dark Aegis flew into a rage over this rejection, and only the timely intervention of War Machine and Titanium Man (who had witnessed the destruction of the moon and forswore Aegis' aid immediately) saved him. However, even the combined firepower of all three men was exhausted by the process of penetrating the force field generated by the Oracle, and immediately after the field fell, Dark Aegis struck his enemies down with a salvo of missiles and boarded his nearby spaceship to escape. Titanium Man, seeing an opportunity to atone for his sins, gave Iron Man the space-fold drive he saved from the Elysian ship, chased down Aegis' ship, entered it, and engaged the villain in battle - a battle that led to the destruction of the ship and apparent deaths of both men.

Comments: Created by Greg Johnson, Greg Blair and the artistic staff of the Iron Man portion of the Marvel Action Hour (see Appearances list for full list of artists).

Dark Aegis was voiced by Scott Valentine.

Dark Aegis' first encounter with Iron Man is shown only as a brief (and very well-edited) snippet of the "Stark Space Station surveillance archives." After disabling Stark's jets, he mockingly makes a reference to the heel of Achilles, which, combined with his name and the names of his Oracle weapons, implies an interest in Greek history or mythology. His name may also be a play on "Dark Ages" since he destroyed Elysian's civilization.

Speaking of the Oracle weapons, I'm assuming Aegis named them because their names make no sense - a powerful weapon that can also create a force field named after a mystic seer? Why? It is also not explicit that the Oracles come from Elysian, nor is there any explanation of how Aegis got there, but the general sense conveyed by the episode is that he crashed there after being blasted into space (like, way way into space) by the asteroid blaster, and used the planet's advanced technology to destroy it.

Speaking of the Elysians, the episode also does not make clear who created Jessik's distress hologram, but since there doesn't seem to be anyone alive on Elysian, and Titanium Man was on the ship as part of Dark Aegis' plan, it appears to have been a trap created by Aegis. We never see any other Elysians in the episode, although Aegis does refer to them in the past tense - "the fools of this planet were grotesquely less than human."

Speaking of Aegis' plan, how did he even connect with Titanium Man? Did he seriously find himself on Elysian, travel via space-fold ship back to Earth to get Titanium Man, take Titanium Man back to Elysian in the ship, then send the ship and Titanium Man back to Earth again, just so they could return to Elysian with Iron Man? And then when Iron Man gets there, all of that was because Aegis really really wants to destroy the suns of a world he already completely ruined? Why?

Scott Valentine's performance of Dark Aegis is much less "malevolent monster" and more "self-impressed douche." I actually kind of like it. Not everyone who has a battlesuit and ultra-powerful weapon is going to be cool, and I do really like his extremely scary armor design, although it is not often well-served by the bargain-bin art and animation. It has exposed human teeth for some reason! Also, for some reason it is consistently colored as though it is in heavy shadow, lit only from behind, which Toy Biz dutifully copied in their deco for the unproduced action figure (see photo on the right-Proto-Man).

Action figure? Indeed! Dark Aegis is perhaps best known as a figure from the canceled Series 5 of the Iron Man toyline. Like almost all the figures from this line, he would have had removable armor parts and a spring-loaded firing missile launcher. Creating metal tooling for action figures is expensive, so after Aegis' cancellation, his body and armor were eventually reused (with a new head and colors) as Heavy Metal Beast from the X-Men Mutant Armor line.

Did I steal your Dark Aegis photo? I may have! Let us know, please.

I think every single character in this episode pronounces "Aegis" differently.

Profile by LV!

Clarifications: Dark Aegis has no known connections to:

Images:
 Iron Man cartoon episode, "Distant Boundaries" (full shots, headshot)
action figure photo (toy image)

Iron Man cartoon episode, "Distant Boundaries" (November 11, 1995) - Greg Johnson (writer, story editor), Greg Blair (staff writer), Keith Matz (character model design), Gil Hung (prop design), Mike Van Cleave (background design), Cedric Tomacruz (background painter), Armando Carrillo, Bob Fuentes (storyboard art), Scott Heming (art director, storyboard art), Dave Krocker, Eric McConnell (storyboard clean-up), Kurt Christensen, Carlos Lemos (prop & model clean-up), Bob Arkwright (director), Catherine MacKenzie (editor)

Last updated: 07/21/17

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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